The place where the US became American!

Another bridge, Joe?

This is the place where the United States became, well, American.

Places are made sacred by the historical events that happened at those places. There are  hosts of battlefields, for example, where lots of people died, things got blown up. Some people think that wars make lasting changes and are not themselves the result of those economic and social changes that have already occurred. For these people even battlefields are sacred.  Fascinating stuff. 

But if you want to use History for what it is most useful for, answering the question, "how did things turn out the way they did?," then let's ask the question, "How the United States turned into the place it is today, a nation without an ethnicity, religion or doctrine as its defining characteristic?"  Where and how did THAT America come about?   Now THESE would be interesting questions.   Let's explain the American nationality we witness in today's university classrooms, military barracks, shopping malls, restaurants, airports, kindergartens and college dormitories.  When we can explain THIS AMERICA, perhaps we will discover new places that are sacred and new people who helped to found this America.

Before and after the American Revolution the same kinds of people were still running things in These United States. Perhaps the flags changed down at the post office, but "American" in 1800 still meant the people who used to be called "American Colonists" in 1763.   Same with the Civil War. Yes there was an official end to slavery, along with some ambitious new legislation, but the same people were mostly in charge in 1877 who had run things back in 1860, and in 1800.  

You can say the same about the so called "Gilded Age," although more and more of these "Americans" both demanded the right to vote and some of them even got to use their right to vote.  Then, sure, the "Great Wars" changed the world; hooray for our side! But not much happened to change the meaning of the word "American,"  except that the term, especially when used abroad, suddenly meant someone who could afford more stuff and to travel first class. This, of course, was because most of the rest of the world's industrial complexes were in ruins. Back home, the "New South" was only new for the sons and daughters of the people who were the political elites back in 1936. Yes, the people running things after the Great Wars were the same kinds of people running things before, while for everyone else, the "Jim Crow South" was the same old place.

(This was not your neighborhood if you looked like the people in the American history books or the popular magazines of the 1950's.  If you lived in one of these houses, you were considered a different kind of person, not quite "American" but an "almost" American. You lived in a "separate but equal" America.  If the "equal" part of this promise could not be kept, the "separate" part would be enforced anyway.) 

But today you can not say what an American looks like or what kind of accent an American speaks with, or how an American worships or does not worship. This is because the meaning of the word American expanded during the mid-1960's to include more people who had already been American all along. Our vocabulary changed to fit our situation.   Once again, the explanation for the text is in the context, making this a problem for Philosophy as well as History.  If you want to understand this metamorphosis in American culture, you must study the changes in the meaning of words. 

What caused the meaning of the word "American" to expand? 

It's a long and encouraging story. And like all true and worthwhile stories, demarcating the beginning  is nearly impossible.  There are lots of small springs and streams leading to this river. Let's just say, "Once upon a time there were some very courageous people who decided to bring about important changes, so they became educators..."  Yes, that is a good way to begin the story.

Specifically, let's start with Tuskegee, because most successful cultural revolutions happen in classrooms. 

Here I am at the president's house, "The Oaks," at Tuskegee, one of the many places where classrooms enabled the transfer of  knowledge and talent, certainly;  but more important to revolutionary activity, courage and self respect were seeded into a next generation here.  And Tuskegee is still at it today!

Places like Tuskegee, Howard, Oberlin, Fisk, Penn State University,  and many other schools throughout the country were generating a more demanding next generation of graduates, less likely to accept the rigid confines of the "Status quo."  And they are still generating these graduates today.  If you have not already guessed, it's all about Students!

 So the early years of the change in the meaning of the word "American" will require many trips and schools and bridges.  But this time, I am fast forwarding to that moment when the word "American" grew into something much bigger and more complex, all at once.   

Much of the Selma part of the Civil Rights Movement was planned and initiated from this little Church, in South-Central Alabama.   You might say Brown Chapel AME Church is where people finally decided that enough was enough; to vote with their feet if they were denied access to the booth!

When on Sunday, March 7, 1965, members of the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee ("SNCC") and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference ("SCLC")  led hundreds of people from this little church to do something that is specifically encouraged by the founding documents of the United States (to peacefully assemble to petition their government), these marchers were told that these rights did not count for people who had their physical characteristics. Once again, they were told they were not quite American, and never would be quite American, at least in the legal opinion of their state, Alabama.  But then these marchers would prove that they were, in fact, American, that the problem was not their problem but that many people in the United States were not yet working with an accurate definition of the word American. The short term result, March 7, 1965, came to be known as "Bloody Sunday." This event helped to fix these national syntax errors known as "segregation" and "legally sanctioned discrimination."

Approaching the Edmund Pettus Bridge from Selma

"Can't see where this all might be  heading quite yet."

"So far so good." 

                     All together now, "We Shall Overcome. We Shall Overcome. We Shall Over..."

You can go forward, go back, or jump into the Alabama River. 

  

And this is the spot.  Right here, at the end of the guard rails, the word "American" changed. 

The longer term result:  something that happened over the next few days, months, and perhaps for some hold outs it even took years, was that the meaning of the word "American" changed quite dramatically. Why?  Because when Americans watched these peaceful marchers being beaten and tear gassed by uniformed police who were "only following orders" from a lawfully elected Governor, who was "only carrying out" the legal State policy of segregation, Americans realized two things as they watched these events on the evening news:

First, they realized that this bothered them; something about Bloody Sunday made them feel uncomfortable.
Then more slowly, Americans realized the reasons this report bothered them.  These were Americans being tear gassed. These were Americans being beaten. These were Americans being denied their American rights. And once America realized that these were Americans, we found that we had no rational alternative to protecting all Americans'civil rights, if only for the simple and selfish reason that each of our rights depends on our recognition of individual rights for others.

Because rights do not exist "out there" in some verifiable equation or archive.  They can not be proven or calculated or determined through some scientific experiment. They exist as ideas, as the collective habit and shared understanding of a society. Rights are a deal we negotiate, re-negotiate, and grow to think of as "real."  All of our rights depend on our collective willingness to acknowledge the rights of others. Our rights derive from the courage and self respect of people like John Lewis and Hosea Williams who led the march on Bloody Sunday, people who came before us and who demanded rights. And our rights, since they are ideas we "just made up" can also be taken away or forgotten if we do not continue to demand them for ourselves, and more important, respect them for those among us who are different in some way.