Beacon Broadside

Ruthanne Lum McCunn: Excerpt from Thousand Pieces of Gold

A fantastic interview with Ruthanne Lum McCunn over at Bookslut (and also posted at the Smithsonian Bookdragon blog) made us think that you all should read a sample of her completely amazing novel, Thousand Pieces of Gold. The book is a biographical novel about the life of Lalu Nathoy, aka Polly Bemis, a Chinese woman who was auctioned as a slave in San Francisco and later bought her freedom and became a pioneer legend. Here is an excerpt of the novel we're sharing on Scribd. You can find a reader's guide to the book on the Beacon website.

An Excerpt from Thousand Pieces of Gold by Ruthanne Lum McCunn

Big Think Interview with Jonathan Metzl

Jonathan Metzl discusses schizophrenia, the DSM (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), and how the disease moved from being thought of as a ailment of housewives to a diagnosis of violent behavior among African-American men.

If the video doesn't embed in your reader, check it out here: http://bigthink.com/ideas/18711

Jonathan M. Metzl: In Medical Records, a Story of the Racialization of Schizophrenia

Today's post is an excerpt from The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease by Jonathan M. Metzl. Metzl is associate professor of psychiatry and women's studies and director of the Culture, Health, and Medicine Program at the University of Michigan. A 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship recipient, Metzl has written extensively for medical, psychiatry, and popular publications. His books include Prozac on the Couch and Difference and Identity in Medicine. 

Reading the medical charts of the patients of Ionia State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, I felt a mixture of responsibility and deep sadness. For better and largely for worse, the Ionia charts documented the lives of the marginalized and the forgotten in novel-like detail, and in ways that made the medical records of today seem impersonal and flat. This was because the charts recorded people in two conflicting ways: in their roles as patients and convicts, as defined by interactions with the state hospital complex and the courts, and in their roles as sons, daughters, fathers, husbands, wives, or loners, as defined by letters, cards, and other texts. The charts also documented in minute detail the tragedy of what it meant to be warehoused in a state asylum at midcentury -- and in particular, in an asylum where short sentences devolved into lifelong incarceration. A number of charts contained yearly notes from patients to their doctors voicing such sentiments as "Doc, I really think I am cured," or "Dear Doctor, I believe I am ready to go home," or "You have no right to keep me here after my sentence is over." These letters stacked thirty deep in some charts, signifying years of pleading and longing and anger, together with thirty years' of responses from clinicians urging, "You are almost there" or "Perhaps next year." Invariably, the last note in each stack was a death certificate from the Ionia coroner.

I visited the archive regularly over the next four years. With the help of my research assistant, I analyzed and catalogued hospital administrative records and the charts of nearly six hundred randomly selected patients admitted to the hospital between the late 1920s and the early 1970s, under the agreement that I significantly alter all personal identifying information about patients, as I have done in the case descriptions that appear in this book. Names, dates, and places have been changed, and vignettes represent condensed and extrapolated aggregates drawn from the rich case materials. All doctor-patient dialogue and text in quotation marks is reproduced verbatim. I also visited Ionia on numerous occasions and conducted a series of oral histories with surviving members of the hospital staff, though, perhaps tellingly, I located no surviving patients despite numerous attempts.

What stories boxes tell. Ionia was its own planet, walled off, orbiting, a place where real people worked and lived and died. Then came a series of public scandals, the advent of psychopharmaceuticals, and changes in legal systems and penal codes. Decreased public funding followed, along with encroachment by regional forensic centers. Finally, the transformation. The boxes were but light-years of this implosion, vapor trails, found poems, measurable heat. Disembodied voices that told silent stories of what it meant to be incarcerated, or neglected, or entrenched, or immured.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: The World House (excerpt)

Today's post is an excerpt from Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? by Martin Luther King, Jr. The last book written by Dr. King, it is one of the first, along with Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, to be released by Beacon Press as part of The King Legacy Series. In this prophetic work, which has been unavailable for more than ten years, he lays out his thoughts, plans, and dreams for America's future, including the need for better jobs, higher wages, decent housing, and quality education. With a universal message of hope that continues to resonate, King demanded an end to global suffering, asserting that humankind-for the first time-has the resources and technology to eradicate poverty.

