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4-23-2015 The omplicC ity of Silence: Race and the Hamilton Holt/Corra Harris Friendship, 1899-1935 Jack C. Lane Rollins College, [email protected]

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Published In Lane, Jack C., "The ompC licity of Silence: Race and the Hamilton Holt/Corra Harris Friendship, 1899-1935" (2015). Faculty Publications. 116. http://scholarship.rollins.edu/as_facpub/116

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Rollins Scholarship Online. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Rollins Scholarship Online. For more information, please contact [email protected]. "How can blacks get over slavery and discrimination when ghostly visions are etched upon our reality by words like those of Corra Harris which reach out from the grave to remind us of the pain and anguish our ancestors suffered at the hands of whites who refused to give up being slave masters?" -John Burl Smith, Civil Rights Activist, 2009

I. with a long reputation for championing African-American rights, Some years ago, while writing the centennial history of Rollins how could Holt express such enthusiasm for Harris's writing style College, I came across an article written in 1924 by Hamilton Holt, while ignoring the letter's racist content and damaging language? former managing editor of The Independent magazine and soon to be These questions bothered me, but because this subj ect was beyond President of Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. In a review of the scope of my research, I set it aside with the thought of returning Corra Harris's best selling autobiography, My Book and Heart, Holt to it later on. had described how he "discovered" this celebrated Southern writer: A recent experience refreshed my memory. While visiting my wife's home in Cartersville, Georgia, just a few miles from where I shall never forget that May [1899] in going through the morn­ Corra Harris had lived, I read in a local newspaper that someone ing mail in pursuance of my duties as office editor of The Independent. I had donated Harris's homestead in Rydal, Georgia to Kennesaw came upon an envelope whose striking staccato script at once arrested State University. The university administration expressed great ex­ my attention. I opened it and proceeded to read the contents. I had not citement over the possibility of using the homestead as a basis for fini shed the first sentence when something, figuratively speaking, hit me educational research. Not everyone, I found, was so pleased with the between the eyes. Before I reached the last page, I was in the room of Dr. decision. On a WordPress blog entitled "Can't Hold My Tongue," a William Hayes Ward, the ed itor-in-chief, excitedly proclaiming the advent writer strongly contested the university'S connection to Corra Har­ of a new and hitherto un-known author. ris. Harris "was a white supremacist," the writer proclaimed, "Read The article was a reply to one of Dr. Ward 's especially impassioned her 1899 letter to the editor of The Independent defending lynching." and indignant editorials on a Georgia lynching. Scores of such letters In 2009, the blogger continues, "whites don't think, still don't think, came in from Southern readers and as a rule they had to be consigned that white terrorism and the attempted genocide of Black southerners to the wastebasket. But this one was different. Although I was struck by is a big deal." The implications raised by Harris's article and Hamil­ its sincerity, simplicity, and charm, the three graces of literary art, it evi­ ton Holt's readiness to celebrate her literary qualities while turning denced,in its form and substance that something we call genius. a blind eye to her destructive racial epithets, and the subsequent 30- We printed the article. It made a national sensation. That led to a year close friendship, had resurfaced in my memory 20 years later, correspondence. We solicited more articles. They were published. More this time with a new perspective. The moral issue of the complicity sensation. The literary career of Corra Harris had begun. (1) of silence suggested by Holt's indifferent response to Harris's white supremacist writings and their 30-year friendship seems to me his­ The letter sparked my interest. What was this "literary art" that torically linked to the racial divide in this nation today and therefore Holt called "genius" and what was "the form and substance" of Har­ worth exploring for the light their relationship might shed on that ris's reply to the Georgia lynching? After reading her article, entitled divisive issue.(2) "A Southern Woman's View," published in the May 18,1899 issue of Harris's letter had arrived on Holt's desk at a time when The The Independent, I too was impressed with her writing style, but un­ Independent was at the peak of its popularity and influence, Created like Holt, I was startled and disturbed by the article's content. Harris by a group of Congregationalists in 1848 (one of the founders was had not just "replied" to Ward's editorial. Employing racially charged Hamilton Holt's grandfather, Henry Bowen), the weekly magazine language more often associated with the rantings of the KKK, she of­ had been a champion of African-Americans since before the Civil fered a passionate justification for the criminal Southern practice of War, when it was a leading anti- slavery organ. After the war, the lynching. Additionally, I was puzzled by Holt's response to the let­ magazine had supported Radical Reconstruction in the South, and in ter. As managing editor of the nation's most progressive magazine subsequent years, under the editorship of William Hayes Ward, it had 18 19 consistently opposed the passage of Jim Crow laws in the Southern The Northern press's unwavering criticism of the lynching, and to leave his wife alone for an hour. At no time, in no place, is the white states. Many