{"id":270112,"date":"2025-06-03T07:50:05","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T07:50:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/americanstudies-june-3-2025-graduationstudying-crummell-and-douglasss-debate\/"},"modified":"2025-06-03T07:50:05","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T07:50:05","slug":"americanstudies-june-3-2025-graduationstudying-crummell-and-douglasss-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=270112","title":{"rendered":"AmericanStudies: June 3, 2025: GraduationStudying: Crummell and Douglass\u2019s Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

[This past
\nweekend, my younger son and
\nco<\/a>-favorite-Guest
\nPoster Kyle Railton<\/a> graduated from high school. As I wipe away proud Dad
\ntears, this week I\u2019ll AmericanStudy a handful of texts and contexts for this momentous
\noccasion\u2014leading up to a special weekend post on what\u2019s next for the new grad!]<\/p>\n

[Note: This
\npost was part of a 2013 series, and I\u2019m sharing it largely unchanged, except
\nfor a few updated links. The rest of the week\u2019s series is newly drafted, but I couldn\u2019t
\nresist adding this graduation-focused moment into the mix!]<\/span><\/p>\n

On the impromptu
\ndebate, between two of the most impressive Americans, that exemplifies one of
\nour most complex and crucial questions.<\/p>\n

One of my most
\ncommon topics in this space, including in this
\nlate August series<\/a>, has been the challenges and yet the importance of
\nremembering our darkest American histories. As I wrote in that week\u2019s third
\npost, no national histories are darker nor more important for us to better
\nremember than
\nthose of slavery<\/a>; that\u2019s why, whatever its flaws or limitations, I\u2019m on
\nboard with Quentin
\nTarantino\u2019s project in his latest film, Django Unchained<\/i><\/a>. Yet in
\narguing for that importance, I can and should recognize the fact that it\u2019s
\nsignificantly easier for me to say than it is for African Americans, for those
\nwho own darkest histories and heritages are directly tied to these national
\nhorrors. For that community, it\u2019s fair to ask whether remembering the histories
\nof slavery is as important as trying to move beyond them and into a more
\npositive future; and indeed, in the decades after emancipation and the Civil
\nWar many prominent African American voices argued precisely for, if not
\nforgetting slavery, at least not focusing on keeping its memories alive.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the
\nleader of that movement was Alexander Crummell<\/a>,
\nthe priest, philosopher, professor, and political activist whose impressive 19th<\/sup>
\ncentury life and career spanned abolitionism, black nationalism and the
\ndevelopment of the Liberian state, and many other causes. In the years after
\nthe Civil War, Crummell came to feel that only by moving beyond the memories of
\nslavery could African Americans achieve success and equality; he developed that
\ntheme with particularly clarity in \u201cThe
\nNeed for New Ideas and New Aims for a New Era,\u201d<\/a> his 1885 commencement
\naddress at Storer College<\/a>, the newly founded freedmen\u2019s
\ncollege in Harper\u2019s Ferry<\/a>, West Virginia. In the audience was none other
\nthan Frederick Douglass, a trustee of the college and one of the few men who
\ncould equal Crummell\u2019s longstanding prominence in the African American
\ncommunity, and Douglass apparently objected vocally to Crummell\u2019s arguments.
\nUnfortunately no specific transcript of Douglass\u2019s comments exists, but
\nthroughout this era Douglass certainly argued the opposite of Crummell\u2019s
\ncritique of \u201cfanatical anxieties upon the subject of slavery\u201d; for Douglass,
\ninstead, that dark history \u201ccould
\nbe traced [in American identity] like that of a wounded man through a crowd by
\nthe blood,\u201d<\/a> and so must be followed and engaged with.<\/p>\n

If we approach
\nthis debate from a scholarly perspective, as I did when I used the exchange to
\nopen a chapter of my
\nfirst book<\/a>, it seems clear enough that Douglass was right, that it\u2019s vital
\nto remember even\u2014perhaps especially\u2014our darkest histories. But for those
\nAfrican American college graduates in the audience, just as for all African
\nAmericans in the era\u2014and, in less immediate but still present ways, for all
\ntheir descendents\u2014the question was and remains far from simply academic. Obviously
\nthere is value, practical as well as philosophical, in remembering the worst
\nparts of our pasts, for individuals, for communities, and for the nation. But
\nas Crummell noted, to dwell upon such memories can make it significantly more
\ndifficult to live in the present and move into an even stronger future. So the
\nkey, perhaps, is to remember without getting lost, to engage without giving in
\nto the most limiting or damaging effects. Easier said than done, of course\u2014but
\nboth Crummell and Douglass, and many other inspiring and influential voices,
\ngive us models for such work.<\/p>\n

Next
\ngraduation connection tomorrow,<\/span><\/p>\n

Ben<\/span><\/p>\n

PS. What
\ndo you think? Graduation texts or topics you\u2019d share? <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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