Some years ago a famous novelist died. Among his papers was found a list of suggested plots for future stories, the most prominently underscored being this one: "A widely separated family inherits a house in which they have to live together." This is the great new problem of mankind. We have inherited a large house, a great "world house" in which we have to live together-- black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Muslim and Hindu-- a family unduly separated in ideas, culture and interest, who, because we can never again live apart, must learn somehow to live with each other in peace.

However deeply American Negroes are caught in the struggle to be at last at home in our homeland of the United States, we cannot ignore the larger world house in which we are also dwellers. Equality with whites will not solve the problems of either whites or Negroes if it means equality in a world society stricken by poverty and in a universe doomed to extinction by war.

All inhabitants of the globe are now neighbors. This worldwide neighborhood has been brought into being largely as a result of the modern scientific and technological revolutions. The world of today is vastly different from the world of just one hundred years ago. A century ago Thomas Edison had not yet invented the incandescent lamp to bring light to many dark places of the earth. The Wright brothers had not yet invented that fascinating mechanical bird that would spread its gigantic wings across the skies and soon dwarf distance and place time in the service of man. Einstein had not yet challenged an axiom and the theory of relativity had not yet been posited.

Human beings, searching a century ago as now for better understanding, had no television, no radios, no telephones and no motion pictures through which to communicate. Medical science had not yet discovered the wonder drugs to end many dread plagues and diseases. One hundred years ago military men had not yet developed the terrifying weapons of warfare that we know today-- not the bomber, an airborne fortress raining down death; nor napalm, that burner of all things and flesh in its path. A century ago there were no sky-scraping buildings to kiss the stars and no gargantuan bridges to span the waters. Science had not yet peered into the unfathomable ranges of interstellar space, nor had it penetrated oceanic depths. All these new inventions, these new ideas, these sometimes fascinating and sometimes frightening developments, came later. Most of them have come within the past sixty years, sometimes with agonizing slowness, more characteristically with bewildering speed, but always with enormous significance for our future.

Howard Zinn's The People Speak Premieres on the History Channel this weekend

Embedded below is a CBS story about the film, based on Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, which premieres this Sunday on the History Channel. If it doesn't appear, view the video on YouTube.

Link Roundup: Some Reading for the Long Weekend

Meredith Hall's Without a Map continues to resonate with readers.

A Q&A with homeschooling expert Robert Kunzman addresses some of the criticism his book has received from conservative bloggers.

Kathryn Joyce uncovers the dark side of Christian adoption agencies.

The Ethicurean looks at Nancy Gift's A Weed by Any Other Name (Gifted posted here today).

Marcus Rediker has a stimulating discussion about pirates with the inmates of Auburn Prison.

Mark Winne looks at the link between obesity and poverty.

Dana Sachs: Ted Kennedy and the Children of Operation Babylift

Today's post is from Dana Sachs, the author of The Life We Were Given: Operation Babylift, International Adoption, and the Children of War in Vietnam, which will be published by Beacon Press in April.

This week, many people have recollected their interactions with Senator Edward Kennedy. I also met him-- in the pages of a 34-year-old transcript I discovered while researching a book about the war in Vietnam.

My research involved Operation Babylift, the U.S.-sponsored evacuation, and subsequent overseas adoption, of several thousand children from Saigon at the end of the war. The transcript came from an April 8, 1975, Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing titled, "Indochina Evacuation and Refugee Problems, Part I: Operation Babylift and Humanitarian Needs." The chair of the subcommittee was Ted Kennedy, 43 years old and 13 years into his Senate career.

By early April 1975, the war in Vietnam was nearly over but the misery was intensifying every day. The North Vietnamese-backed final offensive had displaced hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom were dying of starvation and disease. "Tragedy is piled on tragedy," Senator Kennedy said in his opening remarks. He recognized a "deep and despairing sense of helplessness among the American people" over what was happening in Vietnam. At the hearing, he hoped to find answers to a simple question: Why, after so many millions of dollars in aid had been promised to Vietnam, were we still witnessing so much suffering?

