Below Is a Memo I Wrote Concerning the Legacy of Senator Fulbright In
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For Max Brantley: Below is a memo I wrote concerning the legacy of Senator Fulbright in the context of the debate regarding proposals to remove the statue from the University of Arkansas campus and his name from the U of A College of Arts and Sciences. I emphasize that I am a critic of Fulbright's civil rights record. I knew him for 20 years and argued with him on many occasions about civil rights. My 550-page biography of Fulbright, J. William Fulbright and His Time (foreword by President Bill Clinton, 1995) contains many chapters that are sharply critical of his civil rights record. There are several other books about Fulbright so mine is certainly not the only one. I am also of the minority opinion that we should not erect statues to any politicians, because by definition they have to make political concessions at times in a democracy and all of them will have flaws in their records. Statues should be reserved for philosophers, great writers, or activists like Martin Luther King. With a juris doctorate focusing on civil rights and constitutional law at the University of Virginia Law School and graduate degree in recent US political history from the University of Virginia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, I can attest along with many others that even Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, Kennedy and all of our political leaders had weaknesses in their legacies, and if we are going to judge them by their most glaring errors none will withstand the scrutiny. I do believe that Fulbright's legacy should be judged in its entirety. Along with the weak civil rights record in having voted against most of the major civil rights bill during his career, signing the Southern Manifesto and evading the issues when Gov. Orval Faubus tried to block the desegregation of Central High, he held major accomplishments in the fields of foreign policy and civil rights. Regarding civil rights, the historical context of the times in which he lived should be considered, and even there he did have some constructive actions: he worked behind the scenes to help desegregate the University of Arkansas Law School in the late 1940s, later in his career he was one of only six Southern senators who supported the nomination of Thurgood Marshall to the US Supreme Court, voted in favor of re-extending the Voting Rights Act in 1970, and played a crucial role in defeating President Nixon's nomination of the racist Harrold Carswell to the Supreme Court. Fulbright deserves sharp criticism for his civil rights record. My father, the late Arkansas Gazette editorial editor James O. Powell, and I were exasperated by Fulbright's defensiveness regarding his civil rights record and his grave disappointments in this field. The last thing I would do is be perceived as a supporter or apologist for his failings regarding race. My father was involved as an adviser to both Fulbright and the University of Arkansas in the naming of the Fulbright College as editorial editor of the old Arkansas Gazette from 1959 to 1987. Ironically, at one point Fulbright did not want the college named after him because he thought he would be required to do a lot of fundraising and promoting for the college, and he was also not enthusiastic about having monuments or other honors that might be seen as overdone bestowed upon him or other political leaders. My father helped resolve the issue with the then dean Jack Guilds. My father of course, was sharply critical of Fulbright on civil rights and saw the naming of the college (and the later statue) as recognizing his great achievements in the fields of education and foreign policy. My goal here is to help inform people. It is surprising in discussing Fulbright even with well- educated people I get the question, "Did Fulbright demagogue the race issue like Faubus or George Wallace?" Of course he never did that. While not backing off from deserved criticism on civil rights, it would be historically inaccurate to lump Fulbright in the same category with Confederate traitors or demagogues like Faubus or or Wallace. We would do well to avoid all or nothing, simplistic views of our past. As director of the Delta Grassroots Caucus--an economic equality and justice advocacy organization for the Greater Delta Region--I deal with civil rights issues and the unjust economic fate of too many African Americans, and 40% or more of our members are African Americans. I have discussed this with them, and while there is a range of views about Fulbright and some are fine with moving the statue, all of them recognize that Fulbright had many beneficial accomplishments in the entirety of his record. Some of my African American colleagues have suggested an alternative approach: placing a large marker with the Fulbright statue discussing the strengths and weaknesses of his record, moving the statue from the west entrance to the Fulbright College to the front of the Institute of International Relations to underscore that the reason for honoring him focuses squarely on his education and foreign policy accomplishments, and placing a very prominent statue of the prominent African American civil rights leader and lawyer, and one of the first black graduates of the U of A Law School on the campus as well. It would not need to be next to the Fulbright statue or be seen as "balancing" it, but this entire debate about our past has led us to thinking about who in our history deserves recognition. As an African American born in the height of the Jim Crow era who rose to national prominence, Branton is as deserving of major recognition as Fulbright. These are just the suggestions of some of our African American colleagues. This memo is short by academic standards (a lot shorter than the 550-page biography!!) but admittedly long by journalistic standards. I would hope this would help inform the debate. I believe we should see both the greatness and the tragic flaws of J. William Fulbright. People who read the memo will inevitably draw different conclusions about the statue and the naming of the college. Lee Riley Powell, executive director, Delta Grassroots Caucus (202) 360-6347 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF J. WILLIAM FULBRIGHT’S LEGACY June 30, 2020 (Introductory note: By way of full disclosure in the context of African American students' complaints of tolerance for racial discrimination at the University of Arkansas, my biography of Senator J. William Fulbright criticizes his civil rights record but recognizes his impressive achievements in the fields of foreign policy and education. I will address the foreign policy and civil rights records according to the different subject matter in two parts. We are obviously passing through a painful re-examination of statues, naming of institutions and other monuments to our past. I would argue that Confederates and demagogues like Orval Faubus or George Wallace should not be recognized, but Fulbright is clearly in a different category. My purpose here is not to advise anyone as to whether his statue should be removed or the college re-named, but to present the facts about the entirety of his legacy. I would hope we can see both the greatness and the tragic flaw of J. William Fulbright. Please examine the facts and draw your own conclusions.) Foreign Policy and Education The post-World War II order—Fulbright first attracted national attraction in 1940 for a series of speeches taking a stand as the young president of the University of Arkansas against the dominant isolationism of the time, calling for Americans to wake up to the dire threat to American and world peace in Hitler’s insatiable campaign of military conquest. He followed up as a freshman congressman in 1943 in working with President Franklin Roosevelt’s administration in passing the Fulbright Resolution placing the Congress on record as favoring the creation of a postwar United Nations organization. He supported the key building blocks of the postwar era as a freshman senator in the later 1940s for NATO, President Truman’s Point Four program for technical assistance to developing countries, and the Marshall Plan for economic rebuilding of Europe after the war. Fulbright Scholarship Program: Fulbright worked with President Truman’s administration in passing the Fulbright Act creating the international educational and cultural exchange program. The Fulbright Program has granted awards to 390,000 American and foreign students and professors in more than 160 countries from its inception in 1946 to the present. Fulbright Scholars have won 60 Nobel Prizes, 86 Pulitzer Prizes, and 37 became heads of state, most of them in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Currently the program awards 8,000 grants annually. President Kennedy praised the Fulbright Program as “the classic modern example of beating swords into plowshares.” Opposition to Joe McCarthy and other Cold War extremists: Fulbright became deeply concerned about Joe McCarthy and other extremists who denounced loyal, distinguished Americans on false charges of communist sympathies and having “lost” China to communism. In 1951, he opposed General Douglas MacArthur’s call for air strikes against China after the general was removed for insubordination by President Truman in the Korean War. Fulbright warned that the air strikes would be the inevitable prelude to combat troops in China and posed a grave risk of igniting World War III. Throughout the early 1950s he lambasted McCarthy for smearing loyal officials in the State Dept. and elsewhere as having communist affinities without presenting any evidence for his claims. He blocked McCarthy’s effort to cut funding for the Fulbright Program on the bogus grounds that many Fulbright Scholars were communists or communist sympathizers.