Race and History: Selected Essays 1938-1988

464 Pages·1989·9.872 MB·English

by  John Hope Franklin

RACE and HISTORY
Also by John Hope Franklin
As Author
The Free Negro in North Carolina, 1790-1860
From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans
The Militant South, 1800-1860
Reconstruction After the Civil War
The Emancipation Proclamation
Land of the Free
(with John Caughey and Ernest May)
Illustrated History of Black Americans
(with the editors of Time-Life Books)
A Southern Odyssey: Travelers in the Antebellum North
Racial Equality in America
George Washington Williams: A Biography
As Editor
The Civil War Diary of fames T Ayers
Albion Tourgée, A FooTs Errand
T. W. Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment
Three Negro Classics
The Negro in the Twentieth Century
(with Isadore Starr)
Color and Race
W. E. B. Du Bois, The Suppression of the African Slave Trade
Reminiscences of an Active Life: The Autobiography of John R. Lynch
Black Leaders of the 20th Century
(with August Meier)
Harlan Davidson American History Series
(with A. S. Eisenstadt), twenty-five volumes
Negro American Biographies and Autobiographies, seven volumes
RACE and HISTORY
Selected Essays
1938-1988
JOHN HOPE FRANKLIN
Louisiana State University Press
Baton Rouge and London
Copyright © 1989 by
Louisiana State University Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
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Designer: Albert Crochet
Typeface: Linotron Trump Mediaeval
Typesetter: The Composing Room of Michigan, Inc.
Printer and Binder: Thomson-Shore, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Franklin, John Hope, 1915-
[Essays. Selections)
Race and History. Selected essays, 1938-1988.
p. cm.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-8071-1547-9 (alk. paper)
1. Afro-Americans—Historiography. 2. United States—Race
relations—Historiography. 3. Historiography—United States.
E175.5.F73A25 1989
73 ' .0496073—dc20 89-32613
CIP
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence
and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book
Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.®
For Margaret Fitzsimmons
In Appreciation for Twenty-five Years of
Rewarding Collaboration