Frederick S. Lane: C-Street, Privacy, and the Separation of Church and State

Today's post is from Frederick S. Lane, an author, attorney, expert witness, and lecturer who has appeared on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, the BBC, and MSNBC. His fifth book, American Privacy: The Four-Hundred-Year History of Our Most Contested Right, will be published by Beacon Press in November 2009. For additional information, visit www.FrederickLane.com

Few addresses have gained so much notoriety so quickly as 133 C Street SE in Washington, D.C. The slim brick townhouse, nestled on a quiet street behind the Madison Building of the Library of Congress, was recently outed as an enclave of fundamentalist Washington insiders by Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, and a contributing editor to Harper's and Rolling Stone. (Editor's note: Sharlet is also co-editor, with Peter Manseau, of Believer Beware: First-Person Dispatches from the Margins of Faith.) With typical Christian duality, C Street has reportedly been a place for some members of Congress both to hold assignations with non-spousal partners and to seek refuge from them.

Last month, I stayed half a block from 133 C Street while in Washington doing research for a book. It was like bumping into Dennis Kucinich in a DC bookstore (which also happened during my visit); buildings, like people, can take on a weird sense of familiarity when you've seen them repeatedly on television or the Internet. As I walked or jogged past the townhouse each morning, it occurred to me that C Street is neatly located at the intersection of my last two books, The Court and the Cross: The Religious Right's Crusade to Reshape the Supreme Court and American Privacy: The Four-Hundred-Year History of Our Most Contested Right. The recent spotlight shining through the curtained windows of C Street begs an important question: can we defend a pluralistic democracy from religious zealots without critically wounding core American values, such as freedom of religion and the right to privacy? Not coincidentally, that's a question that has become particularly pressing since 9/11.

Photo of the C Street house that is home to "The Family," taken by the author.

So just how far into C Street should the media (or governmental) spotlight shine? The answer lies in a bit of constitutional topology. In its various decisions on privacy, the Supreme Court has ruled that there is a zone of privacy that surrounds each of us, a zone limned in large part by the rights guaranteed to us in the Constitution. For private individuals, that zone of privacy is a portable sphere that surrounds us and protects us, to varying degrees, from unreasonable governmental interference. But for elected officials, like the Congressional denizens of C Street, the zone of privacy is more like a toroid, or doughnut, hanging around their midsection.

Thomas N. DeWolf: The Educational Opportunity in the Gates Arrest

Thomas N. DeWolf is the author of Inheriting the Trade: A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History. Tom speaks regularly at schools, conferences, and other events around the country. For further information go to: www.inheritingthetrade.com, where you can also find his Inheriting the Trade blog.

Like many Americans, I have followed closely the story of the arrest of Harvard professor Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., by Cambridge police officer Sgt. James Crowley for disorderly conduct. This is, as Dr. Gates said during a CNN interview on July 22, "an educational opportunity for America."

Two significant messages loom large in this educational opportunity. First, based on the wildly different responses to this story-- from writers black and white, conservative and liberal-- can we all agree to set aside the bogus notion that we are a "post-racial" nation? This case is about race. We're talking about it. We disagree.

Separate from the facts in this particular case, racial profiling is alive and well in America. According to the ACLU report The Persistence Of Racial And Ethnic Profiling In The United States, released just a few weeks ago, "Indeed, data and anecdotal information from across the country reveal that racial minorities continue to be unfairly victimized when authorities investigate, stop, frisk, or search them based upon subjective identity-based characteristics rather than identifiable evidence of illegal activity. Victims continue to be racially or ethnically profiled while they work, drive, shop, pray, travel, and stand on the street."

Second, most white people remain largely oblivious to the systemic racism that results in the regular occurrence of such incidents all over our nation. It isn't "in our face," doesn't appear to impact us, and we've been socialized not to see it. Most white people consider ourselves to be not racist. We have good intentions toward people of color. But good intentions are irrelevant when the outcomes are unjust and inequitable.

Howard Bryant at ESPN on a Notable Date in Red Sox History

Yesterday marked the fiftieth anniversary of the day the Boston Red Sox became an integrated team, when Pumpsie Green was sent in as a pinch runner. Howard Bryant, author of Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston, writes about the anniversary at ESPN, noting that not only did the team pass on signing Jackie Robinson--the first African-American player in Major League Baseball-- they didn't even integrate until after Robinson retired from the game, and were the last team in baseball to do so. Read Bryant's piece at ESPN here.

