(04-20-2014 09:17 AM)JOwl Wrote:  

(04-20-2014 01:22 AM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(04-19-2014 11:12 PM)JOwl Wrote:  

(04-19-2014 05:53 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(04-19-2014 05:09 PM)texd Wrote:  Another motivation which I clearly recognized.

But you're right, intimidate may not have been the best choice of words; oppress is more accurate. But maintaining the oppression that was status quo was not exactly a better motivation.

I also think that only a small percentage of the South was violently opposed to Civil Rights. I believe that a much larger portion was uncomfortable with all the change that they could see was inevitable. Change brings uncertainty, and people are uncomfortable with that. Accommodating change takes time. The greater the change and the more people involved the longer the transition.

The change was morally necessary, and on the whole life is much better now than it has ever been. But change doesn't benefit everyone equally, even when it is morally required, and it doesn't come without costs, individually and societally, even when it is morally required.

Change causes stress. I was in a marriage class where they ranked stress inducing events in a person's life. They virtually all involved change and the stress was in proportion to the degree of change. The more events/changes (points added per type of event) that occurred in your life within a given period of time, the almost exponential increase in your odds of undergoing a serious health event or dying. One reason why spouses sometimes die soon after the first spouse passes away.

Not equating societal changes with intense personal events, but just pointing out that there is a stress dynamic involved in societal changes as well. And that human nature is to resist change, even when necessary and good.

But what does this mean to you? That we should accept the actions of those opposed to Civil Rights as "not really as bad as many think they were"?

Fine, but were they right or good? Worthy of our continued acceptance?

I have no problem labeling judging people by today's standards. Saying that Jefferson and Washington, as slaveowners, were perpetrators of evil. Similarly, I have no problem labeling as bad people, and wanting to correct the actions of those who tacitly supported the oppression of blacks because "change made them uncomfortable".

Assuming our country continues on its path of evolving and improving morality, I have a feeling that there will be some commonplace, bourgeouis attitudes of ours that will get the same treatment in the future. Is it our current acceptance of sweatshop goods because they're so damn cheap and make our lives so easy? Profligate energy consumption? Something else, that I'm completely blind to?

Who knows. But because I'm an optimist, I hope that our society's moral standards have improved 50 years from now that we can clearly see folly in our current ways. And act then to correct what we're doing now.

No one is asking anyone for continued acceptance of a wrong condition that existed in the past. My point is to not judge, carte blanche, everyone who didn't live up to our current level of thinking, particularly when we today can't recreate or live in the conditions that existed back then, economically, culturally or technologically . . . . and can't go back in time to give them the conditions in which they might think or react more in line with how we believe they should have.

(On a side note, in judging how different eras view different things. I can't imagine our society today accepting the massive loss of life that it took to keep the Union intact and deal with the issue of slavery to begin with. We are too comfortable and our life expectancy has increased too much. John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry was the 1860's equivalent of us funding the Contras or the Afghan rebels against the Russians, albeit it wasn't government sanctioned. But it was a way to get others to take the risks that we don't deem acceptable.)

I think the South in the 1950's and 1960's was populated by a limited few who were violent racists, another group who were culturally predisposed toward racism, but not 'violent', another group who may not have been anti-Civil Rights, but who had lived with, grown up those in the first two groups and because they were comfortable with their world and the world around them moved slowly toward addressing issues that they were not forced to live with on a daily basis. I think there was a scale, and numerous people fell along all points of the scale. If the sum of those groups wasn't changing over time, we wouldn't be living in the world we're living in now.

Further, there have always been people from the South (Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter as examples at different levels) who have understood, and acted upon relationships that they had with, minority groups.

It may just be me, but I think in general that labeling a majority of people 'bad' or 'evil' is not the most effective way to effect change. I never interpreted Dr. King's methods as requiring that approach, and ultimately that was the approach that won out.

I believe that the race relations have been, post-1960's, and ultimately will be, more successful in the South for a variety of reasons.

I think that change initially took more time in the South, but I also believe that people in Chicago, New York, Boston and other areas had significant racial issues of their own.

Managing change is never an easy proposition. There is no utopia waiting around the corner (economically, environmentally or otherwise). The technology we enjoy, the medical advancements we have made, the comfort we live in (even middle class comforts) all have come at a cost. The population of the U.S. consumes resources at a rate that would require 8 planets to sustain, by some estimates. That is compensated by the fact that a significant percentage of the world's population consumes at a rate that requires much less than 1 Earth to sustain. You may be right about future, smug generations judging our environmental record - - - but the alternative would be to live in a society now that we wouldn't recognize. The change required to move us to even to a number like 2 or 3 on that scale would require such drastic changes that it would impact everyone up and down the line. Frankly, I think it would require a totalitarian state to make immediate changes drastic enough to reduce the consumption to levels the point that those on the extreme side of the environmental side of things would deem acceptable or sustainable.

You may feel that would be a good thing (reducing consumption to 25% of where we are now, not a totalitarian state), and it might. But the changes would or will create incredible stress in our society. The more stress it causes, the longer it will take to effect the change. That's just human nature. Looking for solutions that don't totally change the way our society functions is going to take time.

It also doesn't help when it's perceived that those championing change are less likely to bear the brunt of, or deal with the consequences of, the changes.

So given all that, you (and presumably Jimmy Carter and Lyndon Johnson) are all/were in support naming schools after Confederates as a form of protest by the local powers over being forced to accept black children being educated with white children?

Not knowing which schools were named when, and not being all-knowing so as to know which schools were named out of respect and which out of spite, I can honestly say that I have no problem with leaving schools named after Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson alone. I obviously would change the name of any school named after Nathan Bedford Forrest or any other active participant in the Klan.

I don't know about Carter, but I'm comfortable in assuming that LBJ would not have pushed for renaming anything named after Lee or Jackson. He had a sense for knowing which battles were important, which were not, and for understanding what others motivations were, and how to work with them.

There was a lot of interest in the Civil War centennial from 1961 to 1965 unlike the widespread disinterest in the 150th anniversary from 2011 to 2015. Houston Lee opened in 1962 so the name followed from the interest in the centennial, which was true also for the Westbury Rebels opened in 1961. Neither was really in opposition to civil rights because those schools were not yet integrated under the Houston one year at a time plan. All grades were opened up in 1967.

I grew up in Houston in the 1950s and 1960s. There was really not the violent racism. Other facilities were gradually and quietly desegregated during the period even before the Civil Rights Act. Most white people of my generation and my parent's generation were not opposed to integration but not actively pushing for it either. Many of the rules of segregation seemed ridiculous even back then.

(04-20-2014 12:51 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  FWIW, Houston Lee opened in 1962 (LBJ was VP), Midland Lee in 1981.

(04-20-2014 09:44 PM)75src Wrote:  There was a lot of interest in the Civil War centennial from 1961 to 1965 unlike the widespread disinterest in the 150th anniversary from 2011 to 2015. Houston Lee opened in 1962 so the name followed from the interest in the centennial, which was true also for the Westbury Rebels opened in 1961. Neither was really in opposition to civil rights because those schools were not yet integrated under the Houston one year at a time plan. All grades were opened up in 1967.

I grew up in Houston in the 1950s and 1960s. There was really not the violent racism. Other facilities were gradually and quietly desegregated during the period even before the Civil Rights Act. Most white people of my generation and my parent's generation were not opposed to integration but not actively pushing for it either. Many of the rules of segregation seemed ridiculous even back then.

(04-20-2014 12:51 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  FWIW, Houston Lee opened in 1962 (LBJ was VP), Midland Lee in 1981.

Houston's business leaders desegregated lunch counters and other facilities without the fuss and furor required in some other Southern towns.

What 75 references about the Centennial is very true. I collect comic anthologies. If you look read over Peanuts cartoons from that 5-year time frame there were a number of references to the Civil War Centennial. As a young boy in the late 60's I had a book I read a number of times "Heroes in Blue and Grey" that was written for grade school level children (during the Centennial I believe), and also had a book "When Grant met Lee at Appomattox" (I'm sure I'm spelling it incorrectly).

The Civil Rights movement was/is an important piece of our Nation's history (and yes, things are not perfect yet). MLK's speech on the Mall in Washington in front of the Lincoln Memorial is one of the most stirring oratories in our country's history.

However, the way the 1950's and 1960's is portrayed in my children's history class is to focus on the notable, violent (and sometimes televised) events that helped to galvanize the nation and push things along. Those were important events, and certainly the economic impact of racism was real and had to be addressed. But, as I've noted before, and as 75SRC alludes to, the galvanizing events were the exception and not anywhere near the statistical norm. And the viewpoint that seems to be portrayed today, and at least 'feels' like it has been adopted by people north of the Mason-Dixon Line, that the majority of the Southern white population was overtly, vocally and staunchly racist was not my recollection of southwest Louisiana (although clearly there were people who were vocal, and clearly a number of people culturally had racist viewpoints of one kind or another).

At times there was a sense of unease and discomfort that was real. Most people understood change was coming and were not so stupid or 'backwoods' that they couldn't understand that. And this gets back to my comments on change and how it takes time for people to deal with and accept change.

(edit - I lived in Lake Charles from 1967 until I left for Rice in 1978. During that time, I saw and witnessed a variety of things. One thing I never experienced was anyone claiming to be a member of the Klan, or anyone claiming they were related to anyone in the Klan. That's not to say that means no one was, or that the Klan did not exist somewhere in south or southwest Louisiana - just that if it did, it was largely invisible at least to people my age, and showed no signs of impact.)

(04-20-2014 10:17 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(04-20-2014 09:44 PM)75src Wrote:  There was a lot of interest in the Civil War centennial from 1961 to 1965 unlike the widespread disinterest in the 150th anniversary from 2011 to 2015. Houston Lee opened in 1962 so the name followed from the interest in the centennial, which was true also for the Westbury Rebels opened in 1961. Neither was really in opposition to civil rights because those schools were not yet integrated under the Houston one year at a time plan. All grades were opened up in 1967.

I grew up in Houston in the 1950s and 1960s. There was really not the violent racism. Other facilities were gradually and quietly desegregated during the period even before the Civil Rights Act. Most white people of my generation and my parent's generation were not opposed to integration but not actively pushing for it either. Many of the rules of segregation seemed ridiculous even back then.

(04-20-2014 12:51 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  FWIW, Houston Lee opened in 1962 (LBJ was VP), Midland Lee in 1981.

Houston's business leaders desegregated lunch counters and other facilities without the fuss and furor required in some other Southern towns.

What 75 references about the Centennial is very true. I collect comic anthologies. If you look read over Peanuts cartoons from that 5-year time frame there were a number of references to the Civil War Centennial. As a young boy in the late 60's I had a book I read a number of times "Heroes in Blue and Grey" that was written for grade school level children (during the Centennial I believe), and also had a book "When Grant met Lee at Appomattox" (I'm sure I'm spelling it incorrectly).

The Civil Rights movement was/is an important piece of our Nation's history (and yes, things are not perfect yet). MLK's speech on the Mall in Washington in front of the Lincoln Memorial is one of the most stirring oratories in our country's history.

However, the way the 1950's and 1960's is portrayed in my children's history class is to focus on the notable, violent (and sometimes televised) events that helped to galvanize the nation and push things along. Those were important events, and certainly the economic impact of racism was real and had to be addressed. But, as I've noted before, and as 75SRC alludes to, the galvanizing events were the exception and not anywhere near the statistical norm. And the viewpoint that seems to be portrayed today, and at least 'feels' like it has been adopted by people north of the Mason-Dixon Line, that the majority of the Southern white population was overtly, vocally and staunchly racist was not my recollection of southwest Louisiana (although clearly there were people who were vocal, and clearly a number of people culturally had racist viewpoints of one kind or another).

At times there was a sense of unease and discomfort that was real. Most people understood change was coming and were not so stupid or 'backwoods' that they couldn't understand that. And this gets back to my comments on change and how it takes time for people to deal with and accept change.

(edit - I lived in Lake Charles from 1967 until I left for Rice in 1978. During that time, I saw and witnessed a variety of things. One thing I never experienced was anyone claiming to be a member of the Klan, or anyone claiming they were related to anyone in the Klan. That's not to say that means no one was, or that the Klan did not exist somewhere in south or southwest Louisiana - just that if it did, it was largely invisible at least to people my age, and showed no signs of impact.)

I pretty much agree, although I was 800 miles away and 15 years earlier. To this day I have never met a person who claimed to be Klan or even rumored to be Klan.

Maybe that is why the Klan was called the invisible empire because it was not visible. The general impression I had about the Klan was that it was something for white trash.

We knew that change was coming because segregation did not make that much sense.

The Civil War centennial was not just about the Confederates but also the Unionists. Both were celebrated. Lincoln was remembered very well.

(04-20-2014 10:17 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(04-20-2014 09:44 PM)75src Wrote:  There was a lot of interest in the Civil War centennial from 1961 to 1965 unlike the widespread disinterest in the 150th anniversary from 2011 to 2015. Houston Lee opened in 1962 so the name followed from the interest in the centennial, which was true also for the Westbury Rebels opened in 1961. Neither was really in opposition to civil rights because those schools were not yet integrated under the Houston one year at a time plan. All grades were opened up in 1967.

I grew up in Houston in the 1950s and 1960s. There was really not the violent racism. Other facilities were gradually and quietly desegregated during the period even before the Civil Rights Act. Most white people of my generation and my parent's generation were not opposed to integration but not actively pushing for it either. Many of the rules of segregation seemed ridiculous even back then.

(04-20-2014 12:51 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  FWIW, Houston Lee opened in 1962 (LBJ was VP), Midland Lee in 1981.

Houston's business leaders desegregated lunch counters and other facilities without the fuss and furor required in some other Southern towns.

What 75 references about the Centennial is very true. I collect comic anthologies. If you look read over Peanuts cartoons from that 5-year time frame there were a number of references to the Civil War Centennial. As a young boy in the late 60's I had a book I read a number of times "Heroes in Blue and Grey" that was written for grade school level children (during the Centennial I believe), and also had a book "When Grant met Lee at Appomattox" (I'm sure I'm spelling it incorrectly).

The Civil Rights movement was/is an important piece of our Nation's history (and yes, things are not perfect yet). MLK's speech on the Mall in Washington in front of the Lincoln Memorial is one of the most stirring oratories in our country's history.

However, the way the 1950's and 1960's is portrayed in my children's history class is to focus on the notable, violent (and sometimes televised) events that helped to galvanize the nation and push things along. Those were important events, and certainly the economic impact of racism was real and had to be addressed. But, as I've noted before, and as 75SRC alludes to, the galvanizing events were the exception and not anywhere near the statistical norm. And the viewpoint that seems to be portrayed today, and at least 'feels' like it has been adopted by people north of the Mason-Dixon Line, that the majority of the Southern white population was overtly, vocally and staunchly racist was not my recollection of southwest Louisiana (although clearly there were people who were vocal, and clearly a number of people culturally had racist viewpoints of one kind or another).

At times there was a sense of unease and discomfort that was real. Most people understood change was coming and were not so stupid or 'backwoods' that they couldn't understand that. And this gets back to my comments on change and how it takes time for people to deal with and accept change.

(edit - I lived in Lake Charles from 1967 until I left for Rice in 1978. During that time, I saw and witnessed a variety of things. One thing I never experienced was anyone claiming to be a member of the Klan, or anyone claiming they were related to anyone in the Klan. That's not to say that means no one was, or that the Klan did not exist somewhere in south or southwest Louisiana - just that if it did, it was largely invisible at least to people my age, and showed no signs of impact.)

(04-21-2014 10:33 AM)75src Wrote:  Maybe that is why the Klan was called the invisible empire because it was not visible. The general impression I had about the Klan was that it was something for white trash.

We knew that change was coming because segregation did not make that much sense.

The Civil War centennial was not just about the Confederates but also the Unionists. Both were celebrated. Lincoln was remembered very well.

I was born in 1945, so that can be used to determine my age at various points in the Civil Rights history. Graduated HS in '63.

I remember racism, such as segregated drinking fountains and waiting rooms, but I don't remember any violence or much gnashing of teeth in the process of integration in my corner of North Texas.

Frankly, I didn't know that (re)naming of schools after Confederate generals was an in-your-face tactic used by diehard segregationists until I learned it on this thread.

(04-20-2014 12:51 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  FWIW, Houston Lee opened in 1962 (LBJ was VP), Midland Lee in 1981.

Midland Lee was opened in 1961.

The Strange Demise of Jim Crow (in Houston):

http://newsreel.org/video/THE-STRANGE-DE...F-JIM-CROW

(04-21-2014 02:15 PM)13thOwl Wrote:  

(04-20-2014 12:51 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  FWIW, Houston Lee opened in 1962 (LBJ was VP), Midland Lee in 1981.

Midland Lee was opened in 1961.

Sorry 'bout that. I guess I misread it.

(04-21-2014 12:09 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I was born in 1945, so that can be used to determine my age at various points in the Civil Rights history. Graduated HS in '63.

I remember racism, such as segregated drinking fountains and waiting rooms, but I don't remember any violence or much gnashing of teeth in the process of integration in my corner of North Texas.

Frankly, I didn't know that (re)naming of schools after Confederate generals was an in-your-face tactic used by diehard segregationists until I learned it on this thread.

I wasn't aware of it until TexD mentioned it, but it makes sense.

Here's an excerpt from a 2012 article by the Woodson Research Center at Fondren ( http://exhibits.library.rice.edu/exhibit...-dowling/5 ):

Quote:The placement of a marker at Dowling's statue sprung partly from the increased public attention to the Civil War in the 1960s, but it also symbolized the continued conservatism of a state and city whose officials were resistant to federal Civil Rights legislation and court orders. As one of the largest segregated school systems in the nation in the 1950s, the Houston Independent School District responded slowly to the Supreme Court's 1954 ruling against segregation in Brown v. Board of Education until 1970, when a federal judge ordered the district to integrate more rapidly. In the meantime, the struggle over school desegregation coincided with the naming of new schools after Confederate figures. In 1959, HISD opened a new middle school named after Confederate general Albert Sidney Johnson, which was followed in 1962 by the opening of a high school named after Robert E. Lee. (Click here for more about the names of Houston schools.)

In the fall of 1968, the same year in which Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, the Houston Independent School District also opened Richard W. "Dick" Dowling Middle School on the southside of Houston. Dowling joined other, older schools in the city named after Confederate leaders, like Jefferson Davis High School and Jackson Middle School (named after Stonewall Jackson). But this latest decision by the predominantly conservative school board to name a new school after a Confederate symbolized both the subtle and overt resistance of many Houstonians to the growing gains of the Civil Rights movement, like court-ordered school desegregation and the election of Houstonian Barbara Jordan as the first African American to serve in the state legislature since Reconstruction, two years before Dowling Middle School opened its doors (Items 509, 510, and 511).

A 2013 Orlando Sentinel article ( http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2013...hool-board ) on the debate over a Jacksonville school named after Nathan Bedford Forrest had this to say:

Quote:The two Orlando campuses are the only local schools with prominent Confederate names, according to the public school database at the National Center for Education Statistics. And those generals are viewed today as historical figures of a decidedly different sort than Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was a slave trader before the Civil War, accused of war crimes during the war and an early leader in the Klan.

But whether viewed as controversial or not, these school names share a common history, experts say. They mostly were assigned to Southern campuses by white-run school boards after the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 1954 school desegregation case.

They were part of a "resurgence of Confederate identity" that emerged as part of the South's resistance to the Brown v. Board of Education decision that outlawed segregated schools, said Bill Link, a history professor at the University of Florida who studies Southern history.

Such names were symbols of "white defiance that was prevalent in a lot of the South, including Florida, which was more of a Southern place in those days than it is now," Link added.

What was then Lee Junior High opened in 1956, for example, and Orlando Sentinel photos from that year show students and the school principal in the courtyard raising a Confederate flag.

(04-21-2014 02:38 PM)JSA Wrote:  The Strange Demise of Jim Crow (in Houston):

http://newsreel.org/video/THE-STRANGE-DE...F-JIM-CROW

The summary is fascinating. Google implies it's been screened in various places in Houston over the years. I'd like to see it some time. Maybe I'll just buy it (even though the $25 seems steep).

An Englishman I know envied the unity of the United States. What was not mentioned was the terrible price the North and South had to pay during for the War for that unity. Hundreds of thousands of lives (maybe as much as a million) were lost and many others were injured for life. The cost of that war was so terrible that no really serious attempts since then have been made to divide the United States. Let us honor the sacrifice of those who made us one nation.

