I am not the son of a preacher man. I am the nephew of preacher men! Therein lies my attraction to Rev. Lemuel Haynes, Pastor and Howard University President Mordecai Johnson, Rev. and Harlem Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Pastor and Mississippi Lieutenant Governor Alexander Kelso Davis, and of course, Professor Glenn Loury. I am drawn to men for whom faith (or the lack thereof) has been a fulcrum in life.
The best of America lies in Rev. Lemuel Haynes. Abandoned as an infant on Christmas Day, Rev. Haynes found providence in the Deacon David Rose family. The Deacon Rose family of Granville, Massachusetts. Destined to become another statistic in life, the baby was raised in the church under the most severe of discipline and instruction. To the outside world of Granville, the young Lemuel was an orphaned black indentured servant to be pitied. But destiny knew better. That young child would learn to read by the blazing night light of the fireplace. Books were sparse but his mind was prodigious. Lemuel committed to learning more each day than he knew the previous day.
When America was threatened by the oppressive British, the young man left his Granville home and served as a Minuteman in the Continental Army. He saw battle and served at Fort Ticonderoga in Vermont. The Green Mountain state, Vermont. One day, that man from Granville would preach over 5,000 sermons from a rural pulpit in Rutland, Vermont, become the most renowned pastor in northern New England and earn the first honorary degree to a black man in U.S. history.
Today, his descendants are white and the love for their ancestor, the most influential black American before Frederick Douglass, is raceless. The best of America on this July 4th.
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There is always the temptation as an individual to become demoralized in the race world. A family member attends a reception and the first remark of the family member was to say the family member was the only black person present (which was not true since the family member forgot the family member’s sibling is black in the moment). Are you lost in this tangle of race consciousness? I am. There is the wearing of the Jack and Jill t-shirt early in the morning but I will give that a pass for now. Life is a struggle for everyone, so why not embrace the inherited goodies of a black Mom’s group? There was a program somewhere for Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA) but it is covered up for now.
We live in a state of racial detente. I will return to this point later.
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I love men of faith in Black History who ushered in the coming of a better time. To me, the heroic life is spiritual in nature. Such was the case with the life of Mordecai Johnson. To understand Johnson, we should understand where he came from. Folks are always remarking don’t forget where you came from. Well, Johnson came from a small southern town, Paris, Tennessee just like my Chester, Virginia. Blacks had always lived in Paris since slave times, just like Chester. The population of Paris is around 10,000, about the same as the Chester of my boyhood. Paris has always been around 15% black which aligns with the Chester I knew in the 1970s. There is something about a southern, small-town coming of age I understand without translation of dogma and slogan words.
The son of a Baptist pastor, Reverend Wyatt Johnson, and a domestic worker for prominent families, Carolyn Freeman, Mordecai Johnson entered this world on January 4, 1890 in Paris, Tennessee. It is true his parents were both former slaves but, to be honest, the values and attitudes of slave times did not inspire the young Johnson as he grew. The destiny of the child is the work of the mother. From the moment of his birth, Carolyn foresaw a bright future for her son. She saw in her son destiny. She would share her dreams with her son. She sacrificed for her son, so that he could attend the best schools possible. She scrimped and saved on her own attire so that Mordecai would have appropriate clothes, the best she could afford for his schooling.
And as for Dad? He worked six days a week for years as a mill worker. It is said he never missed a day of work. The only day he did not work was Sunday when he performed the Lord’s work from the pulpit. Such an example of dedication, grit and determination as well as faith for a young son.
Mom and Dad’s son would deliver a commencement address at Harvard in 1919, graduate from Harvard in 1923, became a pastor himself and the first black president of Howard University in 1926. As president, Mordecai Johnson transformed Howard and, indirectly, black America. All Americans owe a dedication of thanks to this son of a southern small-town whose parents lived in the future, not the past of slavery.
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I have always perceived Blackness as enterprise and achievement. Thumbing through Black Enterprise Magazine stories about men like John H. Johnson, Berry Gordy, Percy Sutton, Reginald Lewis and Earl Graves, Jr. forever imprinted the equation Enterprise + Achievement = Blackness in my neural pathways. I never conceived of defining Blackness any other way.