Nancy Rubin Stuart: Happy July 4th to our Forgotten Founding Mothers!

We celebrate Independence Day this weekend, and Nancy Rubin Stuart, author of The Muse of the Revolution: The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of a Nation, honors the often overlooked women of the American Revolution.

Traditionally, we celebrate our nation's birthday on July 4th with parades, fireworks and tributes to the Founding Fathers. Rarely do we recall the women who supported our patriots, those forgotten Founding Mothers who watched their men march off to fight for American independence, leaving them to struggle to support children, homes and farms.

Silence surrounds the lives of those nurturers. While we recall the names of "celebrity women" of that era-- Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams; Mercy Otis Warren, author of anti-British propaganda plays and historian of the American Revolution; Betsy Ross, who stitched the American flag; Deborah Sampson, disguised as a soldier who fought against the British, and Margaret Corbin, who loaded cannons on the battlefield-- we know relatively little about their personal sacrifices and those of their peers.

Before the Revolution, Abigail Adams and her historian friend, Mercy Otis Warren, shunned tea and proudly wore homespun garments in lieu of British finery. Living miles apart south of Boston with their children, the two friends spun dozens of skeins of wool which they collectively donated to the poor. So, too, did countless other women who gathered in private homes for spinning parties or participated in public spinning contests. To stir patriotic sentiment even hotter, patriotic newspapers offered suggestions about North American substitutes for imported teas, among them sassafras, raspberry and mint.

While patriotism required sacrifice, American women still needed certain manufactured goods and fabrics for their households. Since Abigail's husband, John, and Mercy's son, Winslow, lived in Europe during the last years of the Revolution, those matrons sent for certain household goods and fabrics which they sold or traded to friends and neighbors.

Many women and their children, however, no longer lived in old neighborhoods. Among those who fled from Boston during the British occupation was Abigail and Mercy's friend, Betsy Adams, wife of Samuel Adams, who hid in a humble cottage far from the city.

Kim E. Nielsen: Annie and Helen, BFFs

This past weekend marked the birthday of Helen Keller, and Kim E. Nielsen, author of Beyond the Miracle Worker: The Remarkable Life of Anne Sullivan Macy and Her Extraordinary Friendship with Helen Keller, reflects here on an enduring relathionship that began when Keller was a young girl and spanned fifty years.

The friendship of Anne Sullivan Macy and Helen Keller was not very glamorous. It lacked the men and clothing of the “Sex and the City” women. It lacked the dramatic guns and suicidal road trips of Thelma and Louise. It wasn't a fifty year slumber party of everlasting conversations, hugs, and secrets, and included no backstabbing cattiness and sexualized mud-fights. Somehow, however, the two women, remained friends— genuine friends— for nearly fifty years.

Having first written extensively on Helen Keller and now on Anne Sullivan Macy, I sometimes feel that I've lived two sides of the same story. After meeting in 1887, fourteen years apart in age, the two women quickly became the central persons in each other's lives. They became, slowly and eventually, dear friends.

Thomas N. DeWolf: What’s the Point of the U.S. Senate Apology for Slavery?

Thomas N. DeWolf is the author of Inheriting the Trade: A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History, published by Beacon Press. Tom speaks regularly at schools, conferences, and other events around the country. For further information go to: www.inheritingthetrade.com, where you can also find his Inheriting the Trade blog.

Does anyone out there know Chris Matthews, host of Hardball on MSNBC? I'd like to send him a copy of my book, Inheriting the Trade. My impression is that, like my own, his education lacked some aspects of our nation's history that have been kept hidden from students.

Most of you know that last week the United States Senate unanimously passed S. Con. Res. 26 apologizing for the enslavement and racial segregation of African-Americans.

I wrote about this–so won't repeat myself–on June 15. Read my post here. Also read my cousin James DeWolf Perry's excellent post here about why apologies are both important and troublesome.

My focus today is on the mixed reaction the apology has received. Chris Matthews certainly had a strong reaction. Watch as he interviews Reps. Steve Cohen and Jim Clyburn, embedded after the jump.