Northern journals called for accommodation, arguing especially Ward's editorials and Steward's article, were the catalysts woman safe from the insults and assaults of these creatures. The negro that, given the social and economic problems facing the post-Civil that prompted Corra Harris to write her impassioned rebuttal let­ brute is a product. The circumstances which bring him into existence are War South, the North was pushing too hard. In words reminiscent ter. Little in Harris's background suggests why this young Southern worth considering. He is nearly always a mulatto, or having enough white of abolitionists, Ward responded: "We are learning that it is not well preacher's wife would enter into a debate over lynching with one of blood in him to replace native humility and cowardice with Caucas ian au­ to make concessions to the caste of prejudice. The right way to fight the nation's most literate magazines. Born in 1869 in Elbert County, dacity. He is sure to be a bastard, and probably the offspring of a bastard against it is vigorously and persistently and never yield an inch." (3) Georgia , until her teenage years Harris lived a typically sheltered ru­ mother. Can such a creature be morally responsible? His lust is a legacy The rising number of lynchings in the South brought especial­ ralli.fe. In 1887, at the age of 16, she married Lundy Harris, a Meth­ multiplied by generations of brutal ancestors. This is the genesis of th e ly passionate denunciations fro m Ward. The lynching of African­ odist circuit rider who travelled to rural churches throughout north­ brute. You cannot judge these people sitting on a divan in New York, look­ Americans in Southern states had reached alarming numbers in ern Georgia. Two years later, Lundy was appointed adjunct professor ing at them through stained-glass windows of poetic sentimentality. You the decades after the Civil War. By 1900, the practice had attained of Greek at Emory College in Oxford, Georgia. Though deeply re­ must live among them long enough to learn they can in quaintest dialect the status of ritual where a recurring pattern emerged: an African ligious, he was riven by theological doubts and plagued by depres­ imitate the highest ideals with the humdrum of their actual existence. American male would be accused of some crime (often of the rape of sion and alcoholism. In 1898, he lost his position at Emory, forCing The negro is the mongrel of civilization. He has married its vices a white woman), the white community would express outrage, the the family into economic destitution. At the time Corra Harris wrote and he is incapable of imitating its virtue s. He is its abortion and at the victim would be arrested by local authorities, a mob would wrest the the letter to The Independent, they were li ving in Rockmart, Georgia, same time its victim. He is a horrid demonstration of the fact that civiliza­ victim from the authorities, a large crowd would gather to witness where Lundy was teaching at a private school. (8) tion by force of merely human laws is the cheapest veneering. He has the execution, and then the victim would be publicly humiliated and Corra Harris's letter deserves extensive quotation because exchanged comparative chastity for brutal lust. His religion is merely an liTHE NEGRO IS THE MONGREL OF frequently mutilated before he was hanged or burned. Often, parts of no summary could do justice to her literary talent, nor could a few emotional impulse. He is a spiritual hypocrite. his body were taken as souvenirs. Between 1880 and 1913, over two passages adequately reveal the depth of her racial prejudice. In the Out of this cesspool of vice rises that hideous monster, CIVILIZATION. HE HAS MARRIED thousand African Americans were lynched in the former Confederate South, Harris declared, The Independent magazine was regarded as a possible menace to every home in the South. He has the savage nature States. (4) "an advocate of extreme Northern views" on the issue of race rela­ and the murderous in stincts of a wild beast, plu s the cunning an d lu st of ITS VICES AND HE IS INCAPABLE OF One of these incidents occurred on April 12, 1899 when an Af­ tions. Southerners read it, she said, "in order to get a perspective of the fiend . For years the South has been a smoldering volcano, the dark rican-American named Sam Hose was accused of killing his white our methods from an alien point of view." She was writing not to of its quivering nights lighted here and there with the incendiary torch employer in Coweta County, Georgia. In the following days, rumor condone "the atrocious conduct" of the lynch mob, but "to explain or pierced through by the cry of some outraged woman. It is no longer a IMITATING ITS VIRTUES." spread that he had also raped the employer's wife. On April 23, au­ its savage fury. " question to sitting down to meat [sicl with publicans and sinners, as our thorities arrested Hose and returned him to Newnan, Georgia, where Lord set us an example to follow, but it is the fact of the lambs and wolves -CORRA HARRIS the suspected killing had taken place. A mob met the train at Newn­ Today in the South every white woman lives next door to a savage in one sheepfold. These negro men can or never could, have been re­ an, seized Hose, and announced that he would be summarily executed brute who grows more intelligent and more insolent in his outrage every ceived at the same fireside with white women. Will you men of the North the following day. Special trains from Atlanta brought a large crowd year, against whom the dilletante [sicllaws of Georgia and other South­ who mold the sentiment of your people place your sympathies wholly on of over two thousand to witness the spectacle. The mutilation of Hose ern states offer no protection. In this section of Georgia, which is not far the side of these brutes, passing with a word over their crimes to bit­ was one of the most gruesome in lynching history. One