Navajo Code Talkers

An obit in The Week last June reported on the death of a "talker", Chester Nez, who along with 28 other male members of the Nahajo tribe created a code that the Japanese never broke.  As a matter of fact, other Navajos could not read it either.  The irony of his story is that as a child on the reservation in New Mexico he was punished with a mouth-washing of soap, for speaking his native language (at about the same time in Ireland, the British punished native Irish for speaking their language as well).  In 1942 the military came to him and wanted him to create the code using that same language he once got punished for speaking.  They used Navajo words and labeled a tank a "tortoise" and a grenade a "potatoes".  At one point during his service in the Pacific an officer mistook him for a Japanese and almost shot him.  When he returned to New Mexico after the war we could not vote till 1948, or discuss the code until it was de-classified in 1968 and got official recognition in 2001 with a Congressional Gold Medal.  (I wonder how many of the talkers were still alive).  Nez said he was always bothered by the irony of being punished for speaking his language and then asked to use it by those who punished him.

(Source:  The Week, June 20, 2014, "The Navajo warrior who baffled the Japanese")

Antebellum Slavery

David Brion Davis has completed a three volume study of slavery with his book on slavery in the "age of Emancipation" dealing exclusively with slavery in the US.  It is titled The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation.  It is hailed by Eric Foner in a The Nation (Feb 17, 2014) book review, who states it is a "towering achievement of historical scholarship".  He writes that slavery so brutalized its victims as to make them a "menace to the social order if allowed to remain" in the US and for many black leaders, colonization was the only way to "allow former slaves to overcome" the psychological damage done to them.  He notes that the fugitive slave issue was "central in bringing on the Civil War" for it proved the falsehood of southern claims of the contended nature of their slaves.  When the British emancipated their 800,000 slaves (August 1, 1834, a day of national celebration for African Americans) the former owners were paid 20 million pounds in compensation, mostly from taxes raised on the working class (somethings never change).  Davis also claims that if the South had won the war, slavery would have lasted "well into the 20th Century.  While slavery was  diminishing in British Caribbean and Spanish America, "there were more slaves in the Western Hemisphere on the eve of the Civil War than at any point in history".  Davis reports that his interest in the subject began with his WWII service, when shipped overseas in a troop transport, African American troops were "jammed together in the hold" much like the slave ships of he Middle Passage. 

(Source:  "Slavery in the Modern World" by Eric Foner in The Nation on Feb 17, 2014)

Guernica

I am reading a historical novel about the bombing of the Basque town in northern Spain in 1937; it is entitled "Guernica" and was written by Dave Boling.  The story tells us a lot about the way of the people of the Basque region of Spain and their sense of independence from Spain or France.  The author claims that Spain had granted to the region a form of autonomy and the Basque people had elected a President whose name was Jose Antonio Aguirre (I will have to research to confirm).  The destruction of the town is well described and it is noted that there was one significant target of military importance in the town but it was not bombed.  The story also tells of the painting of the mural-Guernica-by Pablo Picasso.  (I will try to add more later)

WWI and new research

The Nation from 12/2/13 reviews three new tomes about the war to end all wars.  They are The War That Ended Peace by Margaret MacMillan, The Sleepwalkers by Christopher Clark, and Dance of the Furies by Michael S. Nieberg.  I am not reviewing them all or reviewing the review of then but just wanted to note a few items.  MacMillan notes that the decision to go to war "...was made by a surprisingly small number (of men) who came largely but not entirely from the upper classes, whether the landed aristocracy or urban plutocracy".  It was key individuals rather than "broad categorical forces".  Nieberg claims that "...the elites in Berlin, and Austria and to a lessor extent St. Petersburg were the only ones who truly did want war".  These writes all blame the "Great Men" theory for the war coming about.  "Contrary to popular belief, most Europeans were not rabid nationalists hankering for a blood feud".  Nieberg also claims that up to the last "days and hours" individual decisions could have stopped the rush to war.