BTW, when our former acting President Vandiver was to be given an honorary HISD high school diploma, he choose Lee High. He was given an honorary high school diploma because he had been home schooled so did not have a high school diploma. It was a shame that I had another course I had to take when Vandiver's Civil War course was offered, but I heard Vandiver several times at the Houston Civil War Roundtable. J. Fred Duckett was another member of the Houston Civil War Roundtable.

(04-20-2014 01:22 AM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(04-19-2014 11:12 PM)JOwl Wrote:  

(04-19-2014 05:53 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(04-19-2014 05:09 PM)texd Wrote:  

(04-19-2014 02:57 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  I can think of a lot of symbolic meaning in the naming of schools that may have been present in the 1950's or 1960's. People are averse to change and that would be one way to express that. I doubt that everyone involved in naming schools were doing it with the intent to 'intimidate'. Out of protest or defiance of the federal government seems more likely.

Another motivation which I clearly recognized.

But you're right, intimidate may not have been the best choice of words; oppress is more accurate. But maintaining the oppression that was status quo was not exactly a better motivation.

I also think that only a small percentage of the South was violently opposed to Civil Rights. I believe that a much larger portion was uncomfortable with all the change that they could see was inevitable. Change brings uncertainty, and people are uncomfortable with that. Accommodating change takes time. The greater the change and the more people involved the longer the transition.

The change was morally necessary, and on the whole life is much better now than it has ever been. But change doesn't benefit everyone equally, even when it is morally required, and it doesn't come without costs, individually and societally, even when it is morally required.

Change causes stress. I was in a marriage class where they ranked stress inducing events in a person's life. They virtually all involved change and the stress was in proportion to the degree of change. The more events/changes (points added per type of event) that occurred in your life within a given period of time, the almost exponential increase in your odds of undergoing a serious health event or dying. One reason why spouses sometimes die soon after the first spouse passes away.

Not equating societal changes with intense personal events, but just pointing out that there is a stress dynamic involved in societal changes as well. And that human nature is to resist change, even when necessary and good.

But what does this mean to you? That we should accept the actions of those opposed to Civil Rights as "not really as bad as many think they were"?

Fine, but were they right or good? Worthy of our continued acceptance?

I have no problem labeling judging people by today's standards. Saying that Jefferson and Washington, as slaveowners, were perpetrators of evil. Similarly, I have no problem labeling as bad people, and wanting to correct the actions of those who tacitly supported the oppression of blacks because "change made them uncomfortable".

Assuming our country continues on its path of evolving and improving morality, I have a feeling that there will be some commonplace, bourgeouis attitudes of ours that will get the same treatment in the future. Is it our current acceptance of sweatshop goods because they're so damn cheap and make our lives so easy? Profligate energy consumption? Something else, that I'm completely blind to?

Who knows. But because I'm an optimist, I hope that our society's moral standards have improved 50 years from now that we can clearly see folly in our current ways. And act then to correct what we're doing now.

No one is asking anyone for continued acceptance of a wrong condition that existed in the past. My point is to not judge, carte blanche, everyone who didn't live up to our current level of thinking, particularly when we today can't recreate or live in the conditions that existed back then, economically, culturally or technologically . . . . and can't go back in time to give them the conditions in which they might think or react more in line with how we believe they should have.

(On a side note, in judging how different eras view different things. I can't imagine our society today accepting the massive loss of life that it took to keep the Union intact and deal with the issue of slavery to begin with. We are too comfortable and our life expectancy has increased too much. John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry was the 1860's equivalent of us funding the Contras or the Afghan rebels against the Russians, albeit it wasn't government sanctioned. But it was a way to get others to take the risks that we don't deem acceptable.)

I think the South in the 1950's and 1960's was populated by a limited few who were violent racists, another group who were culturally predisposed toward racism, but not 'violent', another group who may not have been anti-Civil Rights, but who had lived with, grown up those in the first two groups and because they were comfortable with their world and the world around them moved slowly toward addressing issues that they were not forced to live with on a daily basis. I think there was a scale, and numerous people fell along all points of the scale. If the sum of those groups wasn't changing over time, we wouldn't be living in the world we're living in now.

Further, there have always been people from the South (Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter as examples at different levels) who have understood, and acted upon relationships that they had with, minority groups.