newspaper from Palmetto, no white girl, however young, or woman, however old, ter denunciation of our avengers? When you men of the North condemn report spared no detail: "The Negro was deprived of his ears, fingers, would be safe alone on the public highway. The farmers do not dare leave your brethren here in the usual wholesale manner the negro takes it for and genital parts of his body. He pleaded pitifully for his life while their wives and daughters at home while they are in the fields. The coun­ granted you are on his side. This cannot be true. the mutilation was going on. [After he was burned to death], before try schools are failures because parents will not risk their girls along I have never opened my lips on thi s subject. I do so now on account his body cooled, it was cut to pieces and the bones crushed into small lonely settlement roads. Even in small towns the husband cannot venture real anxiety. Do my views appear entirely too partisan for publication in bits. The Negro's heart was cut into small pieces as was his liver and sold for 25 cents." W.E.B. Du Bois, who was in Atlanta at the time, was sickened by the news that Hose's knuckles were advertised for sale at a local grocery store. No one was ever accused or arrested for participating in the lynching. (5) Northern response to the lynching of Sam Hose was immedi­ ate and scathing. The New York Times denounced the "cowards who wallow in the blackest vice." Are the people of the South, the paper asked, "degenerating into brutes, that they can calmly and deliber­ ately torture a human being and gloat over it?"(6) The Independent, at the forefront with its criticism of the Hose lynching, published a critical article by T. G. Steward, a prominent African -American min­ ister who was at the time serving as an army chaplain. Steward com­ pared the Newnan mob to the "raw -meat -eating Saxons of the earlier times," who resembled "the beasts they in a measure emulated." He noted how the members of the mob were reported to have "vented their fee lings in fervent shouts" as Hose's body burned, "expressing regret that he died too soon." The same people, he concluded, "who took Hose out of the hands of the lawfully constituted authorities are those who elected the officers to carry out the law. Anarchists are they of the clearest type; pouring contempt on their own courts." Ward followed Steward's article with an editorial that asked the ques­ tion: "Do not those who defend the lynchings in Georgia know that lawless violence breeds violence?" The unspeakable violence against Hose, Ward continued, was "visited not on the wretch alone, but also on a probable innocent old colored preacher. Is it any wonder that Hamilton Holt and Corra Harris are shown on the steps of the Kappa Alph a now there is terror and hatred, all the result of interference with the fraternity house at Rollin s College in the February of 1931. beneficent action of the law? " (7) Corra Harris outside th e Kappa Alph a fratern ity hou se in the February of 1931 with Rollins student s. 20 21 WHEN SUCH RACIAL PREJUDICE IS SO EMBEDDED IN THE AMERICAN PSYCHE, WE SHOULD NOT BE SURPRISED TO SEE IT RESURFACING, EVEN THOUGH LANGUAGE MAY OBSCURE IT. From left to right: 1. A photo of Corra Harris. 2. Corra Harris teaching a course on evil to students at Rollins College. 3. A portrait of Corra Harris. It is signed with the following message: "For my dear friends The Hamilton Holts, Corra Harris, December 25th, 1925."

you paper? I fear this is the case. of any virtues.(lO) the Millenium [sic]. You go in and sit down at your Cosmopolitan Club with [over the Hose lynching]. William Hayes Ward wrote a masterful editorial Holt may have been "struck" by the "sincerity, simplicity and These articles raise serious moral and ethical questions that still Negroes with the noblest of motives. You want to keep them from feeling about this lynching ... a sort of noble perversion, not of facts, but of the charm," of Harris's style, but the actual substance of the letter would reverberate over a century later. How should we judge Harris's de­ so bad and socially neglected. 0 Lord! You lay the Christians in the shade cause behind the facts. [My] letter was an explanation of the lynching, not fit that description. If the content showed "sincerity," it was that scription of African-Americans and her perpetuation of the South­ with the perfect spirit of your good will which is the best charity in the placing the responsibility where it belonged so clearly that it amounted to of a woman sincerely consumed with the crudest level of racial preju­ ern myth of innocent white women threatened by bestial black men? world. And what was the result? You walked too near the edge .... an indictment. Judging by the furor it created, I must have hit the nail on dice. The "simplicity" of the message was an elementary and primi­ One explanation proposes that her attitude may be excused or even Observe the Negro at your dining. That was one company where the head with considerable force.(13) tive form of Southern thinking more associated with uneducated dismissed because she was simply presenting "a perspective that was the niggers showed the most logical sense of the situation. They believe poor whites. It is difficult to discern any "charm" in a discourse that typical for the time." In a similar vein, The Independent wrote that in intermarriage and they regarded the opportunity to dine with you dis­ Throughout these years Harris had never considered that the employed the language of extreme dehumanization: the "negro is a the magazine was printing her letter, not because the editors thought tinguished whites as a step forward in that direction. And if you represent segregation laws and the white obsession with white supremacy had brute," a "bastard," a "mongrel of civilization," a "spiritual hypo­ her views had any "intrinsic value," but because they believed she the sentiments of this