Re-membering Slavery in the Arkansas Legislature

Mike Carter of Arkansasbusiness.com reports that the Arkansas House Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs rejected a standard symbolic resolution congratulating Barack Obama on his historic victory this morning. By a vote of 11-6, the committee failed to recommend HR1003 by Rep. Stephanie Flowers, D-Pine Bluff…after some Republican law makers (Rep. Dan Greenburg, R-Little Rock, and Rep. Ed Garner, R-Maumelle) took issue with language describing “the United States as a nation founded by slaveowners.”

"The Old South"--a depiction of freemen in northwest Arkansas.

The debate centered on competing historical viewpoints. Flowers argued that the language was not meant to be offensive, and that anyone who found it so didn’t have a clear understanding of the history of the nation and the role slavery played.

Greenburg and Garner countered that while slavery was a terrible part of the country’s history, to suggest that all the founding fathers were slaveowners and that the country was founded on the institution of slavery, while ignoring those who fought slavery from the beginning, was not accurate and potentially divisive.

As both a Southerner and historian I think there is no denying that most of the Founding Fathers were, in fact, slave holders and that this great nation was founded and built using a large amount of slave labor…The struggle over slavery’s memory has been almost as intense as the struggle over slavery itself. If you’d like to check out the trajectory of “re-membering slavery” check out “Slavery as Memory and History” by Ira Berlin on the Library of Congress website.

Capitol Round-up: Resolution Congratulating Obama Rejected in Committee

This would be a great example of why we need to continue to teach Arkansas history in public schools.

The Obama-Arkansas Connection

Below is an article by Joy Russell of the Madison County Genealogical & Historical Society. It appeared in the Friday, February 15th, 2008 issue of the Madison County Record.

The current national newscasts are filled with the names of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the top two Democratic candidates for President of the United States of America. The Clintons have been well known to Arkansas residents since the mid-1970’s with Hillary Clinton serving as Arkansas’ First Lady from 1979 to 1992 when her husband, Bill, was Governor of the State. The Clintons were married in Fayetteville on Oct. 11, 1975, and their daughter, Chelsea, was born in Little Rock on Feb. 27, 1980.

However, Obama also has roots that run deep in Northwest Arkansas. Obama’s great-great-great-great-great grandparents were Nathaniel and Sarah (Ray) Bunch, who came to Arkansas about 1840 and settled near Dinsmore, about three miles south of Dry Fork. The community of Dinsmore is in the extreme northwest corner of Newton County and is only about a half-mile from both the Carroll and Madison County lines.

Nathaniel Bunch was born on April 23, 1793, in Virginia and served in the War of 1812 under General Andrew Jackson. Family legends say he took part in the Battle of New Orleans. Soldiers who served in the War of 1812 were given “land bounty certificates,” which entitled them to claim 80 acres of land from the government, and it is believed that Nathaniel Bunch used his land bounty certificate to claim the land that he settled in Arkansas.

Anna Bunch, born in 1814, was the daughter of Nathaniel and Sarah. She married Samuel Thompson Allred in Tennessee and they moved their family to Newton County, Arkansas, about 1845. They were the great-great-great-great grandparents of Barack Obama. Nathaniel and Sarah Bunch, Samuel and Anna (Bunch) Allred, and Samuel’s parents, John and Phoebe (Thompson) Allred, are all buried at Liberty Cemetery near where the Bunch family settled at Dinsmore. There are many graves of the Bunch and Allred families in this cemetery, most of whom are relatives of Barack Obama.

Frances A. Allred, daughter of Samuel and Anna, was born in 1834 and married Joseph Samuel Wright. On Aug. 11, 1869, Margaret Bell Wright was born to Frances and Joseph. Margaret married Thomas C. McCurry in Chautaugua County, Kansas, on March 13, 1885. Margaret and Thomas McCurry were the great-great grandparents of Obama, and their daughter, Leona McCurry, married Rolla Charles Payne in 1922. Both Leona and Rolla were born in Kansas, lived there, and are
buried there.

Obama’s grandmother, Madelyn Lee Payne, was born to Leona and Rolla in October 1922, and married Stanley Armour Dunham in 1940. Their daughter, Shirley Ann Dunham, married Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., in 1960 but they were divorced in 1963.