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Downstairs hangs a black and white photograph of the larger than life Rev. and Harlem Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. I remember the day my wife and I were strolling through a poster shop in Sausalito, California. (For the race conscious reader, Sausalito is 0.9% black. 65 black people live in Sausalito out of a total population of 7,061.) I cherish Black History and could not believe my eyes as I gazed upon a moment in time captured by an unknown photographer. The Rev. was in his congressional office exuding swagger, cigarette in hand and lips pursed, the silky hair combed back and the you had not better not challenge his Blackness with a capital “B” attitude! That exquisite picture has been in our home since the 1990s when I was a law professor.
The son of a preacher man, Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., Rev. Powell Jr. made me proud. Was the Rev. a ladies man? Absolutely! Did the Rev. smoke too much? You bet! Did the Rev. curse? I bet you a candy bar the Rev. cursed up a storm in private on the streets of Harlem. Was the Rev. guilty of corruption as he got up in years? Sadly, yes. So, why am I enamored with this man who fell short in life? Because he lived tall in his public life and gave voice to those who needed to see a strong black man of ambition and leadership and courage.
Presence and charisma —thy name is Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Rev. Powell betrays the falsehood that a Black Man must look a certain way. There is a spectrum of physical appearances in black American families. In our desire to center Blackness, we do wrong when we forget those non-conformers in appearance who gave Black Americans on the streets of Harlem hope. We must resist a fade to Black appearance as we understand Black Identity.
Skin color is only skin deep.
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For many years, I kept my thoughts about race to myself. I assumed my life was less compelling than the plight of blacks in the inner-city. Those stories were the real black stories, I convinced myself. So, I remained silent and didn’t voice ideas that diverged from dogma and slogan words. I assumed other stories were more compelling, so what did I have to contribute to a conversation on race?
But I didn’t believe it even then. Rev. Powell, Jr. was not epic because he was oppressed. He was heroic due to his character, ambition and high aim in life. And his place in the church. As the nephew of preacher men, I understood the son of a Harlem preacher man…in ways I lack the words to express.
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Once upon a time in Jackson, Mississippi, a fair-skinned, straight-haired black man found himself sitting in the Governor’s chair as Acting Governor of Mississippi. The world was turned upside down. The crest of Reconstruction was at hand. The Acting Governor for a day or two, Alexander Kelso Davis, felt the temptation to do wrong. He was weak in the moment and took advantage of his temporary power to sell a pardon for money. Bad move. A very bad move. The law caught up with Davis and he resigned in the face of impeachment. To read the transcripts of the impeachment proceedings (as I have) is a sad window into the moral weakness of man.
So why do I even grace the disgraced Acting Governor of Mississippi with a mention in this essay? Because Davis repented of his sins. He found religion and became a pastor in the Colored Methodist Church in Canton, Mississippi. Politics was no good for the man. Davis found respect and spiritual redemption from the pulpit. When he passed away, he was highly respected by both races.
The most lasting good a man can leave for posterity is to abandon the bad for the good so that one dies in respect at the end of one’s days.
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And now we come to Professor Loury, a modern-day Alexander Kelso Davis of sorts. Yes, Loury was not born in Mississippi before the Civil War like Davis. Loury never lived in Mississippi. Loury has never run for public office or served as Lieutenant-Governor or Acting Governor of any state. Nor has Loury solicited payment for pardons from the Governor’s desk or disgraced himself pleading for a pay off in a seedy Mississippi hotel under cover of nightfall.
Loury has done none of these things for which Davis found redemption in his life.
What Loury has done is father a son out of wedlock and disown the son. Unlike Acting Governor Davis in far more oppressive times in a far more oppressive place, Loury has committed adultery in the South Side of Chicago, Washington. D.C., Boston and places too numerous to mention. Loury has smoked weed and sought out crack houses while a tenured professor at Harvard. Loury had talked the conservative talk but not walked the conservative walk in life. White supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan did not compel Loury to sneak around in sin and abuse drugs. Blame not the White Man. Fault thyself.
So, why is this nephew of preacher men drawn to a known sinner man?
Because faith in the AME church which Loury and I shared, until he lost faith, meant sinners could change. Turn back Oh Man. When people admit and confess their shortcomings, we all benefit as a society. We all have sinned, so there is acknowledgment of reality. We better understand others as another looks at the Man in the Mirror. It is a public good to release one’s demons. It relieves the troubled and clears away the mask so that others can more clearly see behind the mask.
Acting Governor Davis changed and lived out his life as a preacher man down in Canton. Are we witnessing a change in Loury as he lives out his final days as a preacher of spiritual truth up in Providence? Is there a place for acceptance of the fallen soul in our hearts?