country by your presence then they would have in any way contributed to the violent race relations in the South. crite," a "hideous monster," with a "savage nature and the murder­ reflected "the feelings of the white men and women" of the South. (11) been right. In her perspective, the sole cause of the race problem was African­ ous instinct of a wild beast." Rather than a discussion that embodied These explanations, however, underestimate Harris's complicity in I recall very distinctly the fate of a mild-mannered Republican gen­ American behavior and Northern interference, a litany that went on what Holt called "the three graces of literary art," Harris's argument the violence and humiliation visited upon African-Americans in the tleman who entertained the same Christian spirit you have so recently to reverberate throughout the twentieth century. This attitude al­ relied on intemperate language and the repetition of a visceral myth South. She depicts African-Americans as beasts who, when threat­ illustrated toward the Negroes in our town when I was a young girl. He lowed her (and white southerners) to deny any responsibility for that that had permeated Southern society for two centuries-that is, that ening white people, could be killed as wild, dangerous animals. "The was tarred and feathered and ridden out of town in the usual manner - violence. African-American males had the "savage nature and the murderous pioneer in colonial days," she wrote in her initial article, "protected all because he ate with Negroes. I have no idea if he would have been Holt's enthusiastic response to Harris's illiberal, not to say bigot­ instinct of the wild beast, plus the cunning and lust of a fiend," with a his wife and child from wild beasts with gun and knife; but today in willing to marry one, but you see the fool negroes didn't make this dis­ ed, racial attitudes seems puzzling, because it was completely at odds consuming desire to rape white women at any opportunity. Accord­ the South every white woman lives next door to a savage brute who tinction and they never will. You do not see the creeping Negro covering with his background and the progressive policies of The Independent. ing to this aged myth, "no white girl, however young, or woman, grows more .. .insolent in his outrages every year ... " No one could his advance to the coveted goal of inter-marriage under your beautiful Holt's father was a man of tolerant, liberal democratic views who had however old, was safe from the insults and assaults of these crea­ miss the implication that lynching was simply an acceptable substi­ simplicity. great influence on his son. At Yale and Columbia Law School, Holt's tures." Harris concludes this diatribe, this bitter verbal attack, by re­ tute for the pioneer's gun and knife in protecting white people from I saw the accounts of the white women present at your particu­ professors reinforced his evolving liberalism. William Hayes Ward, vealing the ominously dark cloud that hovered over Southern whites these dangerous creatures. Her use of reckless, incendiary language lar dinner. [How could you] countenance that revolting sight? I cannot who served as a mentor, further shaped Holt's progressive beliefs. ever since they enslaved African-Americans: in the letter, moreover, was itself an act of violence, because, as the imagine any scene more degenerative as that where a white woman sits Although he deferred to Ward as The Independent's chief advocate For years the South has been a smoldering volcano, the dark of its quiv­ ancient admonition advises: "Be careful of your words, because your with a Negro man in social contact with him. I could never believe such on race relations, he fully supported the magazine's championing of ering nights lighted here and there with the incendiary's torch or pierced words become action." Later, she wrote sensitively about white rural a white woman was not morbid and revolting, as if she had been guilty of African-American rights. In 1900, he helped organized and was an through by the cry of some outraged woman. The days are feverish with mountain folk in Georgia and critically about the Southern obsession one of the most indecent crimes. I should like to have every white woman active participant in the Cosmopolitan Club, a racially mixed effort to suppressed excitement and concealed animosities. (9) with the myth of the Lost Cause, but she was unable to find any re­ who degraded all white women when she sat so near to her black man improve race relations in New York City. Holt often attended the fa­ With the encouragement of Hamilton Holt, Harris submitted deeming qualities in African-American culture. companion at your dinner fined and imprisioned. (12) mous annual conferences called by Booker T. Washington at Tuskeg­ two more articles, one entitled "Negro Womanhood," the other "The In the years after her first submissions to The Independent, Har­ ee Institute, and in 1909, when he was chief editor of The Independent, Negro Child," where she continued her vilification of the Southern ris gave little indication that she had moderated her original view of Twenty-five years after The Independent printed her articles, the magazine enthusiastically supported the founding of the National blacks. Speaking with the same dogmatic certitude and intemperate African -Americans and race relations in the South. A letter to Ham­ when she had an opportunity in her autobiography to reconsider her Association for the Advancement of Colored People. After Ward re­ language that characterized her first letter, she made Southern black ilton Holt in 1908 revealed the rigidity and persistence of her racial views on race, she made no concession. She still placed the responsi­ tired, Holt continued the former editor's condemnation of lynching. women the cause of the race's bestiality: "The negro lacks honor and prejudices. Holt had given a speech at the Cosmopolitan Club in New