Contents
Preface ix
PART I The Profession of History 1
Archival Odyssey: Taking Students to the Sources 3
^The Birth of a Nation: Propaganda as History 10
Whither Reconstruction Historiography? 24
The New Negro History 41
On the Evolution of Scholarship in Afro-American History 49
"As for Our History" 59
PARTn The Practice of History 71
Slaves Virtually Free in Antebellum North Carolina 73
Slavery and the Martial South 92
The Southern Expansionists of 1846 104
The Enforcement of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 116
-^The Two Worlds of Race: A Historical View 132
^The Moral Legacy of the Founding Fathers 153
Lincoln and Public Morality 163
PART m The Near Great and the Not So Great 181
Edward Bellamy and the Nationalist Movement 183
James Boon, Free Negro Artisan 206
James T. Ayers, Civil War Recruiter 227
John Roy Lynch: Republican Stalwart from Mississippi 250
Stalking George Washington Williams 267
John Hope Franklin: A Life of Learning 277
PART IV In the Public Interest 293
The Dilemma of the American Negro Scholar 295
The Historian and the Public Policy 309
-^Ethnicity in American Life: The Historical Perspective 321
^The Land of Room Enough 332
PART V Leadership Roles 349
^The Great Confrontation: The South and the Problem of Change 351
The North, the South, and the American Revolution 367
Mirror for Americans: A Century of Reconstruction History 384
The American Scholar and American Foreign Policy 399
Notes 407
Index 441
Preface
The essays in this volume represent historical writing that extends over the
last half-century. The earliest one appeared in the New England Quarterly in
1938, and the most recent one was delivered as the Charles Homer Haskins
Lecture before the American Council of Learned Societies in the spring of
1988. Those fifty years were momentous by any standard—marked by three
major wars, numerous civil conflicts, colonial upheavals in Asia and Africa,
and tumultuous struggles for racial equality in the United States and else­
where. There was the temptation, on more than one occasion, to turn one's
attention exclusively to the great contemporary issues, to offer possible solu­
tions for intractable human problems, to urge consistency between the na­
tion's professions and its practices, and to join in the civil rights struggle in
various parts of the country.
Under the circumstances, therefore, it was difficult to remain profes­
sionally committed to historical research, writing, and teaching. Antebellum
free Negroes and the militant white southerners who dogged their tracks
seemed somehow quite remote from current struggles. And yet what they did
in the 1850s was obviously very relevant to what their descendants faced in the
1950s. On one occasion, in 1968, I confronted this interesting intellectual
conundrum in an essay, "The Dilemma of the American Negro Scholar," that
appears in this volume. I recognized then, as I do now, that while a black
scholar has a clear responsibility to join in improving the society in which he
lives, he must understand the difference between hard-hitting advocacy on the
one hand and the highest standards of scholarship on the other. If the scholar
engages in both activities he must make it clear which role he is playing at any
given time. Even so, as my father often said about the practice of law, historical
scholarship is a jealous mistress who is loath to share her suitor with any­
one else.
For the young scholar, appropriately impatient with the slow pace of change
in a society that seemed reluctant to make equality a universal attribute,
activism was most attractive. Signing protests, joining the Selma marchers,
and demonstrating against the evils of racism were ways in which the black
IX
Preface
historian could make common cause with fellow sufferers. There were, how­
ever, other ways to bear witness that utilized the professional skills I had
acquired. I could provide background and context for the problems of the day
when, for example, at the end of my year's professorship at Cambridge Univer­
sity, I served as commentator for the British Broadcasting Corporation in its
program explaining to British viewers the August, 1963, March on Washington.
Or, I could serve as an expert witness in legal actions to achieve equality, as I did
in Lyman Johnson v. The University of Kentucky in 1949.
Using one's skills to influence public policy seemed to be a satisfactory
middle ground between an ivory tower posture of isolation and disengagement
and a posture of passionate advocacy that too often deserted the canons of
scholarship. Thus, with several historians, political scientists, sociologists,
and psychologists, I joined the nonlegal research staff of the NAACP Legal
Defense Fund in 1953 to assist in the preparation of the brief in Brown v. The
Board of Education. In 1988, several historians presented a brief as friends of
the Court when the United States Supreme Court heard arguments in Brenda
Patterson v. The McLean Credit Union. In it we set forth our view that the
Civil Rights Act of 1866 was intended to bar racial discrimination in the
private as well as the public sector. And historians remain active in showing
through their research how the black vote has regularly been diluted and thus
rendered powerless in at-large elections in many counties and municipalities
throughout the country.
If the historian can have the satisfaction of influencing public policy, as one
essay in this volume argues, perhaps it will be sufficient to encourage him also
to continue to work on less urgent subjects. Even topics having to do with
historiography—the American Revolution, Abraham Lincoln, Reconstruc­
tion, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875—while perhaps less urgent than some
current public policy matters, remain topical and even relevant in any honest
quest for a better social order. This is what provides enormous satisfaction to
this historian who seeks to mine the various quarries of the past in the belief
that good history is a good foundation for a better present and future.
Over the last fifty years I have become indebted to more people than I can
name or even remember. I am especially grateful to my publishers as well as
several editors of journals who have graciously granted permission to publish
essays in this volume, versions of which previously appeared elsewhere. Then,
there are my many teachers, colleagues, and friends, and, of course, countless
students who have taught me much and have shared with me their wisdom,
patience, and refreshing enthusiasm for exploring the unknown. My sons Whit
and Bouna have brought me respectively the refreshing New World impatience
and enthusiasm for change and the resilience and adaptability of an Old World
culture. My wife of forty-eight years read my first essay when it was published
two years before we were married and since that time has been a source of
inspiration, encouragement, and loving criticism. I am grateful to all of them.
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