Anita,

  It is Harold writing.  Debra is reading microfilm in another room.
  I see your point and I tried to put this controversy to rest by providing
a kind of meta-analysis that attempts to explain why these erasures happen
and why they are so irritation.
  My great uncle (a WW I vet) wrote me shortly before he died that his great
grandfather was a Revolutionary War veteran from Virginia who was manumitted
for his military service.
  Some just resist the idea that there were brown faces among the Founders.

best,

Harold
----- Original Message -----
From: "Anita Wills" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, October 09, 2005 1:23 PM
Subject: Re: Surrender at Yorktown to be Commemorated October 18-22, 2006


> Debra,
>
> It seems that some people feel as if I am ruining their celebration. They
> do not understand that it is all Americans celebration. The only unit of
> color included in the celebrations is the Rhode Island Corp. Yet Natives
> and Free blacks from Virginia fought at The Siege of Yorktown. I supplied
> the Historians at Colonial Yorktown with the roster which contained all of
> the names of The Amherst County Soldiers, believing they would be made a
> part of the official roster. Yet, Colonial William Cabells name in listed,
> and so is Marquis De Lafayette. How is it that their names are included
> but the names of the troops are left out?
>
> I believe we should correct the record whenever possible, otherwise, it is
> not history, just someones version of it.
>
> Anita
>
> -- Debra Jackson/Harold Forsythe <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hello All:
>
>  I have been pondering whether to enter into this controversy about the
> Battle of Yorktown and its commemoration or not.  Finally, I conclude that
> I
> have a few things or use to share with the list.
>
>  The national ambivalence about sharing the real constitution of armies
> from our most sacred battlefields is a constant for Americans.  David
> Blight
> begins his Beyond the Battlefield with a long description of the 1913
> commemoration of the Battle of Gettysburg, from which blacks were barred.
> While it is true that there were no USCT regiments present, there were
> black
> Pennsylvania militia units in the area and African-American wage support
> workers with the Army of the Potomac.
>  The reality that soldiers in our Civil War as in our War for Independence
> saw was altered later for essentially political reasons.  The simple
> reason
> being that in the Antebellum era and again in the Gilded Age-Progressive
> Era, The USA was reconceived as a white entity.
>  This point was powerfully illustrated for me by an art historian who
> spoke
> at the Rubin Lecture in American Art History at the Metropolitan Museum of
> Art back in I think 2002.  The lecture was on the painting of William
> Sydney
> Mount, a New York artist and Democratic political activist.  Mount was
> from
> Long Island and lived in an area that had always been populated by many
> black families;  first as slaves, then as free men and women.  Most of
> Mount's painting portrayed these black men and women, the models probably
> his neighbors, often painted into the foreground of the canvasses.  But
> one
> painting, which has a young man sipping cider through a straw from a
> barrel
> is the one major Mount canvass that contains no black people (or Indians)
> at
> all.  This scholar explained that Mount painted this piece to be his
> allegory for America.  I found this remarkably interesting.  Blacks, of
> necessity appeared in Mount's optic, but not in his politics.  Thus, in
> his
> career as a painter he constantly portrayed black people but on the one
> canvass that was an allegory of his Democratic politics he erased them.
>  What Ms. Wills is remarking on is this erasure.  It can be a very
> emotional issue for some of us because the erasure is both a lie and an
> affront.  I am not familiar with the details of commemoration at Yorktown
> but I hope that we can reach agreement on the larger point:  when serious
> scholarship shows the presence of blacks and others subsequently erased
> from
> important moments in American history, all of us on this list see this as
> an
> historical error.
>  We may not have the leverage to change organizational behavior at
> Jamestown, or Williamsburg, or Gettyburg, but I am certain that we have
> the
> common rationality to observe emerging historical documentation and stand
> in
> broad agreement on their general significance.  Then we can take weeks
> arguing about the more nuanced conclusions we draw from that evidence.
>
> Harold S. Forsythe
> Visiting Fellow (2005-2006)
> Program in Agrarian Studies
> Yale University
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Anne Pemberton" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Sunday, October 09, 2005 10:12 AM
> Subject: Re: Surrender at Yorktown to be Commemorated October 18-22, 2006
>
>
>>I agree that Anita is not being oversensative. She may not phrase her
>> concerns in the proper tone, but her comments are well worth taking
>> seriously.
>>
>> We have a problem with children taking an interest in history. When we
>> celebrate history, we should make it a point to include all participants
>> so
>> that children can see the wide participation in historical events.  We
>> owe
>> it to our school children as well as interested adults to include the
>> honors
>> and recognition for past deed as widely as we can and still be accurate.
>>
>> If the information to make this more accurate is available, it should be
>> happily included, not stiff-armed.
>>
>> Anne
>>
>>
>>
>> Anne Pemberton
>> [log in to unmask]
>> http://www.erols.com/stevepem
>> http://www.erols.com/apembert
>> http://www.educationalsynthesis.org
>>
>> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
>> at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
>>
>
> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
> at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
>
> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
> at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
>

To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html