HISTORY LESSONS

The former Douglass High School in Huntington, WV, alma mater of Carter Woodson, "the father of Black History." He also served as principal there.

The theme of this week's Goat Rope has been Black History and its many connections with West Virginia. If this is your first visit, please click on earlier posts.

Yesterday's post discussed the great African-American scholar, historian, and activist Carter G. Woodson, who had many connections with the Mountain State. It seems fitting to close this series with a couple of quotes from his classic The Mis-Education of the Negro:

When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand her or go yonder. He will find his "proper place" and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary.

And

History shows that it does not matter who is in power...those who have not learned to do for themselves and have to depend solely on others never obtain any more rights or privileges in the end than they did in the beginning.

Finally, it's only right to mention another African-American with West Virginia connections who made a mark on history.

The Rev. Leon Sullivan (1922-2001) was a native of Charleston and a graduate of Garnet High School and West Virginia State College. He also attended Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University, and served for a time as an assistant pastor under Adam Clayton Powell. He was the long-time minister of Philadelphia's Zion Baptist Church.

In 1971, he was the first African-American to be appointed to the board of General Motors and developed the "Sullivan principles," a code of conduct for corporations with operations in South Africa, an early challenge to the policies of apartheid. According to the West Virginia Encyclopedia, "in 1999 the United Nations adopted the "Global Sullivan Principles: as an international code of corporate conduct."

Sullivan also founded Opportunities Industrialization Centers, which provided jobs and training for disadvantaged people at many locations in the United States, African, Poland and the Philippines. A Nobel nominee, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991. A major street in his native city was renamed Leon Sullivan Way the year before he died.

RETHINKING TRADE. "Free" trade used to be a dogma among many economists, but Business Week reports that some are taking a closer look at the downsides:

Many ordinary Americans have long been suspicious of free trade, seeing it as a destroyer of good-paying jobs. American economists, though, have told a different story. For them, free trade has been the great unmitigated good, the force that drives a country to shed unproductive industries, focus on what it does best, and create new, higher-skilled jobs that offer better pay than those that are lost. This support of free trade by the academic Establishment is a big reason why Presidents, be they Democrat or Republican, have for years pursued a free-trade agenda. The experts they consult have always told them that free trade was the best route to ever higher living standards.

But something momentous is happening inside the church of free trade: Doubts are creeping in. We're not talking wholesale, dramatic repudiation of the theory. Economists are, however, noting that their ideas can't explain the disturbing stagnation in income that much of the middle class is experiencing. They also fear a protectionist backlash unless more is done to help those who are losing out. "Previously, you just had extremists making extravagant claims against trade," says Gary C. Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "Now there are broader questions being raised that would not have been asked 10 or 15 years ago."

(It gets better.)

THE HOUSING CRASH. Also from Business Week, some are predicting that home prices could drop by 25% or more. The article notes that

two-thirds of people who bought in the past year would owe more than their homes would be worth...

SPEAKING OF THE ECONOMY GOING SOUTH, here's Paul Krugman on the recession and its likely lingering effects.

CARBON FAST. Bishops of the Church of England are urging Christians to cut back on carbon consumption during the 40 day fast of Lent, which began Wednesday.

HOW HITLER SEDUCED GERMANY is the subject of this item from Der Spiegel.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

AN EDUCATED MAN

Statue of Carter G. Woodson, "The Father of Black History," in Huntington, WV.

The theme of this week's Goat Rope is Black History and its many connections with West Virginia. If this is your first visit, please click on the earlier entries.

The fact that people anywhere are celebrating or thinking about the history of African Americans this month is largely due to the efforts of Carter G. Woodson, who lived from 1875 to 1950.

Woodson was born in Buckingham County, Virginia to parents who were former slaves. He and his brother moved to West Virginia to find work in the coal mines and his family eventually moved to Huntington in 1893.

One thing that he particularly enjoyed as a young man was listening as friends read aloud from newspapers and books and discussed current events. He said

In this circle the history of the race was discussed frequently, and my interest in penetrating the past of my people was deepened and intensified.

Woodson eventually attended and graduated from Douglass High School in Huntington. He attended college in Berea, Kentucky and went back to Huntington to serve as Douglass' principal. He traveled extensively and continued his studies at the Sorbonne and the University of Chicago and earned his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1912. Although he wasn't the first African-American to do so, he was the first son of slaves to reach this goal. In addition to other academic posts, Woodson served as Dean of the West Virginia Collegiate Institute, now West Virginia State University.

Woodson was at various times active in the NAACP and collaborated with Marcus Garvey, but the passion of his life was the study and preservation of black history. In 1915, he was involved in the creation of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History and published several books on various aspects of black history, including the influential textbook, The Negro in Our History. He also founded the Journal of Negro History in 1916. He paid for much of his historical activities out of his salary as an academic.

He campaigned with eventual success to have the second month of February set aside for the observation of black history. It has since grown into the whole month.

Interestingly, Woodson's passion for preserving African-American history was picked up by a contemporary scholar with West Virginia origins, Henry Louis Gates Jr., who with Kwame Anthony Appiah edited the Encyclopedia Africana.

CANADIAN BOOGEYMAN. Opponents of universal health care love to tell horror stories about the Canadian system. Here's a little de-bunking.

CITIES are struggling to be more green.

THE CHICKENS of Goat Rope Farm have it REAL good compared to these guys.

COLUMBUS was guilty of many things, but apparently not of bringing lice to the "New World," Peruvian mummies indicated.

CIVILIZING THE SAVAGE TODDLER. This doctor claims to know how.

SURFACE OWNERS have introduced a bill to restrict the damage done by oil and gas drillers in WV.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

Caption: A Black History celebration in Logan, WV.

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.--Langston Hughes

February is a month when Black History is celebrated. This is thanks largely to the labors of the great African American scholar, educator and activist Carter G. Woodson, who lived from 1875 to 1950. Woodson had significant ties to El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia, as will be discussed later this week.

Woodson believed that this was an appropriate month since it contains the birthdays of the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who was born a slave in 1817 in Maryland. As such, he wasn't sure of the exact date of his birth, but celebrated it on the 14th. Feb. 9 is also the birthday of Abraham Lincoln.

The history of African Americans is an amazing story of struggle, survival, resistance and progress. One odd thing about it is how many times the predominantly white state of West Virginia shows up in it. Like Forrest Gump, it keeps popping up in the most interesting places.

That will be the theme here this week. Check back for more.

BRING EM HOME. Some states are considering legislation that would bring National Guard units back from Iraq.

SOUND ADVICE. As the number of unemployed Americans increases, this NY Times editorial calls for extending unemployment benefits.

WILLIAM BLAKE INTERLUDE. Here's an analysis of Blakes classic poem "London." If you search this blog, you'll find several Blake posts.

KILLER CREDIT is the subject of this In These Times article.

NAP--AND REMEMBER. It's science.

STATE TAX AND BUDGET DILEMMAS are the subject of this Gazette-Mail op-ed by yours truly.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED