Research and Teaching
The Relationship Between My Research, Scholarship, and Teaching
As a historian, I try to assist others to see that history is not simply a set of facts or dates but rather a means by which to comprehend and assess critically the forces of the past that have shaped who we are, the world in which we live, and the ways in which we see that world. I try to demonstrate that such accumulated forces have worked to create hierarchies based on race, class, and gender, which in turn have helped determine how we approach others, particularly those who are different from ourselves. To show that the significance assigned to such variations are neither naturally-derived nor spiritually-divined drives my approach to the past.
This desire to undermine hierarchical social systems emanates from my interest in southern history. It stems from trying to understand the regional prevalence of particular attitudes and actions, especially in regards to race, class, and gender. Having grown up in a white south Louisiana working-class community, I was exposed to solid, compassionate, and caring Christian individuals who would give the shirts off of their backs to help those less fortunate than themselves, black or white, men or women. Yet there were also inconsistencies that were seemingly irreconcilable. These same people, when confronted by individuals who deviated from the accepted social roles imposed upon them, could become almost irrational in their angry response to such diversity. No longer did they display the warmth and generosity to which I had become so accustomed.
It was this dichotomy, and the need to comprehend it, that pushed me toward the study of history. Yet I learned very early that understanding the various contradictions that constituted people's lives would require an interdisciplinary approach and viewpoint. If satisfactory answers could not be fully located in the political or economic realm, I turned to others, such as those of literature or popular music. If conventional historical conceptualizations fell short, I used those developed in anthropology. From this immersion in non-traditional material I encountered and adopted a view that favored multiculturalism, or an appreciation of cultural diversity. Ultimately, I became a cultural historian who sought to comprehend the values, value systems, attitudes, behavioral tendencies, and institutional organizations associated with various groups of people.
Since college and graduate school, I have come to appreciate that the past (and culture, in the anthropological sense) often works as an obstacle that limits rather than liberates a person’s actions and attitudes, especially when he or she is confronted with diversity. It is indeed a barrier to be struggled against, a set of forces that must be recognized as socially constructed and imperfect rather than as natural and inviolable. Significantly, it is a set of forces that is sometimes hardly understood by those who come under its influence. In studying the civil rights era, I have often been troubled at how the authoritative power of the past stood in the way of change. For instance, when asked by Rosa Parks to explain why he treated Montgomery Alabama bus passengers in such an oppressive manner, the bus driver replied that he did not know. He just did. Similarly, following the murder of Emmett Till, one of the two men indicted yet exonerated for the crime, inexplicably responded to a reporter’s question as to why they felt it necessary to kill the young man, “What else could we do?”
In relating such incidents to my classes, I emphasize that we are not trying to justify or apologize for the actions of the bus driver or the Till murderers. I am not suggesting that we view such individuals as being “trapped” and “forced” into thinking and acting in certain ways. They possessed the agency to behave differently, as some within their larger community indeed demonstrated. But I do believe that we need to understand how “culture” and “history” and provincial social “codes” influence human attitudes and behavior. We need to ask why the historic combination of perceptions as it pertained to race, class, and gender could lead to systematic oppression and indeed make murder seem routine.
I often describe to students an incident from 1956 in Birmingham Alabama involving the African American entertainer Nat “King” Cole. Cole was appearing in concert in the city, and because of segregation laws, had to perform two separate shows before two separate audiences, one white and the other black. At the beginning of his concert before white patrons, five members of the audience rushed the stage and attacked the singer, knocking him to the ground. Members of Cole’s band were not aware of the fracas; an integrated orchestra, it had been separated from the audience by a heavy green velvet curtain. Such were the policies under jim crow. As a result, Cole stood alone in the spotlight, completely vulnerable to assault.
Law enforcement officials, many of whom had become aware during the previous week that segregationists were plotting such an attack, were very slow to react. They, like the audience, watched as the assailants commandeered the microphone and lectured the whites in the auditorium about the dangers of school desegregation, overbearing Supreme Court decisions, rock ‘n’ roll, and race mixing. Interestingly, the audience of almost four thousand booed as the attackers preached their sermon of states’ rights and racial unity. When calm was finally restored and Cole was helped to his feet, the spectators stood and cheered and encouraged the entertainer not to be intimidated and bullied by such violent and hateful conduct. In the end, the majority of people in the concert hall had indicated their disagreement with the actions taken by the die-hard segregationists. Their behavior certainly seemed out of step with a postwar southern environment peculiarly accustomed to racial demagoguery and violence.
Yet it is what the audience did not do which is just as significant. While its refusal to join with the attackers is perhaps commendable, it is also notable that no one in the audience got out of his or her seat to prevent or halt the attack. They cheered Cole, but they also stood by while he was pummeled. To say that the Cole incident represents the white South’s response to the Civil Rights Movement in microcosm might be an exaggeration, but the questions that I put forth to students pushes them to analyze the impact that culture and history have on everyday life: Why did seemingly “good” people not come to the aid of Cole? What factors prevented them from obviously doing the “right thing?” How did their passivity contribute to the success of the extremists? Did their negative opinions of “others” (including the working-class attackers) enhance their own identity? How did their traditional racial views allow prejudice to outweigh justice?
The ultimate tragedy of the South, of course, is that it wasted it greatest resource, its people, because it allowed an imperfect past to dictate the way individuals and groups could relate to one another. Yet its history of intolerance, poverty, hopelessness, and failure has provided lessons that we should heed concerning the interdependent world of our own time. Diversity is a strength. We are facing a future that promises change beyond our very imagination. We must encounter it together. Only by transcending a past that stressed social hierarchy can we hope to ensure the possibility that such a future will be harmonious and just. By questioning the restricted cultural parameters we are given, we indeed have the power to alter realities that often appear unalterable.