Bayard Rustin- Activist and American

I’ve always been interested in the civil rights movement and the general movement for social change. As I’ve read books on the people who’ve participated in the fight for equal rights, one name kept popping up who inspired many of these people to become active. Bayard Rustin is not as well known as Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X, yet he played an important part in the middle of the twentieth century in organizing protests for civil rights and for anti war causes, and he helped bring Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence into the mainstream of American progressive thought. His work on behalf of important progressive causes was informed by his Quaker faith, and his activism helped improve American society by tearing down segregation in the South and bringing to the forefront issues of economic justice and world peace.

Bayard Rustin grew up in West Chester, Pennsylvania, under the care of his grandparents, Julia and Janifer Rustin.   It was a loving home, in a small community of African American Quakers.  Bayard was a gifted student and athelete:  Rustin captured West Chester High’s oratory award as a freshman, earned top honor in a schoolwide essay contest, wrote poetry for the school magazine, played leading roles in school plays, was selected in the all county football team, and was part of the mile relay team that won a state championship.  In college, he sang in the choir and was known as a talented tenor.  Yet in spite of his talent, he still had to struggle against the racism of the times.  And it was this combination of his Quaker faith and his experience with racism that lead him to a life of social activism.

Rustin’s road to activism first took hold when he briefly was a member of the American Communist Party in the late 1930s.  He quit in 1941 because of its autocratic nature and its subservience to the Soviet Union, but he learned valuable lessons about organizing and tactics for social change from the group.  During World War II, Bayard became deeply involved in the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a Christian pacifist organization, and learned from A.J. Muste of Mohandas Gandhi and his philosphy of nonviolence.   They formed the group, Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), to apply Gandhi’s nonviolent strategies for the cause of racial justice.  Rustin refused induction in 1944, and went to jail for a year. When he was released, he continued in his activism.

During the Cold War era, Bayard Rustin was constantly harassed by the FBI, the local police, conservative journalists, State Department officials, and segregationists. Rustin represented many things that the more conservative American society was biased against: he was African American; he was a radical leftist; and most of all, he was a gay man. In his book, Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin, John D’ Emilio wrote:

“As I dug through the evidence and interviewed those who knew him, it became abundantly clear that his sexuality- or, more accurately, the stigma that American scoiety attached to his sexual desires- made him forever vulnerable. Again and again, Rustin found his aspirations blocked, his talents contained, and his influence marginalized. Yes, he also found ways to carve out a significant role in the movements he held dear. But he had to find ways to do this so that unpredictable eruptions of homophobia might not harm these causes.”

In spite of these roadblocks, Rustin had a great influence among the activists of the 1950s and 1960s. He was a member of the War Resisters League and he picketed against nuclear weapons with Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker. Rustin’s tactics of nonviolence was taught to activists as diverse as Grace Paley, Stokely Carmichael, and Martin Luther King Jr. He gave Malcolm X opportunities to debate him at college campuses. Most famous of all, Rustin organized the March on Washington in 1963 where Martin Luther King Jr. made his “I Have A Dream” speech.

One of the most interesting things about Rustin for me was an article that he wrote that was published on February 1965 in Commentary magazine. In this article, Rustin felt that as the Civil Rights movement shifted its sights from political rights to economic and social rights, activists had to change their tactics. He felt that the militant street actions that had focused the nations attention to the injustices of segregation would be less effective in the fight for economic equality since these economic disparities were deeply embedded in the structure of the economic system. Since African Americans only made up ten percent of the population at that time, Rustin felt that African Americans needed to create alliances with liberal and trade union organizations to enact progressive legislation to deal with structural economic problems in American society. As he wrote in Commentary magazine:

“The future of the Negro struggle depends on whether the contradictions of this society can be resolved in a coalition of progressive forces which becomes the effective political majority in the United States. I speak of a coaliton… of Negroes, trade unionists, liberal and religious groups… The labor movement, despite its obvious faults, has been the largest single organized force in this country pushing for progressive social legislation.”

Though many of his more radical and activist friends, like Stokely Carmichael and James Farmer, expressed disappointment in Rustin’s analysis, I personally think Rustin was right. As Rustin became more alienated from the more radical turn of the movement in the late 1960s, he saw the Left begin to splinter off and the Democratic Party begin to lose it’s reformist edge. The coalition that Rustin referred to did make its appearance at times, in Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition in the 1980s. Obama is attempting to gather such a coalition right now in his run for the Presidency. I think it’s only through such a coalition that progressive legislation can occur.

I only recently discovered Bayard Rustin when I read that he was a great influence on Grace Paley and her activism. The more that I’ve read about him, the more I admire him. As I’ve read about the heroic struggles that he’s fought for civil rights and peace and I read about the many people that he has influences, I find it ashame that not more people know him. His Christian faith that he inherited from his Quaker community helped mold him into a great activist and American. In the book, Bayard Rustin: Troubles I’ve Seen, Jervis Anderson quoted Rustin as saying:

“My activism did not spring from being black. Rather, it is rooted fundamentally in my Quaker upbringing and the values instilled in me by the grandparents who reared me. Those values were based on the concept of a sinfle human family and the belief that all members of that family are equal. The racial injustice that was present in this country during my youth was a challenge to my belief in the oneness of the human family. It demanded my involvement in the struggle to achieve interracial democracy; but it is very likely that I would have been involved had I been a white person with the same philosophy. I worked side-by-side with many white people who held these values, some of whom gave as much, if not more, to the struggle than myself.”

Article on Angelo Lopez in the Sunnyvale Sun

On June 25, 2008, the Sunnyvale Sun and the Cupertino Courier featured an article on Angelo Lopez and his various artistic pursuits.  Reprinted below is the article from the link http://www.mercurynews.com/cupertino/ci_9694670?nclick_check=1.

Drawing attention

Illustrator wants to bring his art work to a broader audience

By Matt Wilson
Cupertino Courier

Article Launched: 06/25/2008 07:51:26 PM PDT

 

When world events or the frustrations of politics take hold, Americans often vent through protesting, joining an activist organization or making their statements in the voting booth.Angelo Lopez lets his cartoons do the talking for him.

