Whose history is it anyway?
August 26th 2009 01:07
Catfish John was a river hobo.
He lived and died on the river bend.
Thinking back, I still remember,
I was proud to be his friend.
-- The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band feat. Alison Krauss, “Catfish John”
There’s lots of reasons to open a blog post with lines from “Catfish John.” It’s a good song, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Alison Krauss performed an excellent, poignant arrangement of it (it’s on the album Will the Circle be Unbroken, Vol. 3, if you’re interested). Though it’s only about two and a half minutes long, it gives you the merest glimpse into the complexity of the Civil War and the unique mix of feelings that Southerners had after it ended.
Another thing I like is Ken Burns’ documentary The Civil War, which I own on DVD. It’s won prestigious awards, and for good reason. It contains eyewitness accounts and photographs that can be seen almost nowhere else. Unfortunately, it tends to toe a certain line on the issue of slavery, which, though very important, was only one of the issues involved. The Civil War, and most other current presentations of that period of America’s history, can give viewers the impression that not only was slavery the central and overwhelming issue of the war, the South and its supporters were all motivated by racism and a desire to make blacks suffer.
Yes, some citizens of the Confederacy were racists. Some were not. Some fell in love with a black person, and have descendants who still live in the same county they did. Some supported secession because they believed strongly in states’ rights, and had no opinion about slavery. Some believed in states’ rights but also hated slavery. Some were members of abolitionist political organizations, or abolitionist guerrilla organizations that broke slaves out of plantations and smuggled them cross-country to the North or the West. Some were black people who joined the army and fought Federal soldiers, both the white and the black ones, for the freedom of their state. In short, they were human beings, and by tarring them all with the same brush, current presentations of the war do a grave injustice to both the racists and the intermarriers, to the states’ rights advocates and the Underground Railroad alike.
The purpose of this post is not to revise history, or to whitewash slavery. Quite the opposite – the Civil War was one of the pivotal moments of America’s 19th-century history, perhaps all of American history. You cannot understand it, you cannot understand America, unless you approach it with open eyes, open mind, and open heart – just as the unnamed Southern girl in “Catfish John" did.
He lived and died on the river bend.
Thinking back, I still remember,
I was proud to be his friend.
-- The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band feat. Alison Krauss, “Catfish John”
There’s lots of reasons to open a blog post with lines from “Catfish John.” It’s a good song, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Alison Krauss performed an excellent, poignant arrangement of it (it’s on the album Will the Circle be Unbroken, Vol. 3, if you’re interested). Though it’s only about two and a half minutes long, it gives you the merest glimpse into the complexity of the Civil War and the unique mix of feelings that Southerners had after it ended.
Another thing I like is Ken Burns’ documentary The Civil War, which I own on DVD. It’s won prestigious awards, and for good reason. It contains eyewitness accounts and photographs that can be seen almost nowhere else. Unfortunately, it tends to toe a certain line on the issue of slavery, which, though very important, was only one of the issues involved. The Civil War, and most other current presentations of that period of America’s history, can give viewers the impression that not only was slavery the central and overwhelming issue of the war, the South and its supporters were all motivated by racism and a desire to make blacks suffer.
Yes, some citizens of the Confederacy were racists. Some were not. Some fell in love with a black person, and have descendants who still live in the same county they did. Some supported secession because they believed strongly in states’ rights, and had no opinion about slavery. Some believed in states’ rights but also hated slavery. Some were members of abolitionist political organizations, or abolitionist guerrilla organizations that broke slaves out of plantations and smuggled them cross-country to the North or the West. Some were black people who joined the army and fought Federal soldiers, both the white and the black ones, for the freedom of their state. In short, they were human beings, and by tarring them all with the same brush, current presentations of the war do a grave injustice to both the racists and the intermarriers, to the states’ rights advocates and the Underground Railroad alike.
The purpose of this post is not to revise history, or to whitewash slavery. Quite the opposite – the Civil War was one of the pivotal moments of America’s 19th-century history, perhaps all of American history. You cannot understand it, you cannot understand America, unless you approach it with open eyes, open mind, and open heart – just as the unnamed Southern girl in “Catfish John" did.
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