Kudos on your achievement! I am especially interested in this topic!
As an ex-DC-MDer, ex-federal civil rights investigator (presently a Californian, retired into CW study) I am pleased to learn this liberation-oriented history of Faneuil Hall from Kevin. Retaining its name would track with my personal yardstick for retaining or erasing names of historic personages and places: did it have a record or history of promoting enslavement, or, is there a broader history or pattern outweighing its civil-wrongs record?
Thus, enslavers Washington and Jefferson contributed more to USA development than even being major enslavers. A character like Andrew Jackson gains small credit for adopting Lyncoya, an infant Native war orphan, VS his egregious crimes against Native Peoples.
This KL post gives me the insight to complete a circuit on his recent posting about Col Robert Shaw's condescension and racism. I can easily understand how African Americans internalized their behavior with self-protecting genuflections for three and four centuries.
My late dad's incarceration in Manzanar was marked by nearly getting shot by Army MPs on a watch tower, when he strolled up to the barbed wire "Dead Line". Up to a dozen Japanese American inmates were murdered this way, because they didn't understand English, nor know the sounds of a round being chambered. (Dad had been drafted by the Japanese Army in the 1930s and was trained as a sub-machine gunner, so he knew the sound of small arms!)
Despite getting almost murdered, Dad was intensely patriotic to the USA. When a recruiting team from the 100th RCT came to Manzanar I think Dad was the only Nisei to show interest. Attempting to enlist (a recent tuberculosis survivor, he was 4-F) attracted notice of the administrators (Manzanar was riven between "loyal Americans" and dissident gangs who assaulted them) but soon had to flee to the Arkansas camps). They asked his help in tasks requiring bilingual skills.
Dad's camp files show their paternalist appreciation. His loyalty report sang his praises, but referred to him as "a fine boy". Dad was nearly 30! Soon after entering the camps in Arkansas, he won his breakthru job: a de facto social worker helping families wrecked by deportations, separations, etc.
In the 1950s, he counseled me to keep my head down, mouth shut, and work hard. That was the Japanese American way of not getting murdered-- for nearly a century. My parents kept a lifelong association with the camp administrator who gave him his break. We socialized with that family several times a year, plus on every Thanksgiving. My research found this friend was the civil servant who hired him for social work.
So, reflecting on how long Japanese Americans kept their heads down and voices small, I can easily understand how African Americans ingrained their society with self-protecting behaviors for three and four centuries. How an elderly freedman speaking to a Union colonel would feel like he was still looking up at two Whites, old master and new! Even if their "masters" were cruel and sold slave children like they sold lambs and calves, many of the newly-freed would reflexively continue the attitudes of regarding Whites as their fonts of affection.
The flip side is exemplified by Tubman (in my lifetime, by my Mom and my wife, who worked 25 years for Nancy Pelosi as her immigrant and refugee specialist), who bided her time to take the opportunities to regain or help others gain stolen opportunities.
Becoming liberated after being one-down for a long time has its own adjustments and strains.
(PS: Friday morning my wife and I attended an APEC breakfast here in San Francisco, hosted by the Speaker Emerita. --Paul looks great, BTW! -- There was a strong vibe among the MCs and diplomats that American Dems can keep the USA strong with unified action!
(Nancy is clearly happy no longer burdened being Speaker. This was also the day after a federal jury threw the book at DePape for bludgeoning Paul. The d'Alesandro-Pelosi family "knows (their) power" and America is clearly better for it. Among the Asian American MCs and our As-Am activist friends attending, the feeling of being one-down was clearly in the past, and after the Emerita's example, our political problems were simply tasks to work through with the help of allies.)
(Final PS, on Faneuil Hall: in 1980 I undertook a series of attempts to get served Indian Pudding at the notorious but beloved Durgin Park restaurant there. The meals were fine but for silly reasons, this dessert was unattainable. I doubt I will find an appropriate excuse in this distinguished forum to tell of it!)