Lopez lives in a personal Louvre with his wife Lisa. Cartoons, paintings and drawings he has done over the years cover the walls, constant reminders of his lifelong passion for his craft. When he’s not working at the Sunnyvale Library, he lives the artist’s life: doodling ideas in his sketchbook, working on a new painting, or fine-tuning a political cartoon to be published later in the week.

It is a therapeutic and sometimes lucrative outlet for the Sunnyvale resident.

“I’ve wanted to be an artist all my life. Since I was a child I’ve drawn on any scrap of paper I could get a hold of,” says Lopez.

His cartoons are currently published in Boston-based Z Magazine and in the Tri-City Voice, a weekly newspaper that covers Fremont, Hayward, Milpitas, Sunol and Union City. Lopez also has a creative side gig as the artist on the weekly programs for his church. Each week he draws humorous cartoons that encapsulate the broad theme of the week’s sermon at St. Thomas Episcopal Church.

His cartoons are the products of the symbolism and hidden meanings he sees in life and everyday events.

One cartoon features far-left Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich being tied to a boulder and ready to be dropped in shark-infested waters by a few Tony Soprano mafia types. These large men represent MSNBC executives, and this was Lopez’s twist on the cable news network uninviting Kucinich from a January debate between clear front-runners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Lopez prefers political cartoons with messages that are broader in scope, as he believes it says something more substantial. He describes his style as one that is succinct, specific and humorous.

“He has a great sense of humor,” said Diana Yu Johnson, president of the Sunnyvale Art Club. “His cartoons make him stand out from the rest.”

Timeliness, Lopez feels, also hurts his ability to sell his work because cartoons have a short shelf life.

Lopez’s ideas come about in a flash from something he sees or from doodling in a sketchbook. Sometimes these flashes of inspiration come from unlikely sources.

“I read the news a lot, but a lot of my ideas come from letters to the editor because there’s a lot of passion that comes out. When you’re doing cartoons, it’s good to work with a strong point of view.”

Lopez is particularly fond of his Uncle Sam caricature. Lopez feels his take on the American symbol is unique to the cartooning landscape.

“I like my Uncle Sam to be a more average, befuddled kind of guy. Other cartoonists try to make him out to be a sort of evil imperialist out to do bad things, but I see him as an average American Joe who isn’t in control. Things are just happening to him.”

An April 2008 issue of Z Magazine used one of his Uncle Sam caricatures on the cover. The cartoon featured Sam, sitting with his trademark hat out, panhandling for money. Documents with current government expenditures written on them are held out as Sam’s dog howls in frustration.

“It’s a sentimental favorite,” Lopez says.

After graduating from San Jose State University in 1992, Lopez found immediate interest in his skills. He illustrated three children’s books throughout the 1990s for small publishers. While the books were not immensely successful, the experience made Lopez appreciate the simplicity of the single-panel cartoons he specializes in.

“You want the cartoon to catch their attention instantly. I want them to quickly get the point, and they either laugh or they don’t.”

Lopez identifies himself as politically liberal, but prefers to see his cartoons as a way of championing the little guy on issues such as the economy rather than pushing a left or right political agenda.

“I want to make sure the little guy doesn’t get hurt along the boom and bust cycles. It’s why Uncle Sam is portrayed as sort of an average Joe,” he says.

Lopez draws about three or four cartoons a week that go for publication. Each cartoon takes a day to draw and then another day to ink. Two cartoons are submitted to the Tri-City Voice, and one each for Z Magazine and his church.

His art and influence can be found around the Santa Clara Valley. Last year he had a one-man show at Gallery Saratoga that featured dozens of his works. Lopez has painted murals for Lester Shields Elementary School in San Jose, the Berryessa branch of the San Jose Public Library, and the Sunnyvale Public Library. His illustrations have been published in South Bay Accent magazine, Tikkun magazine and the Palo Alto Daily.

Lopez, along with other members of the Sunnyvale Art Club, often does demonstrations on technique and holds contests in the community. The club meets every third Thursday of the month and provides Lopez with a pool of like-minded artists to network with.

“I wanted to be in a place with lots of artists and creativity,” he says. “I used to go to parties with engineers, and the things they would talk about would zoom over my head.”

The cartoonist still dreams of expanding upon his illustrating experiences and becoming a full-time, children’s book illustrator.

“It’s one of the few things I’m really good at,” he says. “If I could earn enough money to do this, I would do it forever.”

George Washington and the Freeing of His Slaves

When I used to think of George Washington, I usually thought of the guy whose picture was on the one dollar bill. Most everyone else I know thinks of Washington in the same way, which is sort of sad. In the past few years, I’ve read more about George Washington and have grown to admire him. During his lifetime, he was revered by his countrymen for his courage in leading the Continental Army to victory against the most powerful military in the world, and he drew even greater praise for his willingness to give up power and respect the spirit of republican government of the early United States. He was a good man and a wise leader, and nothing shows Washington’s character more than his evolving views towards slavery. Though he started out having the same views on race as his fellow Southern plantation owners, Washington’s views evolved to the point where he was a strong voice against slavery and wished that some means for the country to rid itself of the institution.

At the start of the Revolutionary War, Washington had over 200 slaves and he held conventional views of race for the time. He found himself, though, in charge of a multi-racial army that included over 5,000 free African Americans, and necessity forced Washington to accept the services of all his troops. In 1781, Baron Von Closen visited the Continental Army and noted that one our of every four Continental soldier was African American. The valor of these African Americans in times of battle began a slow change in Washington’s views on race. In the assault that eventually ended the war, Washington handpicked the Rhode Island unit, which happened to be 75 percent black, to carry out the most important military assignment. Washington’s friend, Lafayette, was full of enthusiasm of the Revolutionary spirit and urged Washington to enact emancipation plans in the spirit of the American Revolution.  In March, 1776, Washington met the African American poet, Phillis Wheatley, whose poems he admired.  At the war’s end, George Washington was firmly favoring of someone coming up with some sort of plan to gradually emancipate slaves.

