“My father was a slave and my people died to build this country, and I’m going to stay right here and have a part of it, just like you. And no fascist-minded people like you will drive me from it. Is that clear?”
Paul Robeson, Testimony before House Un-American Activities Committee.
Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged black history, social-emotional learning, united states history
“Teddy Wilson (originally Theodore Shaw) (1912-1986) U.S. pianist and bandleader, the principal pianist of the swing era. Born in Austin, Texas, he began recording as the leader of small groups in 1935. These recordings, which featured Billie Holiday, are classics of small-group swing. Wilson joined Benny Goodman’s trio in 1936. After 1940 he worked primarily as a leader of small groups or as a solo pianist, showcasing his tasteful and refined amalgam of the styles of Fats Waller, Earl Hines, and Art Tatum.”
Excerpted from: Macey, David. The Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory. New York: Penguin, 2001.
Posted in Independent Practice, Quotes, Reference
Tagged black history, music, readings/research, united states history
“If you teach the Negro that he has accomplished as much good as any other race he will aspire to equality and justice without regard to race. Such an effort would upset the program of the oppressor in Africa and America. Play up before the Negro, then, his crimes and shortcomings. Let him learn and admire the Hebrew, the Greek, the Latin and the Teuton. Lead the Negro to detest the man of African blood—to hate himself. The oppressor may then conquer, exploit, oppress and even annihilate the Negro by segregation without fear or trembling. With the truth hidden there will be little expression of thought to the contrary.
The American Negro has taken over an abundance of information which others have made accessible to the oppressed, but he has not yet learned to think and plan for himself as others do for themselves. Well might this race be referred to as the most docile and tractable people on earth. This merely means that when the oppressors once start the large majority of the race in the direction of serving the purposes of their traducers, the task becomes so easy in the years following that they have little trouble with the masses thus controlled. It is a most satisfactory system, and it has become so popular that European nations of foresight are sending some of their brightest minds to the United States to observe the Negro in ‘inaction’ in order to learn how to deal likewise with Negroes in their colonies. What the Negro in America has become satisfied with will be accepted as the measure or what should be allotted him elsewhere. Certain Europeans consider the ‘solution to the race problem in the United States’ one of our great achievements.”
Excerpted/Adapted from: Woodson, Carter G. The Mis-education of the Negro. Eastford, CT: Martino Fine Books, 2018.
Posted in Announcement, New York City
Tagged black history, film/television/photography, music, united states history
Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Rosenberg Case. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences and three comprehension questions. The information in the reading is out of date, as it is quite clear at this point that Julius Rosenberg was in fact spying for the Soviet Union. Ethel’s case, on the other hand, is not so clear cut.
This is a case in which I have been intermittently interested in over the years. When I saw Sidney Lumet’s 1983 film of E.L. Doctorow’s novel The Book of Daniel, I recognized immediately that it was a thinly fictionalized account of the Rosenberg Case. Likewise, of course, Doctorow’s novel. This encounter then led me to Louis Nizer’s book The Implosion Conspiracy, a study of the Rosenberg Case.
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
Orson (George) Welles: (1915-1985) U.S. film director, actor, and producer. Born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, he began directing on stage at 16 and made his Broadway debut in 1934. He directed an all-black cast in Macbeth for the Federal Theater Project. In 1937 he and John Houseman formed the Mercury Theater, creating a series of radio dramas and attempting to mount Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock in the face of determined opposition, and winning notoriety with their panic-producing broadcast of War of the Worlds (1938). Welles then moved to Hollywood, where he cowrote, directed, and acted in the classic Citizen Kane (1941), noted for its innovative narrative technique and atmospheric cinematography and considered the most influential movie in film history. His other films include The Magnificent Ambersons (1943), The Stranger (1946), The Lady from Shanghai (1948), Othello (1952), The Trial (1963), Touch of Evil (1958) and Chimes at Midnight (1966). His problems with Hollywood studios curtailed future productions, and he moved to Europe. He was also notable as an actor in Jane Eyre (1944), The Third Man (1949), and Compulsion (1959).