I am a strong believer in removing the mask in writing. Otherwise, what are we doing as writers? Why are we wasting our time spouting dogma and slogan words? Life is way too short to not be oneself in public. One day, you and I will be gone and our grandchildren will feel the loss of memory. Who was my Granddad? Why did he want me to bear this funny name in life? Did he love his Dad? His Sister? Did he ever talk with Beloved Cousin again? Did he marry for love or for the inherited goodies of ancestors long dead in Charleston and Georgetown, South Carolina? Would he still love me as I grew into middle age and older? Why did Granddad retire from Blackness?
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I have retired from Blackness. All of the reasons for doing so are wrapped up in this essay — memory of Blackness as enterprise, revulsion against dogma and slogan words, soul of a non-conformer, freedom of creative expression, human dignity. None of these reasons have to do with racial disparities or patterns in racial life. My life began before awareness of Blackness. It is quite fitting that the finale of my life returns to identity and sense of self before racial politics.
In a recent written clip, Loury critiques my decision to retire. It is late in the day of my life. I am in my 60s. I have not seen ladies of the evening and crack houses. I have seen public school segregation and desegregation and friendships across all races that will last for a lifetime. I have known what joy is in life and…well…it is me. Like someone I know who is retiring after 52 years at his job. We all want him to stay but he has put in his time and it is selfish of us to have him remain in place until he dies. He has earned retirement.
I have seen enough. Leaving race for me. Leaving you for me
Professor Glenn Loury:
It’s one thing if to worry that the person living below you overhears you saying something politically subversive and reports it to the secret police, who will drag you into a jail cell for questioning. That is a dangerous, repressive situation. It’s another thing entirely to worry simply that the person living below will confront you about something you said that she didn’t like. This latter scenario is a feature of a free society, not a repressive one. In fact, in a free society, there’s no way to avoid this situation if you happen to hold an unpopular view—you can keep quiet and avoid censure or you can speak up and take whatever criticism comes. But there’s a vast difference between enduring the opprobrium of your peers and hearing the jackboots marching toward your door.
In this clip, Winkfield Twyman Jr. suggests that his own dissent from mainstream views on race makes him a kind of political dissident. But that’s a rather outsized claim for a rather quotidian set of political views. Winkfield puts forward two related positions here. The first suggests that racial identity is a matter of personal choice, that we can resign from it in the same way we can resign from a club. The second suggests that racial resignation is such a radical (and radically unpopular) act that it’s tantamount to political dissidence in a repressive society. But the first position negates the second. If racial identity is merely a personal choice that can be opted into or out of at will, then it has little political meaning, for it ceases to function as an historical phenomenon or a site of familial belonging. It’s just a label. And who is willing to march in the streets and risk the gendarmes’ batons—as Czech dissidents did in Václav Havel’s Prague—for such a label? What would they even be marching for?
Individuals declaring their lack of allegiance to the racial flag does nothing to address the large-scale effects of race in this country. If every single person in this country stood up and “renounced race” (whatever that would mean), we would still have the patterns of inequality and the disparities we see today. What we would not have is a language and set of affiliations that would allow us see those patterns and disparities within the long history of race in the US. That’s not something you can wish away through an abstract “resignation from race.” Maybe some day we will develop into a society that no longer requires the concept of race. But I don’t think that’s happening any time soon. In fact, we should hope it doesn’t.
Me: Here you go, Glenn. Happy July 4th!
My Reaction to Racial Gulag
Well Glenn (as John might say),
We have something to talk about. I enjoyed our conversation and, despite my better instincts, have decided to take the bait and respond to your clip. You appreciate a good conversation as do I.
The way we frame an issue focuses one's mind. Kudos for your framing of Racial Gulag. The hyperbole box is checked/smile. Captures one's attention, particularly with the backdrop of a presumably Siberian winter wonderland and a guard house. I might have chosen the more pedestrian Retiring from Blackness frame which seems more immediate to our respective lives in San Diego and Providence, Rhode Island but marketing isn't my thing/smile.