Washington’s slow change in attitude on race was not perfect.  Washington was against a Quaker petition that was sponsored by Benjamin Franklin to ask the Congress to debate for emancipation plans because of fears of Southern secession.  He signed the Fugitive Slave Act as President in 1793.  In 1796, when one of his slaves, Oona Judge, escaped to New York, Washington tried discreetly to lure her back to his plantation.    Henry Wiencek, in his book, Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America, notes that Washington was contemplating the freeing of his slaves during his Presidency, but backed away from those plans.  Wiencek felt this was a great missed opportunity for Washington and the nation.  Washington was the one person with the prestige and respect to possibly persuade the South to accept gradual emancipation plans.  As Joseph Ellis wrote in his book, Founding Brothers:

“First, the arguments of the Deep South were unanswerable because there was sufficient truth in the fatalistic diagnosis to persuade  other members of the House that the slavery problem was intractable;  and second, whatever  shred of possibility still existed to take concerted action against slavery ws overwhelmed by the secessionist threat from South Carolina and Georgia, since there would be no national solution to the slavery problem if there were no nation at hand to implement a solution.  Perhaps, as some historians have argued, South Carolina and Georgia were bluffing.  But the most salient historical fact cannot be avoided:  No one stepped forward to call their bluff.”

George Washington wrote his will in secret in July 1799, to conceal his emancipation plans from the disapproval of his family. Henry Wiecker notes in his book that Washington owned only 123 of the 316 slaves in Mount Vernon. The rest were Martha’s slaves. He put in his will that the slaves that he owned would be freed upon the death of Martha Washington, as a way to appeal to Martha to follow his lead and emancipate her own slaves. The old and the infirm freed slaves would be taken care of until death by their heirs. The freed children would be bound by the Court until they reached 25 years of age, and they would be taught to read and write and be brought up to some useful occupation. To ensure that the executors of the will would not try to find some way to evade his wishes to free the slaves, Washington wrote:

“…and I do hereby expressly forbid the Sale, or transportation out of the said Commonwealth, of any Slave I may die possessed of, under any pretence whatsoever. And I do moreover most pointedly, and most solenmly enjoin it upon my Executors hereafter named, or the Survivors of them, to see that this clause respecting Slaves, and every part thereof be religiously fulfilled at the Epoch at which it is directed to take place; without evasion, neglect or delay…”

For me, it’s important how Americans view George Washington.   He was viewed since his lifetime as the Father of our nation, and in some sense that is an appropriate title.  Historians have swung the spectrum in evaluating him, putting him on a pedestal in one extreme and tearing him down in the other extreme.  Washington was a human filled with the same mixture of virtues and flaws as we all have, one filled with the same contradictions as our nation.  Washington grew in his racial attititudes and was against slavery, yet it is true that he didn’t do enough to use his stature to persuade the South to adopt a gradual abolition plan. Yet he achieved great things in leading our nation to its founding, and he earned the respect and adulation of his countrymen.  It may seem hard nowadays to picture someone with the stature that Washington once had with our nation.  Roger Wilkins, in his wonderful book Jefferson’s Pillow, compared Washington to a leader today with the same stature in his country.    He wrote:

“Those who think Washington elusive, as I once did, and find his greatness heard to define might look to a contemporary figure whose virtues seem very similar to Washington’s. In 1990, shortly after he was released from prison, Nelson mandela troued the United States to raise both consciousness and cash for the African National Congress and the freedom struggle in South Africa. i was fortunate enough to be asked by his host, the entertaier Harry Belafonte, to coordinate that trip, so I had the opportunity to be with Mandela for ten days as he traveled across America…

Like Washington, Mandela led through character, not through eloquence; like him, he had a strong ego on which he kept a firm grip. Mandela’s self-reliance and rock-hard intertiry were likewise formed in adversity, outside the normal fountains of privilege that so often bear people up to positions of critical prominence and power. Like Washington, Madela was able to curb his normal human need for self-aggrandizement in order to devote himself to a larger cause. And like Washington, Mandela, in choosing to subordinate his ego to serve his country, earned immortality.”

Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln and America’s Capacity to Grow

On this 4th of July weekend, I’d like to actually post a speech that Frederick Douglass gave about Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1876. I think it’s in keeping with our election year and in keeping with one of the roles of a true patriot: to help our nation live up to its highest ideals. It is about the faith of Douglass and Lincoln in America’s capacity to change for the better. First an excerpt from the book Douglass and Lincoln : how a revolutionary black leader and a reluctant liberator struggled to end slavery and save the Union by Paul Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick:

“In the most inciscive estimation of Lincoln that Douglass was ever to make, the speaker reminded his audience that at the time of the beginning of the war, abolitionists (including Douglass) had seen him as ‘tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent,’ but when Douglass measured him against the rest of the coutnry at the time, Lincoln was ’swift, zealous, radical, and determined.’ Douglass now fully understood what Lincoln had gone through, balancing public opinion and justice. In the end, Douglass’s people had come to love this president, and for a simple reason: ‘We came to the conclusion that the hour and the man of our redemption has somehow met in the person of Abraham Lincoln.’

This vital address was skilled and subtle in what it conveyed. Douglass, in emphasizing Lincoln’s racist attitudes, actions, and propensities, did not do in a tone of accusation, blame, or even regret. In the end, Douglass wanted the crowd to know that Lincoln was, in fact, not different from them; even in his evident greatness, he was one of them, sharing the limited views and blindness born of the nation’s burden of race- and yet he had done marvelous acts to move this country forward and to give justice to African-Americans. They could do the same.

Everyone in the crowd knew that Lincoln had invited Douglass to the White House to speak with him. He had not given Douglass all he wanted, or all his people deserved, but he had listened. He even did Douglass the courtesy to disagree, to gently argue, to treat him simply as a man. Douglass told white America that their instinctual prejudices were forgivable if their actions reflected an openness to listen and to grow, as Lincoln did. W.E.B. DuBois took the same meaning from Lincoln’s life that this speech reflects: ‘I love him not because he was perfect, but because he was not and yet triumphed… The world is full of folk whose taste was educated in the gutter. The world is full of people born hating and despising their fellows. To these I love to say: See this man. He was one of you and yet became Abraham Lincoln.’”

 

Here is Frederick Douglass’s speech about Abraham Lincoln that he delivered at the Unveiling of the Freedmen’s Monument in Memory of Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln Park, Washington, D.C. on April 14, 1876.

“Friends and Fellow-Citizens: I warmly congratulate you upon the highly interesting object which has caused you to assemble in such numbers and spirit as you have today. This occasion is in some respects remarkable. Wise and thoughtful men of our race, who shall come after us, and study the lesson of our history in the United States; who shall survey the long and dreary spaces over which we have traveled; who shall count the links in the great chain of events by which we have reached our present position, will make a note of this occasion; they will think of it and speak of it with a sense of manly pride and complacency.