It may just be me, but I think in general that labeling a majority of people 'bad' or 'evil' is not the most effective way to effect change. I never interpreted Dr. King's methods as requiring that approach, and ultimately that was the approach that won out.

I believe that the race relations have been, post-1960's, and ultimately will be, more successful in the South for a variety of reasons.

I think that change initially took more time in the South, but I also believe that people in Chicago, New York, Boston and other areas had significant racial issues of their own.

Managing change is never an easy proposition. There is no utopia waiting around the corner (economically, environmentally or otherwise). The technology we enjoy, the medical advancements we have made, the comfort we live in (even middle class comforts) all have come at a cost. The population of the U.S. consumes resources at a rate that would require 8 planets to sustain, by some estimates. That is compensated by the fact that a significant percentage of the world's population consumes at a rate that requires much less than 1 Earth to sustain. You may be right about future, smug generations judging our environmental record - - - but the alternative would be to live in a society now that we wouldn't recognize. The change required to move us to even to a number like 2 or 3 on that scale would require such drastic changes that it would impact everyone up and down the line. Frankly, I think it would require a totalitarian state to make immediate changes drastic enough to reduce the consumption to levels the point that those on the extreme side of the environmental side of things would deem acceptable or sustainable.

You may feel that would be a good thing (reducing consumption to 25% of where we are now, not a totalitarian state), and it might. But the changes would or will create incredible stress in our society. The more stress it causes, the longer it will take to effect the change. That's just human nature. Looking for solutions that don't totally change the way our society functions is going to take time.

It also doesn't help when it's perceived that those championing change are less likely to bear the brunt of, or deal with the consequences of, the changes.

(04-21-2014 08:28 PM)JOwl Wrote:  

(04-21-2014 02:38 PM)JSA Wrote:  The Strange Demise of Jim Crow (in Houston):

http://newsreel.org/video/THE-STRANGE-DE...F-JIM-CROW

The summary is fascinating. Google implies it's been screened in various places in Houston over the years. I'd like to see it some time. Maybe I'll just buy it (even though the $25 seems steep).

I saw it on Channel 8, maybe a couple of years ago.

I love how so many (though certainly not all!) Quad threads defy the standard downward spiral of the intranet and instead become interesting, informative conversations...

(04-23-2014 10:18 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  I love how so many (though certainly not all!) Quad threads defy the standard downward spiral of the intranet and instead become interesting, informative conversations...

So's your old man!

(04-21-2014 11:58 PM)75src Wrote:  An Englishman I know envied the unity of the United States. What was not mentioned was the terrible price the North and South had to pay during for the War for that unity.

Another, less sanguinary reason for our unity is Americans' historic and continuing geographic mobility. From the very beginning, Americans have tended to spread out from their place of birth to a degree that was historically astonishing to Europeans. This habit of migration -- together with the sense of physical freedom it helps provide even among those who stay put -- has long been an underpinning of our national identity.

While perhaps most pronounced in the US, I suspect this is a common trait among New Worlders in general (a category which includes Australians in most respects), and certainly one of the characteristics that has distinguished -- mostly in a positive way -- the New World from the Old. It is inspiring to see western Europe catching up in this respect.

(04-19-2014 02:57 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  I can think of a lot of symbolic meaning in the naming of schools that may have been present in the 1950's or 1960's. People are averse to change and that would be one way to express that. I doubt that everyone involved in naming schools were doing it with the intent to 'intimidate'. Out of protest or defiance of the federal government seems more likely.

That might not be a very meaningful distinction to a student or parent whose ancestors were slaves, and whose more recent ancestors were victims of institutional oppression. Particularly if the protest and defiance were specifically against the attempt to end that institutional oppression.

We were not quite as mobile at the time of the Civil War so regionalism was very important then. Most people then had never been outside their home state. There were some that headed west but western settlement tended to be in several bands across the county. Southerners would settle the western slave states such as Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas. Northerners would move to free states such as Iowa, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin.

The people were most familiar with other regions and their people were probably the army officers. The officers would have friendships dating from West Point days and were posted in various parts of the nation. They regretted what would happen if there was a war.