From the Director: Beacon Press and The King Legacy

The following is an excerpt of remarks made by Helene Atwan, Director of Beacon Press, at an event held Wednesday to celebrate The King Legacy, a new partnership between the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr. and Beacon Press. Beacon will print new editions of previously published King titles and compile Dr. King's writings, sermons, orations, lectures, and prayers into entirely new editions, including significant new introductions by leading scholars.

Beacon Press traces its origins to the 1820s when the American Unitarian Association was founded and immediately began publishing books that reflected the Unitarian mission. By 1854, Ralph Waldo Emerson's cousin George had collected money to start a formal publishing program, and the AUA Press began that year, initially largely with collections of sermons, but volumes which included, to quote historian Susan Wilson, "eloquent writings on such topic as temperance, women's rights…, and the abolition of slavery." By the time it was renamed Beacon Press in 1902, the legacy of enlightened, liberal religious thought that informs the list today, and which you'll see reflected in the sampling of books on display here, was firmly engrained.

Which is why we were so convinced that Beacon would be the perfect publishing home for the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have been rereading and listening to Dr. King a lot of late (as you might imagine) and what surprises me most is how current his thinking is, how he seems to be speaking not from the 1950s or 60s but from the post 9/11 era, even from the Obama era. What he has to say to us in an age of globalization, in a so-called "post-racial" age, is as valid and in some respects more urgent in a world where 25,000 children die in poverty every day; in a world where American soldiers are killing and dying in an unjust war, in a world where too many people are judged daily by the color of their skin, or the name they give their God, rather than the content of their character.

As Senator Edward Kennedy has remarked, "Much of Dr. King's broad and powerful message is in danger of being left behind, as new generations come to know him only through history and see him more as myth than man. His life and great works are still relevant to the complex realities of today's social problems and if we allow the richness of his example to recede, we lose the opportunity to learn from him. There is still so much to learn from walking in his path."

Helene Atwan speaking at Wednesday's event announcing The King Legacy.

It's our plan to illuminate that path with brilliant books. This agreement is brand new, obviously, and we've just begun to dig into the archives, so to speak, so I can't give you the exhaustive list of books we hope to publish over the years. But I can tell you that we will start by bringing back into print three books that Dr. King saw published in his lifetime and which have been unavailable for over a decade. The first is Stride Toward Freedom, Dr. King's account of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a book which should be read not only for it's historic value, but for what it teaches us about community activism.  Like all of the books in the King Legacy, Stride will have a new introduction, which will not only place the book in its historic perspective, but will describe how the book speaks to the 21st century. Acclaimed King scholar Clayborne Carson will edit and introduce this volume. And I'm delighted to say that Dr. Carson has agreed to be General Advisory Editor for the entire series. We will also bring back into print Where Do We Go From Here, which was first published in paperback by Beacon Press in 1968, and are thrilled to announce that we will have an introduction by Dr. Vincent Harding for that volume. Dr. Harding was a close associate of Dr. King and is the author of many works about him. Finally, we have a new edition of Trumpet of Conscience, Dr. King's stirring orations originally delivered just 6 months before his death. All these books, along with a new hardcover edition of Strength to Love, will be published on Dr. King's birthday next January.

After that, many new volumes will follow. Books that will collect Dr. Kings writings and orations on the subjects of peace and nonviolence; on poverty and global economic justice; on God and the role of religion in society; on all of the subjects which were so central to his work. And in issuing these new volumes, we hope to keep the message fresh and accessible for new generations, so that they, too, can learn from walking in his path.

Beacon Broadside: Beacon Press Announces The King Legacy

The King Legacy on Beacon.org

The King Legacy announcement at UUA.org

Beacon Press Announces The King Legacy Series

At an event held yesterday afternoon at the Unitarian Universalist Association headquarters in Boston, Beacon Press announced its new partnership with the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr., "The King Legacy." Beacon will print new editions of previously published King titles and compile Dr. King's writings, sermons, orations, lectures, and prayers into entirely new editions, including significant new introductions by leading scholars. This partnership brings together the legacy of one of the most important civil rights and social justice leaders in the world with one of the oldest and most respected independent publishing houses in America.