I congratulate you, also, upon the very favorable circumstances in which we meet today. They are high, inspiring, and uncommon. They lend grace, glory, and significance to the object for which we have met. Nowhere else in this great country, with its uncounted towns and cities, unlimited wealth, and immeasurable territory extending from sea to sea, could conditions be found more favorable to the success of this occasion than here.

We stand today at the national center to perform something like a national act–an act which is to go into history; and we are here where every pulsation of the national heart can be heard, felt, and reciprocated. A thousand wires, fed with thought and winged with lightning, put us in instantaneous communication with the loyal and true men all over the country.

Few facts could better illustrate the vast and wonderful change which has taken place in our condition as a people than the fact of our assembling here for the purpose we have today. Harmless, beautiful, proper, and praiseworthy as this demonstration is, I cannot forget that no such demonstration would have been tolerated here twenty years ago. The spirit of slavery and barbarism, which still lingers to blight and destroy in some dark and distant parts of our country, would have made our assembling here the signal and excuse for opening upon us all the flood-gates of wrath and violence. That we are here in peace today is a compliment and a credit to American civilization, and a prophecy of still greater national enlightenment and progress in the future. I refer to the past not in malice, for this is no day for malice; but simply to place more distinctly in front the gratifying and glorious change which has come both to our white fellow-citizens and ourselves, and to congratulate all upon the contrast between now and then; the new dispensation of freedom with its thousand blessings to both races, and the old dispensation of slavery with its ten thousand evils to both races–white and black. In view, then, of the past, the present, and the future, with the long and dark history of our bondage behind us, and with liberty, progress, and enlightenment before us, I again congratulate you upon this auspicious day and hour.

Friends and fellow-citizens, the story of our presence here is soon and easily told. We are here in the District of Columbia, here in the city of Washington, the most luminous point of American territory; a city recently transformed and made beautiful in its body and in its spirit; we are here in the place where the ablest and best men of the country are sent to devise the policy, enact the laws, and shape the destiny of the Republic; we are here, with the stately pillars and majestic dome of the Capitol of the nation looking down upon us; we are here, with the broad earth freshly adorned with the foliage and flowers of spring for our church, and all races, colors, and conditions of men for our congregation–in a word, we are here to express, as best we may, by appropriate forms and ceremonies, our grateful sense of the vast, high, and preeminent services rendered to ourselves, to our race, to our country, and to the whole world by Abraham Lincoln.

The sentiment that brings us here today is one of the noblest that can stir and thrill the human heart. It has crowned and made glorious the high places of all civilized nations with the grandest and most enduring works of art, designed to illustrate the characters and perpetuate the memories of great public men. It is the sentiment which from year to year adorns with fragrant and beautiful flowers the graves of our loyal, brave, and patriotic soldiers who fell in defense of the Union and liberty. It is the sentiment of gratitude and appreciation, which often, in the presence of many who hear me, has filled yonder heights of Arlington with the eloquence of eulogy and the sublime enthusiasm of poetry and song; a sentiment which can never die while the Republic lives.

For the first time in the history of our people, and in the history of the whole American people, we join in this high worship, and march conspicuously in the line of this time-honored custom. First things are always interesting, and this is one of our first things. It is the first time that, in this form and manner, we have sought to do honor to an American great man, however deserving and ilustrious. I commend the fact to notice; let it be told in every part of the Republic; let men of all parties and opinions hear it; let those who despise us, not less than those who respect us, know that now and here, in the spirit of liberty, loyalty, and gratitude, let it be known everywhere, and by everybody who takes an interest in human progress and in the amelioration of the condition of mankind, that, in the presence and with the approval of the members of the American House of Representatives, reflecting the general sentiment of the country; that in the presence of that august body, the American Senate, representing the highest intelligence and the calmest judgment of the country; in the presence of the Supreme Court and Chief-Justice of the United States, to whose decisions we all patriotically bow; in the presence and under the steady eye of the honored and trusted Cabinet, we, the colored people, newly emancipated and rejoicing in our blood-bought freedom, near the close of the first century in the life of this Republic, have now and here unveiled, set apart, and dedicated a figure of which the men of this generation may read, and those of after-coming generations may read, something of the exalted character and great works of Abraham Lincoln, the first martyr President of the United States.

Fellow-citizens, in what we have said and done today, and in what we may say and do hereafter, we disclaim everything like arrogance and assumption. We claim for ourselves no superior devotion to the character, history, and memory of the illustrious name whose monument we have here dedicated today. We fully comprehend the relation of Abraham Lincoln both to ourselves and to the white people of the United States. Truth is proper and beautiful at all times and in all places, and it is never more proper and beautiful in any case than when speaking of a great public man whose example is likely to be commended for honor and imitation long after his departure to the solemn shades, the silent continents of eternity. It must be admitted, truth compels me to admit, even here in the presence of the monument we have erected to his memory, Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our man or our model. In his interests, in his associations, in his habits of thought, and in his prejudices, he was a white man.

He was preeminently the white man’s President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men. He was ready and willing at any time during the first years of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice the rights of humanity in the colored people to promote the welfare of the white people of this country. In all his education and feeling he was an American of the Americans. He came into the Presidential chair upon one principle alone, namely, opposition to the extension of slavery. His arguments in furtherance of this policy had their motive and mainspring in his patriotic devotion to the interests of his own race. To protect, defend, and perpetuate slavery in the states where it existed Abraham Lincoln was not less ready than any other President to draw the sword of the nation. He was ready to execute all the supposed guarantees of the United States Constitution in favor of the slave system anywhere inside the slave states. He was willing to pursue, recapture, and send back the fugitive slave to his master, and to suppress a slave rising for liberty, though his guilty master were already in arms against the Government. The race to which we belong were not the special objects of his consideration. Knowing this, I concede to you, my white fellow-citizens, a pre-eminence in this worship at once full and supreme. First, midst, and last, you and yours were the objects of his deepest affection and his most earnest solicitude. You are the children of Abraham Lincoln. We are at best only his step-children; children by adoption, children by forces of circumstances and necessity. To you it especially belongs to sound his praises, to preserve and perpetuate his memory, to multiply his statues, to hang his pictures high upon your walls, and commend his example, for to you he was a great and glorious friend and benefactor. Instead of supplanting you at his altar, we would exhort you to build high his monuments; let them be of the most costly material, of the most cunning workmanship; let their forms be symmetrical, beautiful, and perfect, let their bases be upon solid rocks, and their summits lean against the unchanging blue, overhanging sky, and let them endure forever! But while in the abundance of your wealth, and in the fullness of your just and patriotic devotion, you do all this, we entreat you to despise not the humble offering we this day unveil to view; for while Abraham Lincoln saved for you a country, he delivered us from a bondage, according to Jefferson, one hour of which was worse than ages of the oppression your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose.

Fellow-citizens, ours is no new-born zeal and devotion–merely a thing of this moment. The name of Abraham Lincoln was near and dear to our hearts in the darkest and most perilous hours of the Republic. We were no more ashamed of him when shrouded in clouds of darkness, of doubt, and defeat than when we saw him crowned with victory, honor, and glory. Our faith in him was often taxed and strained to the uttermost, but it never failed. When he tarried long in the mountain; when he strangely told us that we were the cause of the war; when he still more strangely told us that we were to leave the land in which we were born; when he refused to employ our arms in defense of the Union; when, after accepting our services as colored soldiers, he refused to retaliate our murder and torture as colored prisoners; when he told us he would save the Union if he could with slavery; when he revoked the Proclamation of Emancipation of General Fremont; when he refused to remove the popular commander of the Army of the Potomac, in the days of its inaction and defeat, who was more zealous in his efforts to protect slavery than to suppress rebellion; when we saw all this, and more, we were at times grieved, stunned, and greatly bewildered; but our hearts believed while they ached and bled. Nor was this, even at that time, a blind and unreasoning superstition. Despite the mist and haze that surrounded him; despite the tumult, the hurry, and confusion of the hour, we were able to take a comprehensive view of Abraham Lincoln, and to make reasonable allowance for the circumstances of his position. We saw him, measured him, and estimated him; not by stray utterances to injudicious and tedious delegations, who often tried his patience; not by isolated facts torn from their connection; not by any partial and imperfect glimpses, caught at inopportune moments; but by a broad survey, in the light of the stern logic of great events, and in view of that divinity which shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will, we came to the conclusion that the hour and the man of our redemption had somehow met in the person of Abraham Lincoln. It mattered little to us what language he might employ on special occasions; it mattered little to us, when we fully knew him, whether he was swift or slow in his movements; it was enough for us that Abraham Lincoln was at the head of a great movement, and was in living and earnest sympathy with that movement, which, in the nature of things, must go on until slavery should be utterly and forever abolished in the United States.

When, therefore, it shall be asked what we have to do with the memory of Abraham Lincoln, or what Abraham Lincoln had to do with us, the answer is ready, full, and complete. Though he loved Caesar less than Rome, though the Union was more to him than our freedom or our future, under his wise and beneficent rule we saw ourselves gradually lifted from the depths of slavery to the heights of liberty and manhood; under his wise and beneficent rule, and by measures approved and vigorously pressed by him, we saw that the handwriting of ages, in the form of prejudice and proscription, was rapidly fading away from the face of our whole country; under his rule, and in due time, about as soon after all as the country could tolerate the strange spectacle, we saw our brave sons and brothers laying off the rags of bondage, and being clothed all over in the blue uniforms of the soldiers of the United States; under his rule we saw two hundred thousand of our dark and dusky people responding to the call of Abraham Lincoln, and with muskets on their shoulders, and eagles on their buttons, timing their high footsteps to liberty and union under the national flag; under his rule we saw the independence of the black republic of Haiti, the special object of slave-holding aversion and horror, fully recognized, and her minister, a colored gentleman, duly received here in the city of Washington; under his rule we saw the internal slave-trade, which so long disgraced the nation, abolished, and slavery abolished in the District of Columbia; under his rule we saw for the first time the law enforced against the foreign slave trade, and the first slave-trader hanged like any other pirate or murderer; under his rule, assisted by the greatest captain of our age, and his inspiration, we saw the Confederate States, based upon the idea that our race must be slaves, and slaves forever, battered to pieces and scattered to the four winds; under his rule, and in the fullness of time, we saw Abraham Lincoln, after giving the slave-holders three months’ grace in which to save their hateful slave system, penning the immortal paper, which, though special in its language, was general in its principles and effect, making slavery forever impossible in the United States. Though we waited long, we saw all this and more.

Can any colored man, or any white man friendly to the freedom of all men, ever forget the night which followed the first day of January, 1863, when the world was to see if Abraham Lincoln would prove to be as good as his word? I shall never forget that memorable night, when in a distant city I waited and watched at a public meeting, with three thousand others not less anxious than myself, for the word of deliverance which we have heard read today. Nor shall I ever forget the outburst of joy and thanksgiving that rent the air when the lightning brought to us the emancipation proclamation. In that happy hour we forgot all delay, and forgot all tardiness, forgot that the President had bribed the rebels to lay down their arms by a promise to withhold the bolt which would smite the slave-system with destruction; and we were thenceforward willing to allow the President all the latitude of time, phraseology, and every honorable device that statesmanship might require for the achievement of a great and beneficent measure of liberty and progress.

Fellow-citizens, there is little necessity on this occasion to speak at length and critically of this great and good man, and of his high mission in the world. That ground has been fully occupied and completely covered both here and elsewhere. The whole field of fact and fancy has been gleaned and garnered. Any man can say things that are true of Abraham Lincoln, but no man can say anything that is new of Abraham Lincoln. His personal traits and public acts are better known to the American people than are those of any other man of his age. He was a mystery to no man who saw him and heard him. Though high in position, the humblest could approach him and feel at home in his presence. Though deep, he was transparent; though strong, he was gentle; though decided and pronounce in his convictions, he was tolerant towards those who differed from him, and patient under reproaches. Even those who only knew him through his public utterance obtained a tolerably clear idea of his character and personality. The image of the man went out with his words, and those who read them knew him.

I have said that President Lincoln was a white man, and shared the prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race. Looking back to his times and to the condition of his country, we are compelled to admit that this unfriendly feeling on his part may be safely set down as one element of his wonderful success in organizing the loyal American people for the tremendous conflict before them, and bringing them safely through that conflict. His great mission was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and, second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen. Without this primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined.