If there are over 40 million black Americans, I am guessing there are at least 10 million black American families. Google tells me there are around 15 million black households. Let's run with that number for a spell. Every single one of those 15 million black households has a different dynamic, a different vibe. In my household, I value harmony over race talk. Long ago, we decided as a family to not talk about race in mixed company if someone would be needlessly annoyed and disturbed. The desire to respect one's human dignity works well for us. My family members know my views and I know their views. We don't talk about race in order to keep the peace which I value much as a Dad. It is not the fear of secret police. It is about the little accommodations people make in a loving family to go along to get along. My wife, well, her views are known about you. Consider the following quote from our book Letters in Black and White: A New Correspondence on Race in America:
I am minding my own business after a hard day at work. To relax and to feel I am not alone in a dogmatic world, I pulled up a wonderful podcast featuring Professor Glenn Loury and a young liberal/leftist interviewer. My wife comes into the room and says with utter contempt, 'I leave you to your anti-black stuff.' In my wife's world, Glenn Loury is anti-black. How open-minded. I don't even reply to these microaggressions anymore. p. 329
So, respecting the opinions and views of others in my home is reading the room. Not a racial gulag. Just emotional intelligence. If I have to move my screen and keep my voice down, that's called consideration. Pleased to share more of the back story with you.
Navigating deep-rooted differences of opinions about race is a problem for me. Once upon a time, people disagreed without being disagreeable. I am not sure when that mindset left the building but it has. If open expression is simply not welcomed on matters of race in the home, where is the free society you speak of? Having said that, the quid pro quo seems to be the freedom to write. For some reason, my family members do not care about my writing as they are able to pretend my non-conforming views on race do not exist. Works for me since I can write with freedom. Perhaps, it is in the writing where I find the free society you speak of.
You are familiar with the essay The Power of the Powerless. Didn't writers and intellectuals find free expression in the written word while living in Prague in the 1960s and 1970s? Is it the exact same thing in my home today? Of course not but the echoes of non-conformity resonate with me. It is not about the secret police. It is about the mouthed slogan words (Black Lives Matter) and enforced conformity through social norms and mores. That was my point about the individual.
As an individual, I cannot change the impulse for conformity and dogma and slogan words in Blackness, That would be a losing battle as an individual. What I can do as one person is cease feeding the beast of racial conformity. If many insist upon doubling down on Black identity (Black Power Kitchen book), I can retire from Blackness and dive into my own authenticity and the things I know as an individual.
I don't want this essay to be too long as there is a natural temptation to sweep the earth for arguments and data points. Suffice to say that, yes, one can retire from Blackness. People have been doing it for centuries. The obvious retirees are those who pass for White or Mexican or Native American. The less obvious retirees are those for whom Blackness is of no value or little value to one's sense of self. 24% of Black Americans fall into this category, according to a recent Pew Research Study. That's about 10 million people. These are people who don't join black fraternities and sororities. Most of their intimate friends are White or Hispanic or Jewish. Perhaps, they grew up in predominantly white suburban places like Montgomery County, Maryland or Malibu, California and they view Blackness from a distance. Some of these people are constructively retired from Blackness today but they don't come out and say it. Who needs the hassle of being misunderstood other than non-conforming me? Adrian Piper retired in ceremony. Thomas Chatterton Williams retired in thoughtful fashion. I retired because I do not do dogma and slogan words. And the movement continues. (Kmele Foster, Sheena Mason, etc.)
As an aside, the transgender movement is instructive. If one can choose a different spot on the gender spectrum from one assigned at birth, why can't blacks choose a different spot on the blackness spectrum from the one assigned at birth? I was assigned "colored" at birth but "retirement from blackness" is a better fit for me in my 60s.
Before the collective, there was the individual. Before the political, there was human dignity and expression. Individuals have many duties -- to live one's best life, to become a good ancestor, to live in pietas. No one is obligated to be an avatar for a race. That's the opposite of choosing to be oneself. Some may choose to devote the whole of their personhood to addressing the large-scale effects of race in this country. And that's great for them. Other people genuinely want to live their lives, play the flute, spend a week in solitude at the monastery in Big Sur, ride a bicycle along the Mexican coast, stroll the beach and take in a sunset. These are some of the most meaningful things in life for many individuals. The long history of race in the U.S. has come to an end for some (many - ?).
Consider this Turing test for race. Is it possible to live my life for a week and not think about slavery, reparations for American slavery, systemic racism, structural racism and the evil police? Yes, it is possible and has been for some time. The more individuals who pass the Turing test for race over time, the more individuals will retire from Blackness as a compelling reality. It is just a matter of time.
To pass through the Turing test for race, we all have to retire from race one individual at a time. It is the future of race beyond the year 2050.
I apologize for this lengthy response. Feel free to post on your podcast so that your subscribers will hear my side of the Racial Gulag threat/smile.
Good back and forth,
Winkfield Jr.