The event featured former chair of the Civil Rights Commission Mary Frances Berry, Unitarian-Universalist Association President William Sinkford, poet Sonia Sanchez, literary agent Michele Rubin (who through Writers House facilitated the agreement with the King Estate), and Beacon Press director Helene Atwan. You can read more about the announcement on the websites of Beacon Press and the Unitarian Universalist Association.

The first three titles in the King Legacy series will be published on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in 2010:

Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story. The classic story of nonviolent resistance in America, the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955–1956.

The Trumpet of Conscience. Five lectures delivered by Marting Luther King Jr. in 1967 that reveal his most introspective reflections and last impressions of the movement.

Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community. King's analysis of the state of American race relations and the movement after a decade of U.S. civil rights struggles.

Kim E. Neilsen: Why Write About Anne Sullivan Macy?

Today is the birthday of Anne Sullivan Macy, best known as the teacher of Helen Keller. She is the subject of Beyond the Miracle Worker: The Remarkable Life of Anne Sullivan Macy and Her Extraordinary Friendship with Helen Keller, by Kim E. Nielsen, who wrote today's post.

I was so sick of Helen Keller. She'd begun to annoy me tremendously. After two previous books on the famous deaf-blind woman I swore I would never again write anything even remotely related to her. I’d had enough. I started a project far removed and told everyone in my professional circle about that far-removed project in order to commit myself to it.

Then I reread Anne Sullivan Macy's 1916 letters to Helen Keller. Macy had written them to her former student and then dear friend as she dealt with the illness that she thought would kill her. The letters reveal an introspective woman trying to understand her life. Vacillating between urgency and detachment, she reflected on pleasure, anger, complacency, and amazement. It struck me that her life embodied both contradictions and intensity: physical pain, emotional pain, isolation, friendship, joy, intellect, tenacity, success, and near constant self-doubt. Yet, as she thought about death, as she pondered her life, she took immense joy in the daily life of the Puerto Rican countryside where she was staying.

Though born in 1866, Macy's life dilemmas are surprisingly modern. How does a smart, passionate, introspective woman find love, intellectual satisfaction, economic stability, and friendship? How do any of us do so? She called herself a "badly constructed human being" who "blunder[ed] into life through the back door." As far as I can tell, that is how most of us do it.

As I reconsidered Macy, I became convinced that I, and nearly everyone else, had shortchanged the woman known only as the teacher of Helen Keller. I needed to do better-- to do justice to her and to provide a peephole into Keller and Macy's multifaceted, and often surprising, friendship. Our cultural memory mythologizes and simplifies Macy as a straightforward educational superhero. She deserves more.

A Nation of Cowards: Our Collective Fear of Talking About Race

Today's post is from Thomas N. DeWolf, the author of Inheriting the Trade: A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History, published by Beacon Press. Tom speaks regularly at schools, conferences, and other events around the country. For further information go to: www.inheritingthetrade.com, where you can also read his Inheriting the Trade blog.

It stung in that hotel room in Cape Coast, Ghana when Juanita said (which you can see in the film of our journey, Traces of the Trade) "white people have been cowards."

It stung to hear the words. It stung because they were true; certainly in my case. I just didn't know how to talk about issues of race. I certainly didn't know how to talk about it with people of color.

This week Attorney General Eric Holder, in comments before the Justice Department in regards to Black History Month, said we've been "a nation of cowards," which pretty much includes everyone, when it comes to talking about race relations.

Right and Wrong in American Racial Politics: Is Our Civil Rights Tradition Now Obsolete?

Today's post is from Sherrilyn A. Ifill, a civil rights lawyer and law professor at the University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore, Maryland. Ifill is the author of On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-first Century.

Conservative commentator Bill Bennett famously (and arrogantly) summed up the significance of Barack Obama's win last November as the end of "excuses" for blacks. Although Bennett, as a white right-wing talking head prone to inflammatory racial commentary may have been an inappropriate and certainly ill-timed messenger of this bromide, his statement was not far off from what many black people have been saying among our family members, and in our community centers and churches since November. Days after the election a black analyst in the Washington Post seemed to unconsciously parrot Bennett when she declared that, "African-Americans just entered the 'no-excuses' zone." Black comics joked that blacks could no longer claim that we are being held back by "the man," when with a black man in the White House we technically are "the man." The widely accepted understanding of this sentiment is that traditional black civil rights thinking--which focuses on dismantling systematic racial inequity as the principal means of improving the economic, educational and social condition of African Americans--has been rendered obsolete by Obama's presidency.

