Here’s what HistoryLynx has tracked down for this week:
- In Memory of Anthony Shadid
- Documents for Sale [Black History Month topic]
- History, Hockey, and the Holocaust
In Memory of Anthony Shadid (1968-2012)
Thank you, Anthony, for all your great work.
My heartfelt sympathy to your family, especially to Nada and your children.
May all who mourn find peace and comfort.
Anthony Shadid was a hero, with a true calling. Intrepidly, to the very end, he reported from the frontlines of history--for the benefit of all of us. We could not ask for a more reliable witness. A hundred years from now historians will still probing the corners of the tragic conflicts, thwarted hopes, inspired awakenings, and amazing resilience of the people of our era. They will slip into the archives and find deeply moving stories of ordinary people, stories preserved only because Anthony Shadid listened to them. Then he shared their stories with us, planting seeds of empathy. His depth of knowledge about the peoples, cultures, and histories of the Middle East has enriched all who care about the heritage and the future of this region, where deep traditions converge and replenish each other.
"For the first time in a long time, we have the ability to imagine and, of course,
more importantly, to forge a new reality through that imagination."
Anthony Shadid, Address at the American University in Beirut (June 2011)
Eventually, I intend to write an extended essay about Shadid’s journalism–his storytelling, reporting, and analysis–and the debt future historians of the Middle East will owe to him. In the meantime, here are a few selected resources. Tributes abound on the Web–just Google "Anthony Shadid." Sample these and share excerpts with your students, or better yet, send your students to explore what Shadid’s friends and colleagues are saying about his work and its impact on their own endeavors.
RESOURCES: "Remembering Anthony Shadid." New York Times (Interactive): http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/02/17/world/middleeast/Anthony-Shadid-Remembrance.html?hp
- Tributes from friends and colleagues
- Links to Shadid’s articles in The New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe
TIMES TOPICS: "Anthony Shadid (1968-2012). New York Times: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/anthony_shadid/index.html?scp=1-spot&sq=shadid&st=cse
Gladstone, Rich. "At Work in Syria, Times Correspondent Dies." New York Times (16 February 2012): http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/world/middleeast/anthony-shadid-a-new-york-times-reporter-dies-in-syria.html?ref=middleeast
"Anthony Shadid." Editorial. New York Times (17 February 2012): http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/18/opinion/anthony-shadid.html?scp=2&sq=shadid&st=cse
Farhi, Paul and Mary Beth Sheridan. "Correspondent Anthony Shadid, 43, Dies in Syria." Washington Post (16 February 2012): http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/correspondent-anthony-shadid-43-dies-in-syria/2012/02/16/gIQAo2NyIR_story.html?sub=AR
- Access to photo gallery (10 slides, links to discussion of Shadid’s work and to tributes from colleagues
- Heart-warming account by a close friend, who recalls t their undergrad days at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Johnson, Kayla. "Reporting Giant Anthony Shadid Dead at 43." Daily Cardinal (17 February 2012): http://host.madison.com/daily-cardinal/news/reporting-giant-anthony-shadid-dead-at/article_97a15b16-5941-11e1-9a0a-001871e3ce6c.html?tw_p=twt
- For photo of Shadid at work at the Daily Cardinal in the 1980s
Balaghi, Shiva. "Our Friend Anthony Shadid’s Stories." Jadaliyya (17 February 2012): http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/4417/our-friend-anthony-shadids-stories
- Nada Bakri (Shadid’s widow, also a New York Times reporter), responded to this piece: "Shiva, what you wrote is beautiful. I take so much solace in your words."
- "Jadaliyya is an independent ezine produced by ASI (Arab Studies Institute), the umbrella organization that produces Arab Studies Journal (www.ArabStudiesJournal.org)" and "combines local knowledge, scholarship, and advocacy with an eye to audiences in the United States, the Arab world, and beyond." Published in Arabic and English.
Anthony Shadid’s memoir, House of Stone (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), will be released early, on February 28th. You can read an excerpt on the New York Times web site (published in the Sunday Review section on 18 February 2012): http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/opinion/sunday/house-of-stone.html
- It begins with the immigration of the Shadid family to America as the Ottoman Empire was collapsing–so a valuable primary source to use at that point in a WORLD HISTORY course or to bring the story of Arab immigrants into a UNITED STATES HISTORY classroom.
