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Reclaiming the Black Past. Pero G. Dagbovie
Читать онлайн.Название Reclaiming the Black Past
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isbn 9781786632012
Автор произведения Pero G. Dagbovie
Издательство Ingram
A well-traveled commander-in-chief, Obama was not reluctant to share this notion of a “tragic legacy” with non-white audiences abroad. For instance, when speaking in South Africa at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service and at the University of South Cape Town in 2013, he drew correlations between race relations in South Africa and America. During his visit to slave castles at Gorée Island, Senegal, Obama remarked, “For an African American, and an African American President to be able to visit this site I think gives me even greater motivation in terms of the defense of human rights around the world.”31 This echoed his sentiments after visiting the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana in the summer of 2009. Similarly, when addressing the Turkish Parliament in 2009 about the troubled relationship between Turkish and Armenian people, he admitted that the US “is still working through some of our darker periods in our history” and “still struggles with the legacies of slavery and segregation.”32 That Obama brought up America’s mistreatment of black people within the context of the Armenian Genocide or Holocaust adds further complexity to his representation of black history.
“REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS LIKE”: BLACK HAGIOGRAPHY
From time to time, Obama gave nods to abolitionists and early twentieth century black historical icons, but his favorite historical role models came of age as activists and leaders during the 1950s and 1960s, like Congressman John Lewis and, of course, Martin Luther King Jr. Other civil rights champions that he paid tangential tributes to include Shirley Chisholm, Diane Nash, Julian Bond, Thurgood Marshall, Fred Shuttlesworth, and C. T. Vivian.
Obama hailed Lewis as “somebody who captures the essence of decency and courage, somebody who I have admired all my life.” He added, “and were it not for him, I’m not sure I’d be here today.” He routinely reminded his black listeners, especially those from the millennial hip-hop generation, that they could learn a lot from the sacrifices of John Lewis who was but “a twenty-five-year-old activist when he faced down billy clubs on the bridge in Selma and helped arouse the conscience of our nation.” Obama told members of the NAACP in Cincinnati that he modeled his life after those who had paved the way for him. He explicitly placed himself in the context of black leadership history. “I turned down more lucrative jobs,” he announced while reflecting upon his community organizing in Chicago, “because I was inspired by the civil rights movement and wanted to do my part in the ongoing battle for opportunity in this country.”33
Although he did not actually mention King by name in his historic acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver on August 28, 2008 (in passing he identified King as “a young preacher from Georgia” to the chagrin of public intellectuals Cornel West and Julianne Malveaux), throughout his two terms as president, Obama routinely praised him. In fact, Obama alluded to King in every speech that he delivered dealing with African American history or civil rights and gave him a shout-out in his second inaugural address in 2013.
Six months before his 2008 acceptance speech, he delivered a moving sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Martin Luther King Sr. led this church from 1931 until 1975 and his son became co-pastor in 1960. King Jr.’s funeral was held in this sacred space, which is a National Historic site and annually hosts events in honor of King and Black History Month.
In his thirty-minute oration on these consecrated grounds, Obama noted the abiding and transcendental nature of King’s message of empathy and cooperation—“Unity is the great need of the hour.” Furthermore, he annually released Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Holiday proclamations and delivered a passionate tribute to King in October 2011 in honor of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial located near the National Mall. He told the large crowd that Americans needed to heed King’s teachings “more than ever.” He placed King on the highest pedestal and often directly and indirectly sampled from him, in mannerisms and rhetoric. As he noted in a 2013 speech commemorating the fiftieth anniversary for the March on Washington, “His [King’s] words belong to the ages, possessing a power and prophecy unmatched in our time.”34
Between 2009 and 2016, Obama delivered more than twenty commencement addresses at a variety of colleges and universities. He spoke at several historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and First Lady Michelle Obama spoke at more HBCUs than her husband. Obama did exhibit a commitment to these institutions beyond speaking at a few commencements. He regularly supported National HBCU Week and the White House Initiative on HBCUs that was established by an executive order from President Reagan in 1981. In February 2010, he signed Executive Order 13532, “Promoting Excellence, Innovation, and Sustainability at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.” For Obama, National HBCU Week served to “remember our history” and to “look forward to the future.”
In 2013, during his thirty-three-minute commencement address at Morehouse College, he reflected on the history of this venerable university and celebrated King, who enrolled in Morehouse at age fifteen, and longtime Morehouse president Benjamin Mays. He called upon the graduates to embody the reformist and sacrificial leadership spirit that Mays encouraged and embodied.
“So the history we share should give you hope,” Obama declared after describing the oppressive times that Mays, “black men of the ‘40s and ‘50s,” and the Moses generation overcame. Juxtaposing them with those who came of age during the era of Jim Crow segregation, Obama told the Morehouse class of 2013 that they were “uniquely poised for success unlike any generation of African Americans that came before it.” He brought to the fore that their collective experience of struggle “pales in comparison” to what previous generations coped with and insisted that they could draw great inspiration from their ancestors. Morehouse men, he declared, should, like Du Bois’s “Talented Tenth,” be committed to serving as role models and servants of the black masses. He challenged them to use Mays as a guiding light. “Live up to President’s Mays’s challenge … I promise you, what was needed in Dr. Mays’s time, that spirit of excellence, and hard work, and dedication, and no excuses is needed now more than ever.”35
Whom Obama praised to his black listeners often depended upon his particular audience. For instance, when speaking to members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) in 2009, Obama conjured up a relatively overlooked black politician, George Henry White, a Republican congressman from North Carolina from 1897 until 1901 and the last black congressman until 1928. Obama used White’s prophecy—an optimistic prognosis that in the future other black congressmen would “rise up”—as a source of faith and inspiration for the CBC. He concluded by rallying members of the CBC to consider White’s and others’ struggles. “Remember what it was like for George Henry White in the early days of the twentieth century, as he was bidding farewell to the House of Representatives, the last African American to serve there for a quarter century.” White and other early black politicians, Obama pleaded, did so much “to make it possible for us to be here tonight, to make it possible for you to be here tonight, to make it possible for me to be here tonight.”36
“A LONG LINE OF STRONG BLACK WOMEN”
Like other black male spokespersons, leaders, and politicians, Obama tended to prioritize the legacies of black male heroes and icons. Beyond nominal remarks about Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Shirley Chisholm, Diane Nash, and “women of soul” Patti LaBelle and Aretha Franklin; his 2012 National African American History Month proclamation, a tribute to black women as “champions of social and political change”; his honoring of two black women historians with the National Medal of the Arts and Humanities Awards (Darlene Clark Hine and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham); or his Senate floor speeches commemorating the deaths of Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King, he rarely celebrated black women’s contributions to the black freedom struggle or black women’s