Their son, Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., was born on Aug. 4, 1961, and is now an Illinois senator vying for the U.S. Presidency. Barack Obama still has many cousins in this area, including the Bunch, Holt, Combs, Hargis, Wright, and Stamps families. Further information on the genealogy of Barack Obama can be found at the Madison County Genealogical and Historical Society.

The Huckster

David Sixbey and James Willis (both former SAU history faculty–one I drink coffee with, the other I shoot pool with…depending on the time of the day), alerted me to the appearance of a letter of Tom Forgey’s (yet another retired SAU history faculty member..he’s also a former Arkansas lawmaker and Deputy Sheriff) in the most recent issue of Arkansas Times. It made me smile, so I thought I would pass it along…

The Huckster

After listening to Bro. Huckabee’s declaration that he is not running for vice president because he always runs “for the gold, and not the silver” I am reminded of his race for lieutenant governor (Silver? Bronze? )

As an opportunist he prevailed, barely. And the rest is history.

If the Republicans are goofy enough to try an unnatural coupling of the Bro. with Giuliani (a New York-Arkansas axis) they ought to look at what happened in 1928 when the Democrats tried that with Al Smith (New York) and Joe T. Robinson Arkansas.)

The Bro. should slip quietly into retirement, oiling his arsenal of guns — a Weatherby rifle, a Browning shotgun, a Barelli duck gun and his most beloved, a rusty 20-gauge shotgun (guess which one he paid for).

Tom Forgey
Magnolia

see the original at:

http://www.arktimes.com/Articles/ArticleViewer.aspx?ArticleID=1f8ba15c-dba7-4954-ab84-4551ae7b7db9

Henry Rollins for President…no…really.

That’s probably the last thing I thought I’d say…and then I heard an interview with Henry yesterday on Air America’s Ring of Fire.

Now…I’m a child of the 1970s and a teenager of the 1980s…So I’ve actually been a fan of Rollins for years…Of course, he was in one incarnation of the hardcore punk band Black Flag from 1981-1986, and I really got into The Rollins Band (thanks to friend and mentor Shawn Chapman) in college at Memphis State University …I loved Rollins’ all-or-nothing take on punk sensibility…Does anybody else remember the video to Liar off of the mid-1990s Weight album?

Then I lost track of Henry…I didn’t really follow his books, spoken word stuff or even his film show on IFC (although I was aware that it existed)…hey, I was in graduate school…I was busy.

Then yesterday came…Mike Papantonio interviewed Rollins and he gave very smart answers with a post-punk attitude…he was angry, he was righteous….but he was also well reasoned, smart and not prone to the Ann Coulter/Rush Limbaugh/Sam Sedar/Randi Rhodes name-calling silliness (that’s right…I’m calling out both righties and lefties)…he was swinging hard and swinging carefully. He was exactly the kind of person the left needs…I don’t see Henry rolling over as the Democratic leadership has been doing in congress since they took the speakership…

Rollins is a patriot….not the status qou, conforming kind of patriot that politicians and media anchors have been talking about since 9/11…Rolllins is a patriot in the mold of Patrick Henry or Samuel Adams…passionate, smart, eloquent and thinking outside the box while breathing fire at the opposition.

Henry Rollins for President…Oi!

–

Archaeologists for Social Justice…

Upon returning from the SAA meetings in Austin, Texas, I was talking on the phone with James Davidson, one of my closest colleagues. We were talking about how different the SAAs feel from other meetings–such as the Society for Historical Archeology meetings or the humongous AAA meetings (for the non-anthropologists out there, that’s the American Anthropological Association, not the American Automotive Association…we can unpack your dominant discourse, but we cannot change your tire).

What’s the difference between the conferences?..well, it might best be explained with a story…James and I were talking about overhearing a conversation between prehistoric archaeologists who were saying “historical archeology was o.k…..but all that politics seems to get in the way of the archeology.”…Wow…

The mandate for political engagement is one thing that I love about what I do…yes, sometimes I lament that I could move faster if I did not need to arrive at some consensus between the various elements in the descendant communities that I deal with…and, yes, sometimes it can be scary knowing you are about to make a political stand that will make you very unpopular with a large part of your audience…but overall, the idea of archaeologists for social justice is something that makes archaeology “a good thing to do”…that takes it beyond just finding cool things in the ground (which is, of course, a selfish pursuit)…

My generation of archaeologists witnessed the transition–NAGPRA and the reverberations of the African Burial Ground project in the early 1990s. Our mentors often took great offense at these developments…my generation was clearly split–either they thought that political responsibility was a long time coming (like James & I did), or they decided to stand with their mentors to protect the power of science to speak as it pleases. That is what James and I were feeling at the SAAs…to play off of the title of a friend‘s SAA symposium…it was the “great divide” of political engagement (she was attempting to address the “great divide” between historical and prehistoric archaeology).