bility for the Hose lynching on the perceived bestiality of black males, In 1919, he wrote an editorial entitled "America's Shame," where he noble ambitions, and is lustful and profligate because of his mother. York where, the newspapers reported, a large number of African­ and on northern "idealists" who led them to believe they were equal denounced the thousands of lynchings in the United States during This pit of dishonor is the womb from which from he comes, talented Americans were present. to whites. The lynching, she wrote, the past 30 years. No place in the world, he wrote, could "equal the with all its vices, having in him only a murdered capacity for virtue." depravity and barbarity of America's record for lynching." (14) In her third article, she argued that there was little hope for the negro My Dear Mr. Holt, ... was one of those crimes we have been driven to commit from time to Given these views then, why was Holt so enthralled by Harris's child born in this "pit of dishonor." He/ she is "the little ragged, sun­ Your letter arrived yesterday enclosing the clipping from The New time by way of counteracting the teachings of Northern sentimentalist style of writing and by her later literary success that he was willing shine bastard of the South." These essays have a common theme: that York Times about your speech. The trouble with you New Englanders is which have had regrettable influence upon the Negro race ... lt is now be­ to ignore the racist content of her articles and letters? Why was he is, Southern whites were forced to segregate themselves from their that [you think] that you are rational idealists, and there is not a more ir­ ing settled by a strange retribution. Those apostles of purely emotional so obsessed with the belief that he was the "discoverer" of a budding savage neighbors because all African-Americans, driven by danger­ rational brand of folly on earth. You messed up things here in the South idealism are reaping what they have sowed. genius that he seemed oblivious to what Harris was saying? Holt left ous primitive emotions and ignoble intentions, were hopelessly void because you cannot understand that some things will not happen before The preachers and press of the North were horrified as usual no record of an answer to these questions, but his behavior toward 22 23 Harris allows us to infer an answer. When The Independent's liter­ "atrocious conduct of the [lynch] mob," but they took no concrete ary editor retired in December, 1900, Holt asked Harris to review steps to stop such vicious conduct. Businessmen, newspaper editors, a popular novel that was "enjoying a sensational run." The article, storeowners, the small farmers, and preachers, who might never Holt later wrote, received "more comments than any review we ever participate in lynchings, either justified lynchings as did Corra Har­ published." During the next decade, Harris reviewed scores of books ris or accepted them "as what you might expect." In this sense, the and wrote several articles and a short story for The Independent. In "sensible, conservative, good white people" of the South by their si­ the meantime, Harris had achieved national fame as a best-selling lence could not avoid complicity in the lynchings. Hamilton Holt's novelist and essayist, Holt had become owner and chief editor of The unwillingness to challenge Harris's racial prejudice left him open to Independent, and they had developed a close professional relationship. a similar charge. Perhaps more seriously, by having her speak and When Holt became President of Rollins College in Winter Park, Flor­ teach at Rollins College, he implicated that institution as well. May ida in 1925, one of his first acts was to invite Harris to his home. Holt we not see a similar involvement when, in the twenty-first century, wrote her: "What a good woman and what a great woman you have a public university celebrates the literary accomplishments of Corra become since the days so long ago when you first began to write and I Harris, while ignoring her darker racist side? The university argues first began to edit." In response, she wrote: " I send you my grateful it is preserving history, but the question is: Which history? love for having produced me and my admiration for being one of the That Corra Harris's 1899 letter reflected the views of her gen­ greatest, kindest men I have ever known." At his presidential inau­ eration reminds us that the more subtle racial prejudice we observe guration, he awarded her an honorary degree. In the presentation, today has deep-seated, unconcealed, roots in our past. She made no Holt stated that Harris was a "noble-minded author of noble- minded effort to use code words such as "welfare mothers" or to disguise her books" who had brought "courage and consolation to thousands of dehumanizing language or to hide her (and the white Southern) con­ unknown friends." Over the next decade, she developed a close per­ tempt for African-American culture. When such racial prejudice is sonal relationship with Holt and his family, including Holt's wife, so embedded in the American psyche, we should not be surprised to Zenie, who apparently shared Harris's racial views. Harris often vis­ see it resurfacing, even though language may obscure it. Given the ited the President's home in Winter Park, spoke at Rollins several historical racial context suggested by this essay, where even progres­ times, and in 1930 offered a short course at the college. After Harris's sives such as Hamilton Holt reacted so tepidly to the racism of his death, when her family built a memorial chapel over her grave at In generation, we also should not be surprised when African-Americans the Valley homestead, Holt delivered the dedication speech, prais­ respond sensitively to the subtext of coded language that has racial ing Harris's literary career and their long friendship. In all this time, overtones. We can see that an insidious