(04-23-2014 02:25 PM)georgewebb Wrote:  

(04-21-2014 11:58 PM)75src Wrote:  An Englishman I know envied the unity of the United States. What was not mentioned was the terrible price the North and South had to pay during for the War for that unity.

Another, less sanguinary reason for our unity is Americans' historic and continuing geographic mobility. From the very beginning, Americans have tended to spread out from their place of birth to a ..
degree that was historically astonishing to Europeans. This habit of migration -- together with the sense of physical freedom it helps provide even among those who stay put -- has long been an underpinning of our national identity.

While perhaps most pronounced in the US, I suspect this is a common trait among New Worlders in general (a category which includes Australians in most respects), and certainly one of the characteristics that has distinguished -- mostly in a positive way -- the New World from the Old. It is inspiring to see western Europe catching up in this respect.

(04-23-2014 10:00 PM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  

(04-19-2014 02:57 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  I can think of a lot of symbolic meaning in the naming of schools that may have been present in the 1950's or 1960's. People are averse to change and that would be one way to express that. I doubt that everyone involved in naming schools were doing it with the intent to 'intimidate'. Out of protest or defiance of the federal government seems more likely.

That might not be a very meaningful distinction to a student or parent whose ancestors were slaves, and whose more recent ancestors were victims of institutional oppression. Particularly if the protest and defiance were specifically against the attempt to end that institutional oppression.

Fair enough. And I've said that names of people who obviously chosen because of racist views (KKK founders for example) should be done away with.

But certain figures (Lee and Jackson spring to mind) who were revered long before the Civil Rights Era of the 1950's and 1960's came along don't strike me as falling into the same category. Similarly, if a school is named for someone in their own home town, and the character of the honoree is good, and their only crime was supporting the state in which they were born during the War, then I don't know that I'd automatically paint them with the same broad brush.

As others have alluded, interest in the Civil War at the Centennial was high both in the North and South. I don't believe it would be fair or accurate to say that every attempt to honor someone like Lee, regardless of whether it's Washington and Lee University, or a school named in 1961 at the start of the Centennial, was made to make a racist point.

And as others have pointed out, the key objection to Lee would apply to Washington and Jefferson as well, both of whom would have likely acted on allegiance to Virginia if the war had occurred during their lifetime.

I believe Lee and Jackson were revered for their character, leadership and due to the love their men had for them. I believe Lee and even Jackson were held in high regard by people north of the Mason - Dixon line as well.

I think those considerations are fair and should not be automatically ignored.

(04-23-2014 10:29 PM)75src Wrote:  We were not quite as mobile at the time of the Civil War so regionalism was very important then. Most people then had never been outside their home state. There were some that headed west but western settlement tended to be in several bands across the county. Southerners would settle the western slave states such as Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas. Northerners would move to free states such as Iowa, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin.

The people were most familiar with other regions and their people were probably the army officers. The officers would have friendships dating from West Point days and were posted in various parts of the nation. They regretted what would happen if there was a war.

(04-23-2014 02:25 PM)georgewebb Wrote:  

(04-21-2014 11:58 PM)75src Wrote:  An Englishman I know envied the unity of the United States. What was not mentioned was the terrible price the North and South had to pay during for the War for that unity.

Another, less sanguinary reason for our unity is Americans' historic and continuing geographic mobility. From the very beginning, Americans have tended to spread out from their place of birth to a ..
degree that was historically astonishing to Europeans. This habit of migration -- together with the sense of physical freedom it helps provide even among those who stay put -- has long been an underpinning of our national identity.

While perhaps most pronounced in the US, I suspect this is a common trait among New Worlders in general (a category which includes Australians in most respects), and certainly one of the characteristics that has distinguished -- mostly in a positive way -- the New World from the Old. It is inspiring to see western Europe catching up in this respect.

I think World War II (to a lesser extent, World War I) and the rise of the Interstate Highway System (to a slightly lesser extent, the mass production of the automobile) contributed to our sense of national unity and a decline of regionalism. World War II had a galvanizing effect on the country.

And my mother has told me about trips she made to Galveston in the early 1950's from St. Louis and a long vacation trips her mother made in the 1920's from St. Louis to Arkansas and other places.

A drive that today could theoretically be made in one day (Houston to St. Louis - 14 to 16 hours) in a pinch, could easily take 3 days and even more in the past.