Also of special interest is the transcript of the speech he gave when awarded an honorary doctorate by the American University in Beirut: "Honorary Doctorate Recipient Anthony Shadid’s Address" (June 2011):
http://www.aub.edu.lb/commencement/program/Documents/Anthony-Shadid.pdf
Documents for Sale
Whenever I hear that priceless historical documents are being foisted onto the auction block, I get a chill. Where will they end up? Will the integrity of a set of related documents be preserved for future historians and curators? Or will they float off to many different homes, making the work of future historians more difficult? If they land in the hands of private collectors, will they be misplaced or perhaps even forgotten?
On March 1st Swann Auction Galleries will offer for sale a treasure trove of documents collected by civil rights activists Clarence Mitchell, Jr., his wife Juanita Jackson Mitchell, and her mother Lillie Jackson. One folder of 200 documents is focused on the "Red Summer of 1919." There are also news releases and other items relating to the Joint Committee to Secure Equal Justice for Colored Riot Defendants and the National Conference on Lynching.
What makes these documents so special is that they have the potential to shed new light on events that occurred nearly 100 years ago. For example, original press releases may have hand-written notes or the published versions may not have survived.
Also for sale is a special "poster" created by Clarence Mitchell. He had received a copy of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 from Senator Claiborne Pell, one of its sponsors. Mitchell cut it into strips, then turned these into a collage for his office. Art and politics and history–all hanging right on the wall.
Do your students think that the civil rights movement began in the 1950s? If they haven’t heard about the tumultuous events of 1919, send them to the Web to find out what transpired during the "Red Summer of 1919." Their research might focus on Chicago, Washington, DC, or Elaine, Arkansas (where the tenor to the times was explosive) or any of the nearly 40 cities where riots or outbreaks of violence occurred. Here is an opportunity to delve into local history so encourage research in local archives, copies of local newspapers, and documents residing in public libraries or historical societies. A project initiate now (after all, it is Black History month) can extend right to the end of the school year (research, drafting, revising, "publishing" the final product).
This is a topic for the WORLD HISTORY classroom, too, an excellent opportunity to link American history to a global context. Cameron McWhirter, in his recently published book Red Summer, argues that the awakening of 1919 was the birth of the civil rights movement. The global context is the dissatisfaction of black veterans after World War I and increasing tensions that had begun during the war years–when sharecroppers in the south had benefitted from higher cotton prices. Students can learn a great deal from listening to McWhirter talking about his book and from online book reviews. Teachers and advanced students may profit from listening to the longer Book TV program in its entirety.
RESOURCES:
"Papers Tell History of Civil Rights Era." New York Times (16 February 2012):
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/arts/design/documents-of-the-civil-rights-era-all-about-rich-dogs.html?scp=1&sq=papers%20tell%20history%20of%20civil%20rights%20era&st=cse
"Red Summer (1919)." Part of the PBS webpage, "The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow." PBS:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_red.html
- Good place for students to start their research
- Box on right reminds teachers that Claude McKay’s poem, "If We Must Die," was inspired by the fatalities of 1919–so this is a topic for LITERATURE as well as HISTORY teachers (an excellent example of the relationship between history and the fine arts)
- Check out links to related pages (lower right-hand corner)
"Red Summer of 1919." Wikipedia (last modified 31 January 2012): http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Red_Summer_of_1919&oldid=474245268
- Scroll down to "Chronology" section for list of cities where riots/confrontations occurred (then students can select any of these for more intensive research).
- "References" section includes links to large set of New York Times articles from 1919 (more convenient than searching the paper’s online archives–though such a exercise would sharpen students’ digital skills).