racial thread has been run­ Holt never expressed, neither in private correspondence nor in pub­ ning seamlessly through the American fabric from the lynching of lic communication, a concern about Harris's racial attitudes. (15) Sam Hose (and before) to the killing of Trayvon Martin. When we Since he never criticized the racist views Harris expressed in her remain silent about this fact, we, too, become complicit. early articles and in those letters written to him, Holt left the im­ In the same issue of The Independent where Harris justified lynch­ pression that style mitigated objectionable content. However, mali­ ing and segregation with passionate, intemperate language, the bril­ cious, hurtful views argued by "geniuses" with sincere and charming liant African-American scholar W.E.B. Du Bois, in an article printed writing styles are far more dangerous than those who use simplistic, alongside Harris's, presented a measured discourse and a rational, coarse language. Holt said he committed the latter to the trash bas­ historically grounded explanation for the deterioration of race rela­ ket; then why, as in the case of Harris, did he publish the former? tions in the South, suggesting a way out of this racial impasse: Although William Hayes Ward made every effort in his editorials to refute Harris's arguments, Holt seemed unfazed by these damn­ A drawing of the color line .. .which leaves no common ing criticisms.(16) He never questioned, for instance, how a white ground of meeting, no medium of communication, no sympathy between woman, who had made it a point of avoiding all contact with these the races who live together and whose interests are at bottom one-such male "vile creatures," could have such an insight into their behavior. a discrimination is more than silly, it is dangerous. It makes it possible for Why, for example, did not Holt consider the question that one of the mass of whites to misinterpret the aims and aspirations of negroes, Harris's readers posed to her: How could a white woman have such to mistake self-reliance for insolence, and condemnation of lynch-law for an intimate knowledge of the black male's sexual habits? The let­ sympathy with crime. It makes it possible for the negroes to believe that ter shocked Harris's Victorian sensibilities. Concerned that Holt and the best people of the South hate and despise them ... .The sooner some Ward may have had similar thoughts, Harris asked a pastor friend to way is made by which the best elements of both races can sympathize write Holt attesting to her upstanding character. Holt replied that he with each other's struggles, and in a calm Christian spirit discuss them had received nothing reflecting on her character, and he would "put together-the sooner such conferences can take place all over the South, no weight upon anything of the sort if it were received. There is an the sooner lynch-law will disappear and crime be abated.(18) air of sincerity about what you write [and] we were glad to publish the articles ... What you have written has been done with an intellectual Substitute "nation" for the "South" and "racism" for "lynch­ vigor and a crispness of style that were admirable and precisely what law" and we can see that Du Bois could be speaking to our present we wanted."(17) Thus, rather than questioning the racist content condition. We would do well to resist the polemics of the Corra Har­ of Harris's letters and the qualifications of woman who could write rises of our generation, with their coded language and blindness to with uncommon certitude such damaging statements about a people past injustices, and pay more attention to the W.E.B Du Boises, with whom she despised and avoided, Holt seeined more interested in fur­ their plea for "sympathy between the races whose interests are at thering the career of a budding artist. bottom one," so that "the best elements of both races can sympathize Holt's reluctance to challenge Harris's racial prejudices may be with each other's struggles." Amen .• the equivalent to white Southern leaders' silence concerning mob lynching. These "respectable, law-abiding" citizens often claimed, Special thanks to the Rollins Department of Archives and Special Collections as Harris did, that they looked on "with shame and horror" at the for their provision of photographs of Hamilton Holt and Corra Harris. 24 fOOTNOHS ~ ~1~1I0GRA~HY

COMPLICITY OF SILENCE. PG 19 discrimination." The Autobiography of W:E.B. Du Bois. n.p., In­ and written essays justifying the Holocaust? WHY PUTIN ISN'T THAT CRAZY. PG 30 ternational Publishers, 1968, 221. IS. Holt to Harris, October 12,1926; Harris to Holt, October 22, 1. Hamilton Holt, "A Circuit Rider's Wife in Literature," Literary 6. The New York Times, May 1,1899,6. 1926. Honorary Degree Presentation, February 22,1927. Holt Blockmans, Steven. "How should the EU respond to Russia's war in Ukraine?" Digest International Book Review, November, 1924, 871. 7. Chaplain T.G. Steward, "The Reign of the Mob," The Indepen­ Papers. Harris taught a short winter term course on the nature Centre for European Policy Studies, (September 3, 2014): 1-5. http://www.ceps. be/book/how -should -eu -respond -russias-war -ukraine 2. chmt.wordpress.com/2009 dent, February 8,1899. Steward was an ordained in the A.M.E. of evil and for the term Holt named her Professor Of Evil. The 3. The Independent, May 18, 1886. For the origins of The Indepen­ church. He served in the Philippines as chaplain to the 25th title and the course attracted national attention and received Cohen, Josh. "Can Putin Get Everything He Wants in Ukraine?" dent see Louis Filler, "Liberalism, Anti-slavery, the Founding Infantry Colored Regiment during the Filipino uprising. He not a little criticism. According to Holt's biographer, Zenie's The Moscow Times, June 30, 2014. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opin­ of the Independent," XXVII New England Quarterly (Sept. later was appointed Professor of History, Logic, and Rrench at views on race "reflected her southern heritage." When Holt ion I article I can -putin -get -everying -he -wants -in -ukraine I 502736.html 1954), 291-305. For an account of The Independent under Holt Wilberforce University. Known as the "Intellectual Reverend," criticized the movie Birth of a Nation, Zenie "defended the see Warren Keuhl, Hamilton Holt: Journalist, Internationalist, he was the author of eight books. movie as a true picture of conditions." She also was critical of Editorial Board. "Cease-fire in Ukraine." The New York Times, September 5,2014. Educator. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1960, Chap­ 8. The sole biography of Corra Harris is Corra Harris: Lady of Pur­ http://www.nytimes.com/2014/ 09 I 061 opinion I a -cease -fire- in -ukraine. Holt's trips to Tuskegee where he spent the night as a guest h tml? h p&action =click&pgtype =Homepage&module =c -column -top -span­ ters 2-S.William Hayes Ward deserves a biography. A graduate pose by John Talmadge. Athens: University of Georgia Press, in the home of Booker T. Washington. Kuehl, Hamilton Holt, region®ion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span­ of Philipps Andover, Amherst College and Andover Theologi­ 1968. A recent interpretation of Harris' literary writing and 237. The chapel at In the Valley was designed by the America region cal Seminary, he served as a pastor in Kansas, as professor of her point of view is called Corra Harris and the Divided Mind of architect, Ralph Adams Cram, who was the architect of St. Latin at Ripon College and editor of The Independent from 1896- the New South by Catherine Oglesby. Gainesville: University of John the Divine in New York City. Three years earlier, he had Espinas, Gary D. "Ukraine's Defense Engagement with the United States." Journal 1913.During this time, he became a leading scholar in Oriental Florida Press, 2008. designed Knowles Memorial Chapel at Rollins College. of International Affairs, April 14, 2010. http://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/ukraines­ defense- engagement -united -statesl Archeology, serving twice as president of the American Orien­ 9. The Independent, February IS, 1899. According to one scholar, 16. In addition, Ward published anti-lynching articles by two tal Society. In 1884, he organized the famous Wolfe Expedition the myth of the black male as sexual predator was central to leading African -American writers. The first, placed along side Evans, Gareth. "NATO and Russia. International Crisis Group, April 2, 2009. to Babylonia. He published books on Christian hymns, Ancient justifying segregation as well as lynching. "The sexual assault of Harris's letter, was written by W.E.B. Du Bois. It was astound­ http://www.crisisgroup.org/ en/publication -typel commentary Inato-and­ scrolls, and poetry. As editor of The Independent, he printed the a white female by a black man came to represent the primal fear ing, Dubois wrote, that a people so recently enslaved, "whose russia.aspx first poems of Sidney Lanier and Robert Frost. of white southerners" because it threatened racial purity. Kris­ family life had been so nearly destroyed ... that such a people 4. The literature on lynching in the South is extensive. The stan­ tina DuRocher, Raising Racists: The Socialization of White Chil­ in a single generation be able to point to so many pure homes, European Union External Action Service. "Eastern Partnership." European Union, dard interpretation is Joel Williamson, The Crucible of Race: dren in the Jim Crow South. Lexington: University of Kentucky so many law abiding citizens." "The Negro and Crime," The 2014. http://eeas.europa.eu/easternlindex_en.htm Black-White Relations in the American South Since Emancipa­ Press, 2011. Independent, February 15,1899. In May, 1899, The Independent Gaddy, Clifford G. and Barry W. Ickes. "Ukraine, NATO Englargement, and the tion. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. See also W. 10. Ibid., June 27,1899; October 26,1899. The article on "The Ne­ published an article entitled "Lynching, the Excuse For It," Geithner Doctrine." Brookings Institution, June 10, 2014. http://www.brook­ Fitzhugh Bundage, Lynching in the New South: Georgia and gro Child" was Harris's last essay dealing with African-Amer­ by Ida B. Wells, the nation's leading anti-lynching advocate. ings. edul research I articles I 2 0 14 I 0 6 I 10 -ukraine -nato -geithner -doctrine­ Virginia, 1880-1930. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993. icans. In 1912, the magazine did publish her short story about a The article was a direct rebuttal of Harris's letter. The claim, gaddy -ickes In 1939, Billie Holliday recorded "Strange Fruit," a haunting black family. "Jeff," Ibid., September 26, 1912. Wells wrote, that "lynchings are the desperate effort of the anti-lynching song written by a Jewish school teacher named 11. Oglesby, Harris, 18; The Independent, October 26,1899. Southern people to protect their women from black monsters, Gorkiy, Igor. "For Whom the Bell Tolls." Harvard International Review, April 8, 2014. http://hir.harvard.edu/archives/3244 Abel Meerpool: 12. Harris to Holt, May 5,1908. Holt Papers in the Rollins College must be pitied as well as condemned. A careful classification of Archives. lynchings show that contempt for the law and racial prejudice Gupta, Prachi. "Must-see morning clip: Jon Stewart calls Vladimir Putin 'a Southern trees bear a strange fruit, 13. Corra Harris, My Book and Heart. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, constitute the real cause of lynchings." The Independent, May, semi-delusional autocrat.'" Salon, March 7, 2014. http://www.salon. Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, 1924,181-182. Along with The Circuit Rider's Wife and Recording 1899,1133-1136. coml 2 0141 03 I 07 I muscsee_morningJlip_jon_stewarccalls_vladimir_ Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze, Angel, Harris's autobiography was a best seller. Altogether, she 17. Holt to Harris, June 29, 1899. Holt Papers. Talmadge, Harris, putin_a_semLdelusionaLautocratl Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. wrote twenty works of fiction, over fifty articles for The Indepen­ 29. Harris once wrote in a review that William Dean Howells "Ukraine: Running out of Time." International Crisis Group, May 14, 2014. http:/ I dent and several articles for Ladies Home Journal and The Saturday Pastoral scene of the gallant south could "no more interpret the mob mind in America than he www.crisisgroup.org/ enl regions I europe/ukrainel 231-ukraine -running­ the bulging eyes and the twisted mouth Evening Post. Between 1900 and 1935, she was one America's can get drunk and paint the town red." We might apply the out-of-time.aspx scent of magnolia most popular writers. See a complete bibliography of her works same criteria to her interpretation of the African -American sweet and fresh in Oglesby, 227-232. mind. Ibid., 37. Kramer, Mark. "Why Russia Intervenes." Carnegie Corporation of New York, August then the sudden smell of burning flesh 14. The Independent, May 24, 1919. The shame Holt mentioned 18. The Independent, February 15,1899,1355-1357. At the time Du 2014. http://perspectives.carnegie.org/us-russia/russia -intervenes I Here is a fruit extends into the present. Although thoroughly documented Bois wrote this article he was teaching at Atlanta University by scholars, the massive lynching of African-Americans in Lukin, Alexander. "What the Kremlin is Thinking: Putin's Vision for Eurasia." For­ for the crows to pluck and was on the cusp of a brilliant activist and scholarly career. eignAffairs, vol. 93, no. 4 (2014): 85-93. for the rain to gather the late nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth re­ He published his classic, The Soul Of Black Folk, in 1903. Har­ for the wind to suck mains hidden from the popular view. With almost three thou­ ris never mentioned Du Bois's 1899 article but she did respond Mearsheimer, John J. "Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West's Fault: The Liberal for the sun to rot sand recorded African-Americans lynched between 1880 and to the magazine's unsigned article (she presumed was written Delusions That Provoked Putin." Foreign Affairs, vol. 93, no. 5 (2014): 77-89. for the tree to drop 1968, lynching may be seen as a southern white pogrom against by Du Bois) criticizing the Atlanta race massacre in Septem­ Here is a strange and bitter crop African-Americans. Even the language suggested pogrom. The ber, 1906. In a letter to Holt, Harris wrote that by printing Motyl, Alexander J. "Loose Cannons and Ukrainian Casualties." World Affairs, Au­ Nazis's "justification" for their persecution of the Jews was gust 27, 2014. http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/alexander-j-motyl/ Du Bois's article, The Independent had given "unctuous [sic] loose- cannons-and -ukrainian -casualties Lillian Smith wrote an anti-segregation novel in 1944 with the frighteningly similar to Corra Harris's "explanation" for the approval" to an argument "which defends negroes for a mon­ same title. Southern practice of lynching and segregation. The Nazis de­ strous crime, or rather denies that he committed it, and denies Sarotte, Mary Elise. "A Broken Promise? What the West Really Told Moscow S. After his capture, Hose implicated a Reverend Elijah Strick­ humanized Jew as Harris had depersonalized Southern blacks. in a way that reflects upon the character of their poor victim, About NATO Expansion." Foreign Affairs, vol. 93, no. 5 (2014): 90-97. land. The mob summarily hanged Strickland, even though sev­ Harris argued that the blacks in the South, by their brutish be­ the white women. It is not even good journalism to publish eralleading whites vouched for his innocence. Edwin T. Arnold, havior, brought lynching on themselves; similarly, the Nazis such an articles, unless the ugly spite of them wins subscrib­ Tayler, Jeffrey. "Sorry, Putin Isn't Crazy." Foreign Policy, March ll, 2014. http:// www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/ 2014/03 Illl sorry_putin_isnccrazy What Virtue There Is In Fire: Cultural Memory and the Lynching of contended the bestial nature and behavior of the Jews justified ers for you in the North East. I am like the majority whom Du Sam Hose. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009, 124- the Holocaust. If we substitute "Jew" for "Negro" in Har­ Bois condemns. It is no more than you should expect and not The Economist Staff. "Conscious Uncoupling." The Economist, April 5, 2014. 127. The news of the Sam Hose lynching and the exhibition ris's letter we can see how difficult it is to dismiss it as "simply near as much as you may expect from now on." "The Atlanta http:// www.economisLcom/news/briefing/21600111-reducing-europes -de­ of Hose's knuckles transformed Du Bois's attitude toward the reflecting the perspective of that time." Her demonization of Massacre," The Independent, October 4,1906; Harris to Holt, pendence -russian -gas -possiblebut -it -will-take -time- money -and -sustained issue of race. In his autobiography, he admitted that ~after the African -Americans suggests sinister and destructive conse­ October 10,1906. Holt Papers. Hose lynching, he could no longer be "a cool, calm detached quences that cannot be ignored by arguing that, in other aspects Umland, Andreas. "Understanding Russia's Role and Aims in the Ukraine Cri­ scientist while Negroes were lynched, murdered and starved." of her writing, she was a great Southern novelist. Would we ac­ sis." Harvard International Review, August II, 2014. http://hir.harvard.edu/ archives I 6980 He now would become an activist against "Negro prejudice and cord the same accolades to a writer who had demonized Jews

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