Though Mr. Lincoln shared the prejudices of his white fellow-countrymen against the Negro, it is hardly necessary to say that in his heart of hearts he loathed and hated slavery. The man who could say, “Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war shall soon pass away, yet if God wills it continue till all the wealth piled by two hundred years of bondage shall have been wasted, and each drop of blood drawn by the lash shall have been paid for by one drawn by the sword, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether,” gives all needed proof of his feeling on the subject of slavery. He was willing, while the South was loyal, that it should have its pound of flesh, because he thought that it was so nominated in the bond; but farther than this no earthly power could make him go.

Fellow-citizens, whatever else in this world may be partial, unjust, and uncertain, time, time! is impartial, just, and certain in its action. In the realm of mind, as well as in the realm of matter, it is a great worker, and often works wonders. The honest and comprehensive statesman, clearly discerning the needs of his country, and earnestly endeavoring to do his whole duty, though covered and blistered with reproaches, may safely leave his course to the silent judgment of time. Few great public men have ever been the victims of fiercer denunciation than Abraham Lincoln was during his administration. He was often wounded in the house of his friends. Reproaches came thick and fast upon him from within and from without, and from opposite quarters. He was assailed by Abolitionists; he was assailed by slave-holders; he was assailed by the men who were for peace at any price; he was assailed by those who were for a more vigorous prosecution of the war; he was assailed for not making the war an abolition war; and he was bitterly assailed for making the war an abolition war.

But now behold the change: the judgment of the present hour is, that taking him for all in all, measuring the tremendous magnitude of the work before him, considering the necessary means to ends, and surveying the end from the beginning, infinite wisdom has seldom sent any man into the world better fitted for his mission than Abraham Lincoln. His birth, his training, and his natural endowments, both mental and physical, were strongly in his favor. Born and reared among the lowly, a stranger to wealth and luxury, compelled to grapple single-handed with the flintiest hardships of life, from tender youth to sturdy manhood, he grew strong in the manly and heroic qualities demanded by the great mission to which he was called by the votes of his countrymen. The hard condition of his early life, which would have depressed and broken down weaker men, only gave greater life, vigor, and buoyancy to the heroic spirit of Abraham Lincoln. He was ready for any kind and any quality of work. What other young men dreaded in the shape of toil, he took hold of with the utmost cheerfulness.

“A spade, a rake, a hoe,
A pick-axe, or a bill;
A hook to reap, a scythe to mow,
A flail, or what you will.”
All day long he could split heavy rails in the woods, and half the night long he could study his English Grammar by the uncertain flare and glare of the light made by a pine-knot. He was at home in the land with his axe, with his maul, with gluts, and his wedges; and he was equally at home on water, with his oars, with his poles, with his planks, and with his boat-hooks. And whether in his flat-boat on the Mississippi River, or at the fireside of his frontier cabin, he was a man of work. A son of toil himself, he was linked in brotherly sympathy with the sons of toil in every loyal part of the Republic. This very fact gave him tremendous power with the American people, and materially contributed not only to selecting him to the Presidency, but in sustaining his administration of the Government.

Upon his inauguration as President of the United States, an office, even when assumed under the most favorable condition, fitted to tax and strain the largest abilities, Abraham Lincoln was met by a tremendous crisis. He was called upon not merely to administer the Government, but to decide, in the face of terrible odds, the fate of the Republic.

A formidable rebellion rose in his path before him; the Union was already practically dissolved; his country was torn and rent asunder at the center. Hostile armies were already organized against the Republic, armed with the munitions of war which the Republic had provided for its own defense. The tremendous question for him to decide was whether his country should survive the crisis and flourish, or be dismembered and perish. His predecessor in office had already decided the question in favor of national dismemberment, by denying to it the right of self-defense and self-preservation–a right which belongs to the meanest insect.

Happily for the country, happily for you and for me, the judgment of James Buchanan, the patrician, was not the judgment of Abraham Lincoln, the plebeian. He brought his strong common sense, sharpened in the school of adversity, to bear upon the question. He did not hesitate, he did not doubt, he did not falter; but at once resolved that at whatever peril, at whatever cost, the union of the States should be preserved. A patriot himself, his faith was strong and unwavering in the patriotism of his countrymen. Timid men said before Mr. Lincoln’s inauguration, that we have seen the last President of the United States. A voice in influential quarters said, “Let the Union slide.” Some said that a Union maintained by the sword was worthless. Others said a rebellion of 8,000,000 cannot be suppressed; but in the midst of all this tumult and timidity, and against all this, Abraham Lincoln was clear in his duty, and had an oath in heaven. He calmly and bravely heard the voice of doubt and fear all around him; but he had an oath in heaven, and there was not power enough on earth to make this honest boatman, backwoodsman, and broad-handed splitter of rails evade or violate that sacred oath. He had not been schooled in the ethics of slavery; his plain life had favored his love of truth. He had not been taught that treason and perjury were the proof of honor and honesty. His moral training was against his saying one thing when he meant another. The trust that Abraham Lincoln had in himself and in the people was surprising and grand, but it was also enlightened and well founded. He knew the American people better than they knew themselves, and his truth was based upon this knowledge.

Fellow-citizens, the fourteenth day of April, 1865, of which this is the eleventh anniversary, is now and will ever remain a memorable day in the annals of this Republic. It was on the evening of this day, while a fierce and sanguinary rebellion was in the last stages of its desolating power; while its armies were broken and scattered before the invincible armies of Grant and Sherman; while a great nation, torn and rent by war, was already beginning to raise to the skies loud anthems of joy at the dawn of peace, it was startled, amazed, and overwhelmed by the crowning crime of slavery–the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. It was a new crime, a pure act of malice. No purpose of the rebellion was to be served by it. It was the simple gratification of a hell-black spirit of revenge. But it has done good after all. It has filled the country with a deeper abhorrence of slavery and a deeper love for the great liberator.

Had Abraham Lincoln died from any of the numerous ills to which flesh is heir; had he reached that good old age of which his vigorous constitution and his temperate habits gave promise; had he been permitted to see the end of his great work; had the solemn curtain of death come down but gradually–we should still have been smitten with a heavy grief, and treasured his name lovingly. But dying as he did die, by the red hand of violence, killed, assassinated, taken off without warning, not because of personal hate–for no man who knew Abraham Lincoln could hate him–but because of his fidelity to union and liberty, he is doubly dear to us, and his memory will be precious forever.