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
“Ashcan School: (Also called The Eight and The New York Realists) A term applied, loosely and belatedly, to a group of American realist painters. Although they never actually formed a school, eight painters—Robert Henri (1865-1929), John Sloan (1871-1951), Maurice Prendergast (1859-1927), George Luks (1897-1933), Everett Shinn (1876-1953), William Glackens (1870-1938), Ernest Lawson (1873-1939), and Arthur B. Davies (1862-1928)—held an independent exhibition at The Macbeth Gallery in New York in February 1908. Their paintings, which featured prizefights, bars, and city street scenes, departed from the artistic conventions of the turn of the century and were greeted with a storm of critical disapproval. These depictions of the working-class milieu—romantic and vital, but also squalid and brutal—shocked viewers used to genteel and fashionable pictures. The exhibition and the work of the artists, however, exerted an enormous influence on the development of American realistic painting.
The original eight came to be associated with other painters, including Walt Kuhn (1880-1949), one of the organizers of the Armory Show, and George Bellows (1882-1925), whose work, of all of the painters of the school, has perhaps retained the most critical interest.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
“dictatorship: In modern usage, absolute rule unrestricted by law, constitutions, or other political or social factors within the state. The original dictators, however, were magistrates in ancient Italian cities (including Rome) who were allocated absolute power during a period of emergency. Their power was neither arbitrary nor accountable, being subject to law and requiring retrospective justification. There were no such dictators after the beginning of the second century BC, however, and later dictators such as Sulla and the Roman emperors conformed more to our image of the dictator as an autocrat and near-despot.
In the twentieth century the existence of a dictator has been a necessary and (to some) definitive component of totalitarian regimes: thus Stalin’s Russia, Hitler’s Germany, and Mussolini’s Italy were generally referred to as dictatorships. In the Soviet case the very word and idea of dictatorship were legitimized by Marx’s idea of the historical necessity of a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ which would follow the revolution and eradicated the bourgeoisie.”
Excerpted from: McLean, Iain, and Alistair McMillan, editors. Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged professional development, readings/research, united states history
“totalitarianism: A dictatorial form of centralized government that regulates every aspect of state and private behavior. Although the term was originally intended to designate fascist and communist regimes, totalitarianism is mainly associated with characterizations of the Soviet Union. Its proponents do not agree on when, if ever, the Soviet Union ceased to be totalitarian, but they tend to converge on the view that at some point the political leadership was all powerful and totally illegitimate. For many commentators, the Soviet Union entered a new phase after the abandonment of mass terror on Stalin’s death. However, others operating within the totalitarian paradigm point to institutional continuity, KGB harassment of dissidents, and the ever present possibilities of arbitrary state power until 1989. The total and sudden collapse of the Soviet Union since then casts doubt not only on this school, but perhaps on the whole concept of totalitarianism. In the 1970s, a new school of Sovietology emerged which pointed to evidence both for popular support for the regime and for widespread dispersion of power, at least in implementation of policy, among sectoral and regional authorities. For some of the ‘pluralists,’ this was evidence of the ability of the regime to adapt to include new demands. However, totalitarian theorists claimed that the failure of the system to survive showed not only its inability to adapt but the formality of supposed popular participation. See also Arendt.”
Excerpted from: McLean, Iain, and Alistair McMillan, editors. Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged professional development, readings/research, united states history
“Pontiac’s Rebellion: (1763-66), Indian uprising against the British, named after one of its leaders, Ottawa chief Pontiac. After the French and Indian War, the tribes north of the Ohio River, finding the British victors less generous than the French and unprotective of Indian lands, resolved upon war. Detroit and Fort Pitt withstood sieges in 1763, but the Indians captured many other British posts and spread terror along the Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland frontiers. In 1764 the British subdued the Shawnees and the Delawares in Pennsylvania. Lacking allies, Pontiac submitted in 1766 and was pardoned.”
Excerpted from: Rosenbaum, Robert A. The Penguin Encyclopedia of American History. New York: Penguin, 2003.
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