But in the months since Obama's election, little attention has been directed at the possibility that Obama's ascension has thrown another traditional black school of thought into potential obsolescence: black conservatism. I've been fascinated by the dearth of statements by black conservatives (and the directionless rambling of the few that have offered some reflections) on the meaning of the Obama presidency. I speak of course of Ward Connerly, Justice Clarence Thomas and Shelby Steele, among others--those who, as Chris Rock bitingly put it years ago, have "devoted their lives to making sure the white man gets a break." I began thinking of Obama's presidency as a blow to black conservatives when I was on the Mall on Inauguration Day. I was surprised that when Justice Thomas appeared on the screen of the jumbotron, taking his place along with other Supreme Court justices on the dais, he elicited nary a boo, a hiss or even a sarcastic comment from the normally vocal liberal crowd around me. It was as though Obama's inauguration was, in and of itself, answer to all of Thomas' tirades against affirmative action.

Because whatever you think of the merits going forward of affirmative action, and other traditional civil rights strategies, there can be no doubt that Obama's presidency would not have been possible without the successes and groundwork laid by those earlier efforts.

Happy Birthday, Darwin

Today's post is from Claire Hope Cummings, an environmental lawyer, journalist, and author of Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds.

Charles Robert Darwin was born 200 years ago today. Thomas Jefferson was in the White House and life was slower and much quieter. The sounds of the natural world could still be heard in daily life.

Now we live with the constant hum of engines and the ringing and beeping of electronics. We may have advanced technologically, but have we progressed in our ideas about the role of science in society? What would Darwin think if he knew the same old arguments over science and religion were still raging?

Over the last few decades, in the United States especially, religious conservatives have successfully denied the fact of evolution and forced science classes in public schools to teach it as a theory and offer creationism as the alternative.

A study by Jon Miller of Michigan State University surveyed 32 European countries and found that "the U.S. is the only country in which [the teaching of evolution] has been politicized." Miller began examining American ideas on evolution in 1985. At that time, only 45 percent of Americans accepted the basic idea of evolution. By 2005, that number had declined to 40 percent. (You can read about the study in this New Scientist article. The original article is available by subscription only here.)

Miller says that religious fundamentalism, poor science education in our schools, and partisan politics have resulted in more Americans denying evolution than ever. Just last month, the Texas Board of Education, the largest and most influential textbook purchaser in the nation, finally dropped its 20 year mandate that science teachers include a critique of evolution in their curriculum. Still, 7 of the 15 seats on the board are held by conservatives who vow to keep pushing their agenda.

Darwin, of course, would recognize this old argument. But he would probably see it as it is, a false dichotomy. His writing gave due respect to both nature and his religious beliefs. He might be surprised that so many of us now, especially those of us who think we have accomplished so much in taming the natural world, still think we need to choose.

Black History Month

Yesterday is gone, but we must hold on to it anyway. Its meaning is the sense of our lives. We must be careful not to fictionalize and romanticize our stories. We must look at the beauty and the failures of our history with equal love and understanding.— Walter Mosley, Black novelist

I learned a history not then written in books but one passed from generation to generation on the steps of moonlit porches and beside dying fires in one-room houses, a history of great-grandparents and of slavery and of the days following slavery; of those who lived still not free, yet who would not let their spirits be enslaved.— Mildred Taylor, Black writer

The specificity of black culture—namely, those features that distinguish black culture from other cultures—lies in both the African and American character of black people’s attempts to sustain their mental sanity and spiritual health, social life and political struggle in the midst of a slaveholding, whitesupremacist civilization that viewed itself as the most enlightened, free, tolerant and democratic experiment in human history.— Cornel West, Black scholar

These quotes are included in "Language is a Place of Struggle": Great Quotes by People of Color edited by Tram Nguyen.