Fellow-citizens, I end, as I began, with congratulations. We have done a good work for our race today. In doing honor to the memory of our friend and liberator, we have been doing highest honors to ourselves and those who come after us; we have been fastening ourselves to a name and fame imperishable and immortal; we have also been defending ourselves from a blighting scandal. When now it shall be said that the colored man is soulless, that he has no appreciation of benefits or benefactors; when the foul reproach of ingratitude is hurled at us, and it is attempted to scourge us beyond the range of human brotherhood, we may calmly point to the monument we have this day erected to the memory of Abraham Lincoln.”

 

Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions Woman’s Rights Convention

From the website http://ecssba.rutgers.edu/docs/seneca.html:

 

 

Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions

Woman’s Rights Convention, Held at Seneca Falls, 19-20 July 1848

On the morning of the 19th, the Convention assembled at 11 o’clock. . . . The Declaration of Sentiments, offered for the acceptance of the Convention, was then read by E. C. Stanton. A proposition was made to have it re-read by paragraph, and after much consideration, some changes were suggested and adopted. The propriety of obtaining the signatures of men to the Declaration was discussed in an animated manner: a vote in favor was given; but concluding that the final decision would be the legitimate business of the next day, it was referred.

[In the afternoon] The reading of the Declaration was called for, an addition having been inserted since the morning session. A vote taken upon the amendment was carried, and papers circulated to obtain signatures. The following resolutions were then read:

Whereas, the great precept of nature is conceded to be, “that man shall pursue his own true and substantial happiness,” Blackstone, in his Commentaries, remarks, that this law of Nature being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other.1  It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times; no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this, and such of them as are valid, derive all their force, and all their validity, and all their authority, mediately and immediately, from this original; Therefore,

Resolved, That such laws as conflict, in any way, with the true and substantial happiness of woman, are contrary to the great precept of nature, and of no validity; for this is “superior in obligation to any other.

Resolved, That all laws which prevent woman from occupying such a station in society as her conscience shall dictate, or which place her in a position inferior to that of man, are contrary to the great precept of nature, and therefore of no force or authority.

Resolved, That woman is man’s equal—was intended to be so by the Creator, and the highest good of the race demands that she should be recognized as such.

Resolved, That the women of this country ought to be enlightened in regard to the laws under which they -live, that they may no longer publish their degradation, by declaring themselves satisfied with their present position, nor their ignorance, by asserting that they have all the rights they want.

Resolved, That inasmuch as man, while claiming for himself intellectual superiority, does accord to woman moral superiority, it is pre-eminently his duty to encourage her to speak, and teach, as she has an opportunity, in all religious assemblies.

Resolved, That the same amount of virtue, delicacy, and refinement of behavior, that is required of woman in the social state, should also be required of man, and the same tranegressions should be visited with equal severity on both man and woman.

Resolved, That the objection of indelicacy and impropriety, which is so often brought against woman when she addresses a public audience, comes with a very ill grace from those who encourage, by their attendance, her appearance on the stage, in the concert, or in the feats of the circus.

Resolved, That woman has too long rested satisfied in the circumscribed limits which corrupt customs and a perverted application of the Scriptures have marked out for her, and that it is time she should move in the enlarged sphere which her great Creator has assigned her.2

Resolved, That it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise.3

Resolved, That the equality of human rights results necessarily from the fact of the identity of the race in capabilities and responsibilities.

Resolved, therefore, That, being invested by the Creator with the same capabilities, and the same consciousness of responsibility for their exercise, it is demonstrably the right and duty of woman, equally with man, to promote every righteous cause, by every righteous means; and especially in regard to the great subjects of morals and religion, it is self-evidently her right to participate with her brother in teaching them, both in private and in public, by writing and by speaking, by any instrumentalities proper to be used, and in any assemblies proper to be held; and this being a self-evident truth, growing out of the divinely implanted principles of human nature, any custom or authority adverse to it, whether modern or wearing the hoary sanction of antiquity, is to be regarded as self-evident falsehood, and at war with the interests of mankind.
 

Thursday Morning.

The Convention assembled at the hour appointed, James Mott, of Philadelphia, in the Chair. The minutes of the previous day having been read, E. C. Stanton again read the Declaration of Sentiments, which was freely discussed . . . and was unanimously adopted, as follows:

Declaration of Sentiments.

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of the women under this government, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which they are entitled.

The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.

He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.

He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men—both natives and foreigners.

Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides.

He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.4

He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.5

He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of her husband. In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master—the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement.

He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper causes of divorce; in case of separation, to whom the guardianship of the children shall be given; as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of women—the law, in all cases, going upon the false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands.

After depriving her of all rights as a married woman, if single and the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a government which recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to it.

He has monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, and from those she is permitted to follow, she receives but a scanty remuneration.

He closes against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction, which he considers most honorable to himself. As a teacher of theology, medicine, or law, she is not known.

He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education—all colleges being closed against her.6

He allows her in Church as well as State, but a subordinate position, claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry, and, with some exceptions, from any public participation in the affairs of the Church.

He has created a false public sentiment, by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude women from society, are not only tolerated but deemed of little account in man.

He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and her God.

He has endeavored, in every way that he could to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.

Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation,—in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States.

In entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we shall use every instrumentality within our power to effect our object. We shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State and national Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our behalf.We hope this Convention will be followed by a series of Conventions, embracing every part of the country.

Firmly relying upon the final triumph of the Right and the True, we do this day affix our signatures to this declaration.

At the appointed hour the meeting convened. The minutes having been read, the resolutions of the day before were read and taken up separately. Some, from their self-evident truth, elicited but little remark; others, after some criticism, much debate, and some slight alterations, were finally passed by a large majority.7

[At an evening session] Lucretia Mott offered and spoke to the following resolution:

Resolved, That the speedy success of our cause depends upon the zealous and untiring efforts of both men and women, for the overthrow of the monopoly of the pulpit, and for the securing to woman an equal participation with men in the various trades, professions and commerce.

The Resolution was adopted.

