Between Memory and History: Autobiographies of the Civil Rights Movement and the Writing of Civil Rights History
2008; Southern Historical Association; Volume: 74; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2325-6893
Autores Tópico(s)American Political and Social Dynamics
ResumoIN 1988, AT REUNION OF THE STUDENT NONVIOLENT COORDINATING Committee (SNCC), Joyce Ladner had this to say about scholarship on civil rights movement: It was not until decade after leaving SNCC that began to read some of works on movement, maybe even little longer than decade. Sara Evans's Personal Politics was totally rubbish. mean, it's revisionist to core. She didn't even interview right people, people she should have talked to who could have told her what really happened. Michelle [sic] Wallace, would put at an even lower scale when she talks about Black Macho and Myth of Superwoman--I've waited for this chance [to say this] for about ten years. Martha Prescod Norman made much same point more succinctly and more poignantly: When all is said and done, it shouldn't be left to history to give our children sense of us, because we're still here. Casey Hayden concurred, Don't ever believe what you read in history books. At best it's pale approximation. Responding to these remarks, historian Allen Matusow wryly observed, the veterans of this movement have clearly identified two enemies: sheriffs and (1) critique of histories of movement subsequently made its way into print, as former activists took up pen to write their autobiographies and memoirs. (2) In introduction to Deep in Our Hearts: Nine White Women in Freedom Movement, collection of essay-length memoirs by nine white women of student generation of activists, authors reveal that they began by examining what has been written by others about our lives and arriving at clear perception that no one could tell our stories but we ourselves. (3) Peter Jan Honigsberg prefaces his memoir, Crossing Border Street: Civil Rights Memoir, with A Memory: This memoir is my personal witness. encourage others in Louisiana movement to tell their stories, too, before all we have left is history. (4) Ralph David Abernathy, in his introduction to And Walls Came Tumbling Down: An Autobiography, pays historians this decidedly backhanded compliment: Historians do an excellent job of re-creating past, but for most part they do so by superimposing their own abstractions on of experience. For Abernathy, those concrete particulars amounted to an autobiography of 612 pages. (5) Scholars themselves have picked up refrain: sociologist Doug McAdam, author of well-received Freedom Summer, praised Honigsberg's memoir as a welcome addition to literature of civil rights struggle, serving to leaven as other memoirs have literature too often dominated by dry, scholarly studies. (6) History is under assault from autobiography, and, at least as some former activists have it, memoir trumps history at nearly every turn. Autobiography is more accurate, more concrete, more compelling, and truer to experience of movement. (7) Upon closer examination, however, issue does not resolve itself so neatly, certainly not for historians--who approach autobiography warily and are more likely to see memoirs, particularly those of political nature, as partial, partisan, and even self-justifying--but not even for autobiographers themselves. (8) For all vehemence of Joyce Ladner's assertion, she acknowledges that she reads scholarly works and they shape what she has to say about movement. The contributors to Deep in Our Hearts reveal that their method was to read history first and write memoir second. Ralph Abernathy admits to close working relationship with historians. Of numerous interviews he granted to scholars over years, he writes, I now realize that in helping other historians research their works, have been preparing to write my own account. After all, each time told story remembered more about what had happened, thereby filling in details of what may have been on first telling sketchy and incomplete narrative. …
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