Kudos on your achievement! I am especially interested in this topic!
As an ex-DC-MDer, ex-federal civil rights investigator (presently a Californian, retired into CW study) I am pleased to learn this liberation-oriented history of Faneuil Hall from Kevin. Retaining its name would track with my personal yardstick for retaining or erasing names of historic personages and places: did it have a record or history of promoting enslavement, or, is there a broader history or pattern outweighing its civil-wrongs record?
Thus, enslavers Washington and Jefferson contributed more to USA development than even being major enslavers. A character like Andrew Jackson gains small credit for adopting Lyncoya, an infant Native war orphan, VS his egregious crimes against Native Peoples.
This KL post gives me the insight to complete a circuit on his recent posting about Col Robert Shaw's condescension and racism. I can easily understand how African Americans internalized their behavior with self-protecting genuflections for three and four centuries.
My late dad's incarceration in Manzanar was marked by nearly getting shot by Army MPs on a watch tower, when he strolled up to the barbed wire "Dead Line". Up to a dozen Japanese American inmates were murdered this way, because they didn't understand English, nor know the sounds of a round being chambered. (Dad had been drafted by the Japanese Army in the 1930s and was trained as a sub-machine gunner, so he knew the sound of small arms!)
Despite getting almost murdered, Dad was intensely patriotic to the USA. When a recruiting team from the 100th RCT came to Manzanar I think Dad was the only Nisei to show interest. Attempting to enlist (a recent tuberculosis survivor, he was 4-F) attracted notice of the administrators (Manzanar was riven between "loyal Americans" and dissident gangs who assaulted them) but soon had to flee to the Arkansas camps). They asked his help in tasks requiring bilingual skills.
Dad's camp files show their paternalist appreciation. His loyalty report sang his praises, but referred to him as "a fine boy". Dad was nearly 30! Soon after entering the camps in Arkansas, he won his breakthru job: a de facto social worker helping families wrecked by deportations, separations, etc.
In the 1950s, he counseled me to keep my head down, mouth shut, and work hard. That was the Japanese American way of not getting murdered-- for nearly a century. My parents kept a lifelong association with the camp administrator who gave him his break. We socialized with that family several times a year, plus on every Thanksgiving. My research found this friend was the civil servant who hired him for social work.
So, reflecting on how long Japanese Americans kept their heads down and voices small, I can easily understand how African Americans ingrained their society with self-protecting behaviors for three and four centuries. How an elderly freedman speaking to a Union colonel would feel like he was still looking up at two Whites, old master and new! Even if their "masters" were cruel and sold slave children like they sold lambs and calves, many of the newly-freed would reflexively continue the attitudes of regarding Whites as their fonts of affection.
The flip side is exemplified by Tubman (in my lifetime, by my Mom and my wife, who worked 25 years for Nancy Pelosi as her immigrant and refugee specialist), who bided her time to take the opportunities to regain or help others gain stolen opportunities.
Becoming liberated after being one-down for a long time has its own adjustments and strains.
(PS: Friday morning my wife and I attended an APEC breakfast here in San Francisco, hosted by the Speaker Emerita. --Paul looks great, BTW! -- There was a strong vibe among the MCs and diplomats that American Dems can keep the USA strong with unified action!
(Nancy is clearly happy no longer burdened being Speaker. This was also the day after a federal jury threw the book at DePape for bludgeoning Paul. The d'Alesandro-Pelosi family "knows (their) power" and America is clearly better for it. Among the Asian American MCs and our As-Am activist friends attending, the feeling of being one-down was clearly in the past, and after the Emerita's example, our political problems were simply tasks to work through with the help of allies.)
(Final PS, on Faneuil Hall: in 1980 I undertook a series of attempts to get served Indian Pudding at the notorious but beloved Durgin Park restaurant there. The meals were fine but for silly reasons, this dessert was unattainable. I doubt I will find an appropriate excuse in this distinguished forum to tell of it!)