Report of the Woman’s Rights Convention, Held at Seneca Falls, N.Y., July 19th and 20th, 1848 (Rochester, 1848).

Thomas Hart Benton- American Artist

I first discovered the artwork of Thomas Hart Benton from an article in Smithsonian magazine while I was in college in the 1980s.  I really didn’t know too much about the fine arts back then, and I knew even less about the great American artists from that time between the two great World Wars.  I loved learning about new artists and great paintings, and Benton was a real revelation to me.   He was one of the biggest influences on me as I was learning to find my own style and voice as an artist.   I never get tired of looking at Benton’s paintings, and his attempts to capture the energy and rawness of the everyday American life left a deep impression on my own outlook on art.

Thomas Hart Benton was named after his great uncle, the Senator Thomas Hart Benton.  Benton grew up with an ambitiuos politician father and a socially striving mother and he had to rebel against both to pursue an artistic career.  He moved to Paris in the early 1900s and tried out all the modern art styles of the day.   He befriended Stanton McDonald Wright and painted several Synchromist pieces.   When he moved to New York City in the 1910s, he rubbed shoulders with Alfred Stieglitz and the Modernist American artists.  Benton ’s background in Missouri populist politics and his reading of authors like Bernard Shaw made him sympathetic to Anarchist and Socialist ideas, and he was briefly a Marxist and allowed Communist Party meetings in his home.

The death of Benton’s father marked a great change in his life.  The relationship between the father and son had been full of friction, due in part to Benton’s pursuit of art.  After Benton’s father died, Tom began focusing on American subject matter, and he abandoned abstract painting for a more raw energetic realism.  He would say in his biography, An Artist In American:

“I cannot honestly say what happened to me while I watched my father die and listened to the voices of his friends, but I know that when, after his death, I went back East, I was moved by a great desire to know more of the America which I had glimpsed in the suggestive words of his old cronies, who seeing him at the end of his tether, had tried to jerk him back with reminiscent talk and suggestive anecdote.  I was moved by a desire to pick up again the threads of my childhood.  To my itch for going places there was injected a thread of purpose which, however slight as a far-reaching philosophy, ws to make the next ten years of my life a rich texture of varied experience.”

During the late 1920s to the end of the 1930s, I think Benton made his best paintings.   He painted sharecroppers and coal miners, shipyard workers and cowboys, stockbrokers and bootleggers, soapbox revivalists and burlesque dancers.  In paintings like Boomtown (http://magart.rochester.edu/VieO211$335*168110), Lord Heal the Child (http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/gallery/benton1934.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/artgallery.htm&h=454&w=600&sz=65&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=GB5WwMW0zmdEDM:&tbnh=102&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dthomas%2Bhart%2Bbenton%2BLord%2BHeal%2Bthe%2BChild%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN), and Preparing the Bill,  Benton conveyed the America of the 1920s and 1930s through his eye.  Benton’s greatest achievements were his murals.  Influenced by the Mexican muralists, like Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orosco, Benton tried to make bold statements about the America of the ordinary people through his great murals America Today , The Arts of Life In America, A Social History of Indiana (http://iub.edu/~iuam/online_modules/benton/), and A Social History of Missouri (http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Exhibit/5437/Benton.html).  These works incited controversy from many sources.  Conservatives railed against Benton’s depictions of strikes and Klu Klux Klan lynchings.  Leftists railed that his murals didn’t fully attain a revolutionary art.  These controversies only served to show the power of the murals to inspire thought on what viewers felt America was.

During the mid 1930s, Benton broke from his former Modernist and Marxist friends.  Benton broke with Alfred Stieglitz and his circle of artists after Time magazine featured Benton in an article on American artists that did not include Modernist painters.  His break with the radical left came after Benton declined to join with the condemnation of the destruction of Diego Rivera’s murals for the Rockefeller Center.  Both conflicts were rather painful, as they involved the breaking of close friendships.  And they created a reputation for Benton as being a reactionary conservative artist that is not wholy true.  While Benton renounced communism as being inapplicable to American society, Benton’s politics remained very liberal.  He became a strong New Deal Democrat who retained strong support for collectivist ideas.  Henry Addams quotes Benton in his book Thomas Hart Benton: An American Original as saying:  “I believe in the collective control of essential productive means and resources, but as a pragmatist I believe actual, not theoretical, interests do check and test the field of social change.”    He also said, “If the radical movement is to get anywhere in this country it has got to drop Marxism as an outworn historical and economic notion and rely wholly on a pragmatic observance of developing facts.  You can’t impose ideologies on people.  The point I wish to make is that social revolution has got to come from the grass-roots”

Benton wasn’t perfect.  He made crude homophobic remarks against art curators and art critics that are embarassing to read today.  His World War II paintings indulged in Asian stereotypes.   Benton got caught up in unnecessary fights during his tenure as teacher at the University of Kansas City Art Institute.  But he remains for me a likable if imperfect man.  He was willing to be unpopular rather than compromise on his beliefs, and he perservered as an artist in spite of tough times.  Many people say that Benton’s art declined after World War II, but I still have some favorite paintings among these later works.  His Trail Riders (http://www.nga.gov/image/a00000/a0000025.jpg), from 1964, is a wonderful painting of Mount Assinboine.  Picnic, from 1952, is my favorite of all his paintings, a scene of his family and friends enjoying an outing in Martha’s Vineyard.  It’s ironic that the study of rhythms and form that are the basis of Benton’s worked lived on in his most famous student, Jackson Pollock.  I didn’t appreciate Pollock until I learned to see the underlying structures in Pollock’s work that he learned from Benton.  Now Pollock is one of my favorite artists.

Thomas Hart Benton was a great American artist.  In his paintings and murals, I see something of the energy and rawness of the America of the early twentieth century.  His art incited controversy and condemnation among many art critics and radicals of both the political left and right.  But Benton’s work also inspired admiration from me and for others for showing an America that is now gone.  In Henry Adam’s book,  he gives this last quote by Thomas Hart Benton:

“I have a sort of inner conviction that for all the possible limitations of my mind and the disturbing effects of my processes, for all the contradicting struggles and failures I have gone through, I have come to something that is in the image of America and the American people  of my time.  This conviction is in me pretty deeply.  My American image is made up of what I have come across, of what was ‘there’ in the time of my experience- no more, no less.”