I for one am proud that there is a new generation of archaeologists out there that see our discipline as clearly linked with politics and social justice…They became anthropologists in a post-NAGPRA world and for them it is second nature not only to consider the political implications of their work, but also to consider ways that their work can make a difference in the world…a couple of examples (who are friends and therefore not randomly chosen)…Ed Tennant (Ph.D. candidate at the University of Florida) turned his interest in the history of Chinese labor migration into an interest in worker’s rights and “hidden slavery” around the world…and Carl Carlson-Drexler (Ph.D. student at the College of William and Mary) united his Quaker upbringing with his passion for battlefield archaeology to reinvent conflict archaeology as an explicitly anti-war endeavor…there are many more that I know and could mention…

I see folks like Carl and Ed (and Mary Brennan and Colleen Morgan) as the fulfilment of a prophesy that I heard from Tom Green (co-author of “NAGPRA is Forever“) back in 1996…He said “wait…when the next generation of archaeologists come around, consultation with tribes will be second nature.”…It looks like some of the next generation are taking it one step further.

White/Black America, White/Black Obama

A month or so back I watched Tavis Smiley’s Black State of the Union on CSPAN…I watched Al Sharpton and (the always cool) Cornel West warn Barak Obama that he cannot count on Black America’s vote…he had to demonstrate his loyalty (or his worthiness?) through paying attention to the needs of the African-American community. In short, he was not necessarily “the” African-American candidate (Obama was not at the event in Williamsburg, VA as he was announcing his candidacy in Springfield, Il…Lincoln’s birth place…I’m sure that contributed to some of Sharpton’s tone).

Following that event, media debate about Obama’s “blackness” (or at least “African-American-ness“) ensued. I saw it on CNN, I read about it in The Nation and I heard it on Air America. Obama’s mother is white, his father in Kenyan and (according to Chris Matthews on MSNBC) he thus has “no history of Jim Crow, no history of anger, of slavery.” Top it off with the fact that (according to Senator Joseph Biden) Obama is “articulate and bright and clean” and we magically have a debate about how “white” Obama is…this is, of course, complicated by past discussions about how “black” Bill Clinton was (does this extend to Senator Clinton?)

Air America’s Rachel Maddow pointed out the contradictions on a brief CNN appearance–on one hand Obama has to prove he has broader America’s interests at heart if he is to become a mainstream candidate…on the other hand if he does not pay enough attention to black issues he may alienate African-American voters (as Sharpton warns).

Here I am reminded of Carter Woodson’s discussion of the tensions between black folks who have been educated and “equipped for a life in White America”. . .”he must be both social and bisocial at the same time. While he is a part of the body politic he is in addition to this a member of a particular race… While serving his country he must serve within a special group (Woodson 1933:4). This dilemma seems the same for Obama as it was in 1933 for Woodson (In fact, a recent lecture at SAU by Dr. Walter Kimbrough, President of Philander Smith College, touched upon this tension as well).

First, let’s dispense with the”Obama without history” quote (with all apologies to Eric Wolf). Were Abner Louima or Amadou Diallo (both immigrants and, in the case of the Guinean Diallo, without a history of American racial prejudice) asked for their papers before they were shot and/or tortured by the police? One’s own identity is only a part of the manifestations of American racism. The problem is not with Obama, but with the cultural memories and expectations of Joe Biden Chris Mathews and, perhaps, Al Sharpton.

Patricia Williams takes this point in an unexpected direction when she points out (in The Nation of March 5th) that “at a more complex level…American identify is defined by the experience of the willing diaspora, the break by choice that is the heart of the immigrant myth” and African-Americans, by and large, have been excluded from the “essential page of the American narrative” (p.13). Obama is a black American that can be counted among the willing immigrants.

There are lots of discussions about how Obama will “transcend race”…this is usually read as “transcending blackness”…but Obama must also (as Williams alludes to) “transcend” his whiteness and the increasing narrow expectations and contradiction of what makes a leader and “a black leader.”

XM: No Static At All

Ok…I confess…..I am addicted to XM satellite radio—especially Air America.