- Armstrong, Ken. The Seattle Times (16 July 2011): http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/books/2015601697_br17redsummer.html
- Arnesen, Eric. Chicago Tribune (18 November 2011): http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-11-18/entertainment/sc-ent-books-red-summer-mcwhirter-20111118_1_black-labor-black-people-racial-violence
- Yardley, Jonathan. Washington Post (14 July 2011): http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/red-summer-by-cameron-mcwhirter-is-about-racial-violence-in-the-year-1919/2011/07/05/gIQAAfCmEI_story.html
- Taylor, Michael. Richmond Times-Dispatch (18 September 2011): http://www2.timesdispatch.com/entertainment/2011/sep/18/tdbook01-a-bloody-season-for-black-americans-ar-1309756/
"How the 'Red Summer' of 1919 Sparked the Civil Rights Movement." John Hockenberry and Celeste Headlee interview with Cameron McWhirter. The Takeaway (19 July 2011): http://www.thetakeaway.org/2011/jul/19/how-red-summer-1919-sparked-civil-rights-movement/
- AUDIO: Just a few seconds over 9 minutes, so easily inserted into a lesson plan (for students a welcome change of pace)
"Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America." Book TV (2011?; 1 hour, 4 mins.):
http://www.booktv.org/Watch/12746/Red+Summer+The+Summer+of+1919+and+the+Awakening+of+Black+America.aspx
- McWhirter, speaking in Atlanta at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum
- Too long for most typical classrooms but the first few minutes could introduce the topic (the author begins with Claude McKay’s poem and the experience that it encapsulates)–for example, in an American literature or history class
- Five are poems reproduced on this page–for students to discuss along with Claude McKay’s classic
History, Hockey, and the Holocaust
In the sports section of Sunday’s New York Times there's a fascinating article about Evan Kaufmann, a young hockey player on the German national team. If you teach in any of the hockey-crazy communities of the US and Canada, you’ll hit the puck right into the net when you ask students to discuss Evan’s story. With this article you can craft a lesson about hockey, the Holocaust, identity, and forgiveness. (I’m recommending it for young people’s classes in synagogues and churches, not just for social studies and history in ordinary schools.)
Born in Minnesota, Evan Kaufmann played hockey for the University of Minnesota. When he didn’t get a spot on a National Hockey League team, he pounced on the chance to go pro in Germany. For Kaufman this was a return to the land of his ancestors–his Jewish ancestors. A great-grandfather and a great-grandmother died in the Holocaust, but his grandfather and great-aunt survived and emigrated to America.
Yet Evan Kaufman is proud to wear the German jersey, a jersey with the German flag on it. The Germans placed him on a fast-track to citizenship so, even though he admits to feeling more American--having lived in Germany for only four years, he is also committed to his new identity. That doesn’t mean he wants to forget the past: "Obviously, you never want to forget." But he can forgive: "I’m not going to hold it against a whole country for what happened long ago. You’re never going to move forward if you keep doing that."
RESOURCE: Jeré Longman, "A Jewish Hockey Player at History’s Indelible Crossroad," New York Times (18 February 2012): http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/sports/a-jewish-american-hockey-player-at-historys-indelible-crossroad.html?scp=1&sq=longman%20history's%20crossroad&st=cse
DISCUSS: What is life like for Evan and other Jews living in Germany? Is there a conflict between Evan’s Jewish identity and his German citizenship? What do other Jews think about his decision (play hockey in Germany, accept German citizenship)? What does Evan think his grandfather would approve or disapprove? What did his teammate Patrick Reimer mean when he said, "There is still a barrier in the head" ? Point out that Reimer doesn’t use the term Holocaust but refers to it as "what happened 70 years ago."
RESEARCH: The article mentions several Jewish athletes of the past and present (Germans or players on German teams): hockey player Rudi Ball, whose team won a bronze medal in 1932; soccer player Julius Hirsch, killed at Auschwitz; champion high jumper Margaret Bergmann Lambert, who was kept off the team in 1936 (now 97 and living in Queens, New York); swimmer Sarah Poewe (born in South Africa); soccer forward Itay Schechter, an Israeli. Send students to the web to find out about their stories and sports careers and then publish what they’ve learned on a class bulletin board (real or virtual). HINT: In additionto Googling, go directly to the New York Times site and search the archives (you’ll find several items about Margaret Bergmann Lambert).
