Читать книгу Africa's Gift to America - J. A. Rogers - Страница 5

FOREWORD

The history of man on this planet from prehistoric times until now is a continuous whole. There is no fact, however remote, that does not have a bearing of greater or less importance on the destiny of the whole human race. Much has been buried, lost, forgotten but within man’s consciousness is a burning desire to know as much of it as possible. Within the past four centuries this desire has increased until today there is no civilized land without a museum. In these museums are momentoes of the past which, though they might seem valueless to some, are precious to the scientist, scholar, thinker. On excavations in Upper Egypt I noticed that every spadeful of earth was carefully sifted lest some article of the ancient past be lost, even though but a bead.

All of this helps man to understand himself the more. It awakens possibilities of continued progress. I recall the world-wide interest in the discovery of the tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amen of 1350 B.C.; or of dinosaur eggs a million or more years old in the Gobi Desert. More than ever today the search for lost civilizations is being pursued. The floor of the ocean and the moon are alike objects of increasing curiosity. Every new discovery widens our concept of things in general and gives us that thrill which discovery of the truth gives to those who seek it.

But there have ever been those who oppose any new historical or archaeological discovery disturbing to the old order. Certain geographers and map-makers of Columbus’ day called him a liar when he told of the discovery of the New World. It had put their maps and books out of date. Persecution and even torture were used to prevent any change in accepted beliefs, in short, anything that gave a new and disturbing vision of life on this planet. Galileo was forced by the Church to deny his astronomical discoveries. His proof that the earth revolved around the sun which made day and night was denounced as heresy. Vesalius was attacked for dissecting the human body. But without that modern surgery would have been impossible. Giordano Bruno was burnt alive in 1600 because his views on the universe differed with theological dogma. Andrew D. White in his “Warfare Between Science and Theology in Christendom” has told the story. The sewing-machine was bitterly fought; and the first railroads in the United States ridiculed and opposed. In short, those who benefit from the status quo have always opposed progress and have had abundant support from those with fixed minds. But in spite of all persecution, all censorship, truth eventually wins and bitterly opposed ideas of today become the truisms of tomorrow.

Take slavery in the United States. For three centuries most Americans believed it was right, even God-ordained. But the belief that it was wrong grew until for four years they slaughtered one another in the dispute over it. Today it is only the rare exremist who argues it is right.

The spirit of suppressing uncomfortable facts is very much alive. Voltaire said history was a lie. Napoleon called it a fable agreed on. John Quincy Adams, who made history himself, wrote in 1822, “The public history of all countries and all ages is but a sort of a mask, richly colored; thus the interior working of the machinery must be foul.” These strictures are to a large extent still true. American history has been prettified until it now looks like a Christmas shop-window.

Edward Larocque Tinker, noted authority on Louisiana life and history, aptly illustrates this in an article entitled “Whitewashing.” He tells how eager to see the letters of Lafcadio Hearn, another famous Louisianian, he went to a wealthy and famed private library in New York City, which he heard had them. There he learnt, to his horror, they had been destroyed by a relative. The Hearn letters were “smutty” said the librarian. But, says Tinker, he was in for a still greater shock. The librarian went on to boast how she had destroyed letters of George Washington. Tinker tells the story thus:

“But that’s nothing,” she continued with perfect sang-froid, “I’ve destroyed right in this very room letters written by George Washington.” I became rudely indignant; I wanted to ask rude questions as to her qualification for the post of expurgator to the Father of her Country. I sat on the safety valve, however, as a cool voice continued, ‘Oh yes, they were smutty, too, so I did not ever want them to become public and destroy the ideal of Washington that had flourished so long. It was only a question of money. (A large sum had been paid for the letters). Could we afford to pay the price and then destroy our investment? We could and did.”

“But,” I sputtered, the strain becoming too great, “do you think it’s right to aid this suppression, nay, destruction of evidence to the manufacture of a purely apocryphal historic character?”

“Yes,” was the calm retort, “even if it only served to keep alive in our schools the story of the cherry-tree.” (This story, by the way, was a pure concoction of Parson Weems).

Tinker adds that the above gained immediate support of his wife who declared that suppression of this sort “was useful to the maintaining of proper allegiance.” But, concludes Tinker, “the suppression of historical data can only spell the prostitution of history.” (The Bookman (American). Vol. 60, pp. 719-20, Feb. 1925). By the way, letters of Alexander Hamilton met the same fate.

Now this is precisely the sort of thing that has been done to the popular history of the white people of the United States to the detriment of the Negro. The popular conception is still that expressed by Lord Bryce in his “American Commonwealth” in 1880 where he pictures the Africans who came to America as “a body of savages” and the whites “three or four thousand years in advance of them in mental capacity and moral force.” This falsehood was revived on a national scale in January 1959, and made to appear as if it were true of the moral and intellectual status of the Aframerican today.

Striking examples of how the accomplishments of the Negro in America have been ignored and the credit for them given to the whites can be seen in the National Museum in the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. One in particular deals with the Civil War. As will be seen later in this book, Lincoln positively said that the Negro provided the balance of power that won the war for the Union. In one battle thirteen Negroes won the Congressional Medal of Honor; yet in this extensive exhibit I saw after a long and careful search the picture of only one Negro. He was loading a musket for a white man. And that white man was a Confederate!