My wife bought a cheap XM system for me when I moved to southwest Arkansas because it is basically a radio no man’s land (There is an NPR station in El Dorado and one in Texarkana…so why can I get neither clearly on my radio in Magnolia?…there is, however, a great classic country radio station here–KZHE).

I know I’m going to sound a bit full of my self here, but bear with me….I just want to say that if someone gave James Davidson, Carl Carlson-Drexler, Ed Tennant, and myself a radio program, I think we may be more entertaining than the Young Turks, Al Franken and Randi Rhodes. Don’t get me wrong, I love all of these shows….but I think its clearly time that some radio network took a chance on a “Gonzo Archaeology” program hosted by freaks like us…..After so many years of various graduate schools (I believe that we may have almost fifty years of college between us) we have perfected the art of sitting around a table and bullshitting on random topics, plus we have had years to hone our witty repartee (James, the Hawkeye Pearce of the University of Florida, and I have been doing Marx Bros. material together for almost a decade now).

Come on radio programming executives….give us a chance.

BTW: For those of you too young to get it…the title of this post is a reference to Steele Dan’s song contribution to the FM movie soundtrack….
FM(No Static At All).…I have it on 8-Track (no….really).

The Mute Marine & MST3K?

On October 3rd, SAU was host to An Evening with Col. Oliver North–an event sponsored by Farmers Bank and Trust and the Southern Arkansas University Foundation ($100 to attend). A professional photographer was on hand at a private reception (another $100 to attend) held at Farmers Bank and Trust prior to the dinner to take pictures of attendants with Ol’ Ollie.

In a weird turn of events the next speaker on campus (October 31st) will be Michael J. Nelson who has been selected as the 2006 Emerson-Thomas-Crone lecturer. You might know Mike as Joel’s replacement on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K). Actually, Mike was head writer for the show since its early years and was then asked to also host halfway through the fifth season.

Nelson, along with his side-kick robots Tom Servo and Crow, were forced to endure some of cinema’s most painfully bad “B” movies at the hands of mad scientists. His silhouetted head, and those of the robots, has become one of the most recognizable icons of cult filmdom.

The Mute Marine followed by MST3K?

I can’t help but think it would have been more entertaining if SAU had asked them to come together….Mike sitting in the front row making sarcastic jokes about the speech that Col. North was giving.

Geronimo’s Skull

The Hartford Courant reports today that a journalist has uncovered evidence that members of Yale’s secretive Skull and Bones society may have robbed Geronimo’s grave during World War I and brought the Apache warrior’s skull and other remains back to New Haven.

The plundering of Geronimo’s grave in Fort Sill, OK, has long been rumored, and some sources (but not The Hartford Courant) claim that Prescott Bush (W.’s grandfather) may have been one of the culprits (along with a couple of other Skull and Bones members).

Several years ago, a Skull & Bones member anonymously “leaked” information regarding the society and “The Tomb.” This included documents and photographs. One of the documents detailed Prescott Bush’s graverobbing exploits. One of the photographs was of a skull and bridle on a shelf, next to a framed photograph of Geronimo. Other sources have since come forward and confirmed that Geronimo’s skull is indeed on display in “The Tomb” and considered the “mascot” of this “club” on High Street.

Now a 1918 letter, found deep in Yale University’s archives, suggests there may be some validity to the story. Current Members of Skull and Bones chose not to comment on the legitimacy of the allegations.

How ironic is it that President George H. W. Bush signed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) into law in 1990? Of course as the Skull & Bones are not federally funded (at least not directly) they do not fall under this legislation…

So…for the record…Ishi’s brain has been repatriated, Geronimo’s skull has not.

http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-skullbones0509.artmay09,0,3995631.story
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/rant/geronimoskull.html
http://www.theramp.net/kohr4/geronimo_skull.html
http://www.petitiononline.com/Geronimo/petition.html
http://www.yaleherald.com/article.php?Article=2523

2005 NHPA Hearing Published

You may recall that I did a posting back in December about the proposed changes to the National Historic Preservation Act that would effectively cripple Section 106 archaeology (called “Section 106 In Trouble?…..,” posted Dec., 7th, 2005).

Tom King just passed along the fact that the transcript from last year’s House oversight hearing on the NHPA has been published on line. Check it out…

House Committee on Resources Committee Hearings, 109th Congress, Serial No. 109-7 — The National Historic Preservation Act, April 21, 2005

TEXT 277K

PDF 511K