For good people to do nothing

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke 

One of my Black History month books for 2018 was The Strange Career of Jim Crow by C. Vann Woodward. I didn't love it.

The original publication date was 1955, and the book is very much in that older droning style, where everything feels long and boring. I think that was an academic rule then, like it wouldn't feel right to make a history book interesting, no matter how interesting the events were. Perhaps that is my age showing.

Even worse, my newer version had some notes added later, trying to account for the Civil Rights movement and the civil unrest of the 60s. There were some wonderful testimonials of his goodness and commitment to equality in the book, which I think were a reaction to Woodward becoming more conservative later. I don't doubt the sincerity of the man in 1955, but I immediately noticed the growing paternalism in his later writing. I don't know if that has to be held against the earlier writings, but I'm sure that denial doesn't help.

Actually, in that way, C. Vann Woodward may have most efficiently argued his own point.

The 1955 parts of The Strange Career of Jim Crow contain information on the ten to twenty years right after emancipation. It is a fairly short work, so there is nothing about debt peonage or attempts to keep freed people working on their old plantations. To be fair, it is more of an urban work, and some of the worst examples of fighting against emancipation come from rural areas. I suspect Woodward was overly optimistic, but could have been worse. Regardless, Woodward found several examples of the races mingling harmoniously in the South during Reconstruction.

Part of that is pointing out that in some ways the South was - if not less racist - at least more used to frequent contact between Black and white people than the North. Slavery did allow for frequent contact, and Woodward's argument was that once Black people were free they integrated fairly well.

As much as I suspect that he missed some key points in deciding that, it was clear that at least some people were fine sharing rail cars and public areas, and I am willing to believe that was true. What was more important was that there were always some people working against it. A vocal minority worked hard to stir up dissent, lobby, and do anything possible to reverse gains in equality.

In that way it seems like the book would have been more about the birth of Jim Crow rather than the career, but his point was that it was a Northern import.

(I suddenly wonder how much Woodward accepted the Lost Cause school of thought, but I don't know and finding out isn't a priority right now.)

The strongest lesson that I took from the book is that even if the majority of people are fine with progress, there will always be some working against it. Complacency lets them succeed.

That is why not talking about racism to avoid making anyone uncomfortable doesn't work. That is why waiting for the old racist generation to die out doesn't work. They are continuously undermining and require active countermeasures. It is lovely to think that people are basically good and won't fall for that, but there has been plenty of evidence to the contrary, even before 2016.

The C Vann Woodward of 1955 appeared to be striving for equality, sometimes making his case to hostile audiences, but generally remaining very pleasant. When things got unpleasant in that fight for equality, he started blaming outsiders (West Indians especially) and wondering if certain actions were really necessary. He praised Dinesh D'Souza and spoke against the hiring of John Hope Franklin as being racially motivated, despite the fact that Franklin was an excellent historian doing important work. There is no indication that Woodward saw the irony, and plenty of people still thought he was a great guy.

Equality doesn't come easily. It requires a fight. It requires grappling with racism, no matter how many people get offended at admissions that racism exists and that they may have been affected by it.

You will find a lot of think pieces out there right now suggested otherwise, but they are ignoring history.