(Source:  The Nation "Behind the Storm" by Tara Zahra.  12/2/13)

Greensboro Four

I read recently of the death of Franklin McCain who was one of the four young black college students who conducted the most significant "sit-in" at a Woolworth lunch counter on Feb. 1, 1960.  The state was North Carolina and the group sought service on four days without success; but the article notes, no violence.  On the fifth day, after news got around, a crowd of 1000 gathered at the store and Woolworth decided to change their policy and serve blacks.  The students tactic involved the purchase of items in the store-school supplies-and then showing their receipt at the lunch counter and openly noting that if the store was willing to take their money to buy store items they should also take their money to serve them food.  Mr McCain gave an interview in 2010 to discuss the events then.  He said a black dishwasher in the store accused the four of being "rabble-rousers" and the sit-in would hurt black people.  The article I read indicated that while there were some who were verbally hostile, their was no physical violence and even some who encouraged them.  He also noted that a "white woman said she was proud of the young men and she wished they had acted 10 years ago".

(Source:  "One of Greensboro Four countered segregation" by Douglas Martin of the New York Times.  In The Virginian Pilot on 1/12/14)

Few Notes of Interest

Two items I found interesting in the news this past mouth I will note here.  First, the US Congress has awarded the Congressional Gold Medal-the highest civilian honor-on the code talkers of World War II fame.  They were American natives indians who used their language to create a military code the enemy-the Japanese-could not de-code.  This article says they were active in both World Wars (WWI, I am not sure of; it will need to be checked).  Thirty-three tribes made contributions to the "code talkers".

Source:  "Washington: Congress honors Code Talkers".  From wire reports in The Virginian Pilot, date in early Nov 2013.

Second, the state of Alabama has "posthumously pardoned" three black men falsely accused and convicted on rape in 1931 in the case known as the "Scottsboro Boys".  Nine young black men, riding a train thru Montgomery, Alabama, were accused, tried and convicted of the rape of two white females on the train with them.  Within three weeks of the events on that train, eight of the men were sentenced to death by the Alabama judge after a trial by an all-white jury.  The case got national attention at the time and led the US Supreme Court to overturn the convictions and order new trials.  The high court ruled that blacks should have been included on the jury and that the men did not receive "adequate legal representation".  The state re-tried four of the men, after dropping charges against five of the defendants.  They were convicted and sentenced to prison in 1937.  One of the four escaped from prison and eventually died in Michigan.  The others were finally pardoned by Governor George Wallace in 1976.  They were paroled some time before the pardon, so I don't know how long they remained in prison.  The state, with this decision, hopes the case will be put "to rest".  This article clearly states that the men were not guilty of any crime involving the events on that train in 1931.  The three men were Haywood Paterson, Charles Weems, and James A. Wright.

(Source:  "Alabama hopes to put "Scottsboro Boys" case to rest" by Alan Blinder of the New York Times.  In The Virginian Pilot on 11/22/13)

1940 US Census

On April 2, 2013 the government was to release the census from 1940, which had not been public for the last 72 years.  Historians and geneologists will be interested in what will be found there.  Some areas of interest will be, a) info on refugees from wars in Europe in the 1930's, b) info on the 100,000 Japanese Americans who were later relocated to internment camps after Pearl Harbor attack, c) info on the large migration of black Americans from the rural south to northern cities in search of jobs and a better life. Historian Henry Louis Gates Jr of Harvard University has prepared a documentary for PBS entitled "Finding Your Roots" which was to air March 2, 2012.  In the case of Japanese Americans the census will paint a clearer picture of the extent of the groups community and the amount of loss suffered by those interned.   A topic interest will be the level of income of ordinary Americans at the time.  A picture printed with the article noted below shows a census worker interviewing a family of four outside a railroad car that was converted in a home.  I note this because it seems to me to be a novel way of providing housing for some in need.  The "house cars" were part of the Mohawk and Hudson RR line and the NY Central.  (could this  be a method of housing the homeless today?)  

The web site that provide these census records "will be free and open to anyone on the Internet" but these records are not "name-searchable".  

http://1940census.archives.gov/1940 and www.the1940census.com.  

(Source:  "Details of daily life from the Great Depression" by Cristian Salazar and Randy Herschaft of the AP.  In The Virginian Pilot on 3/19/12)