Learning How Historians Came Up with their Historical Accounts

Learning can be done in a number of ways. Even, comparing and contrasting things and finding out how authors came up with their writing pieces can be useful and insightful as well. Here is what I came up with when comparing the two types of historical accounts. One additional thing that made me sad though: very limited number of historical accounts in Indonesian was written in such vivid ways.

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Instruction: Compare and contrast the Anderson and the Fairclough accounts -- make sure to discuss the ways they each approach the Reconstruction period.

There are different ways to write historical accounts on a particular issue of human lives, depending on what the purposes and perspectives each author holds. Although both Fairclough and Anderson wrote the same issue, i.e. the struggles of Black shortly after the Civil War was over, in terms of their efforts to provide education for themselves, it is apparent that they use different angles to represent the history. In my view, Fairclough’s account is more people-oriented, and Anderson’s event-oriented.

However, there are at least three commonalities that they share. First, both agree that the public education in the Southern states emerged from the Black initiative. Blacks had suffered from massive educational deprivations for an extended period of time. It was Blacks that came up with the idea of public education run using public expense – the movement that not only benefited their own group, but also for other lower-class whites as well. Second, both also viewed that the Blacks demonstrated self-reliance in their efforts to provide education for their children. It was true that the Northerners came and helped the freedmen in the south states during the Reconstruction era, but it was the ex-slaves that sustained the long-term success of schooling. Finally, both also regarded the same view concerning the ways the Northerners considered the Southerners. Many teachers coming from the Northern states “went to south with preconceived idea that the slave regime was so brutal and dehumanizing that blacks were little more than uncivilized victims who needed to be taught the values and rules of civil society” (Anderson, p. 6).

In comparing and contrasting the two historical accounts, I conclude that Fairclough’s account is more people-oriented for four reasons. First, Fairclough emphasizes the roles of certain individuals that played a role in the history, such as how William Heard learned and modeled from William Jefferson White (p. 46), the complaints of Sarah G. Stanley (a Northerner, teacher) due to heartbreaking experiences she found among poor ex-slaves (p. 43), the ways ex-slaves responded to northerners coming to help teach in their areas, i.e. the cases of Mobley and Harris (p. 46), and the political conflicts between the Black Republicans and the White Democrats as experienced by Republican Elijah P. Marrs who reportedly lived under violence and threats (p. 47).

Second, Fairclough puts a further emphasis on the diversity of the Black communities (p. 40) which brought “intense sectarianism … [by which] the various denominations eyed each other with suspicion and outright hostility” (Fairclough, p. 105). Sectarianism caused a great divide among the Blacks, as represented by two opposing church denominations, i.e. Baptist and Methodist. In many ways, such a divide had led to disagreements regarding various issues.

Third, Fairclough also discusses the reason why school segregation was preferred by a few Blacks. Segregation was viewed as a Faustian pact – or “the best bargain they could strike under an unjust system of racial segregation” (p. 67). It was one strategy to ensure that the black children would not suffer from being undermined as inferior compared to their white counterparts if they attended the same school.

Finally, in particular Fairclough puts a discussion on the efforts to prepare or train Black teachers through Hampton Institute and Tuskegee. Despite criticisms against Hampton Institute for politically domesticating the Blacks, and against Tuskegee for poor quality of its education, such teacher preparation programs played a role in sustaining the educational initiatives done throughout the Southern states. The teacher training programs for black people highlight the self-sufficiency efforts by the Blacks.

Different from Fairclough, I found that Anderson’s account relies on a series of events.

First, Anderson presents a discussion on the historical data of school establishments (including the dates and the states). The school establishments were mostly done around the end of the Civil War, but few dated back as early as 1833. Anderson argues that the school establishment and its sustainability were “rooted deeply within their own communal values” (p. 9). It is clear that Anderson does not specifically present the people behind the educational movement in his account.

Second, Anderson puts the thirst of literacy, knowledge and education among the Blacks across time. Despite the difficulties, challenges, and political repression, the Blacks managed to develop their literacy. About 5% of Black population was had learned to write and read. Certain leading individuals were noted in this account, not merely to tell their own idiosyncratic stories but to explain the widespread belief in education among the Blacks. This account is closer to Mintz’s Growing up in bondage.

Finally, Anderson considers the structural constraints as a major impediment of public schooling. Given the agrarian nature of Southern states, it was the planters who played a major role in economy around the Civil War period. They made use of their economic power to curtail the ideals of public schooling and curb the freedom of the freedmen. To support the use of political power over Blacks, Anderson presents different laws (p. 25).

In summary, the two accounts serve different models of interpreting history. While Fairclough puts an emphasis on the agents or people, Anderson discusses the series of events that make up the history.

References:

Adam Fairclough A Class of Their Own: Black Teachers in the Segregated South(Harvard Univ Press, 2007) ISBN: 0674023072

James Anderson, Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935.

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