James M. Redwine

Events

Join or Die

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The Haudenosaunee, the democratic confederation of the Six Nations of Native Americans, had existed for centuries before Canasatego, their spokesperson, suggested the 13 colonies should form a similar arrangement. In 1754 Benjamin Franklin adopted the idea and even designed a flag with a snake cut into several pieces with the motto “Join or Die”. Eventually Canasatego’s advice was followed and Native Americans lost their lands. “Be careful what you wish for” or “No good deed goes unpunished”; either adage might apply.

These thoughts led the first of Ken Burns’ six-part PBS documentary of the American Revolution. Gentle Reader, if you did not watch it last week, I recommend you could not find a better use of twelve hours of your valuable time than pulling it up now on the PBS streaming app. My realization was how little I knew about the unlikely birth of the United States of America. Until last week my thought was, we Americans had had only one Civil War. I was ignorant of the animus among the colonies and our revered Founders. The revelations that the people who sacrificed so much and endured such hardships were actually people, much as people of today, was difficult to incorporate with my formal education and years of social experience and hearsay analysis.

I have spent many years sanguine with the core of America’s birth being a struggle for freedom by oppressed colonists against a repressive British monarchy. It was a clean, straight forward story requiring little nuance. I liked it and was comfortable in my beliefs; honor was the hallmark of the American Revolution.

After all, what words are more American than “We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor”? Honor was the standard and such things as speculation in Indian lands as a motivation for revolution by such speculators as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin were beyond the pale. However, in Ken Burns’ treatise, the historian Philip Deloria states, “I think the American Revolution was all about land”. And in support of this premise he cited the 1763 British Royal Proclamation that declared all the land west of the Appalachian Mountains off limits to white people for either settlement or speculation. This infuriated the colonists who cited Manifest Destiny and who came from a culture in which 2% of Britain’s population owned 66% of the land. Many colonists believed their only hope of ever owning land was to take it from the Native Americans west of the Appalachians.

And of course, there was that soaring marvelous language, “All men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights and among those are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. My formal schooling did not mention that the population “All men” did not include any women or non-white men nor did it mention the institution of slavery being practiced and jealously protected by many of the men who signed our glorious Declaration of Independence from the British crown.

So, was the American Revolution a straight forward story of good versus bad, of honor versus oppression, or was it vastly more complex? There was much to admire but, as with all human behavior, there are stains that should be acknowledged and learned from. Honor is not just a word; it is a cause. Honor encapsulates all vital human aspirations of honesty, integrity, generosity, humility, fairness, courage and self-sacrifice. The Founders certainly displayed much honorable behavior.

However, as we should know our history so we can learn from it, it should be the full story so the right lessons are applied in our country’s life in our times. Knowing our heroes were human does not denigrate their achievements. It does help us seek the harder right and eschew the easier wrong. I respectfully submit the story of the American Revolution is best celebrated with truth.

Richard Nixon

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It is 4:30 a.m. and I just spent the last three hours watching a PBS special on Richard Nixon. It may be that years of working the night shift followed by several hours of college classes makes normal sleep abnormal for me. At least I prefer that explanation to what my father told me when I asked him why he was up and down most nights, “Son, when you get old you just can’t stay asleep”. Regardless, I am awake and the PBS documentary reminded me of a Gavel Gamut article I wrote in about January of 2007 about Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. That article is set out below. Gentle Reader, I trust you remember it.

What almost twenty more years has done to my impressions of the turbulent Sixties and Seventies is soften some edges and made others more acute. Once again, just like my sleep habits, I prefer to ascribe those changes to factors other than my age. Anyway, I was intrigued by President Nixon’s self-imposed catastrophe wrought by a series of his seemingly inexplicable wrong decisions that changed Americans’ views of our own country and our role in the world. Most perplexing to me was how unnecessary and silly many of Nixon’s Watergate cover-up decisions were. Nixon was highly intelligent and disciplined. He was a tireless worker from a lower economic class family who knew right from wrong. Yet, he chose the easier wrong over the harder right at virtually every stage of the “Third-Rate Burglary” that brought about his own demise and our country’s imbroglio. It is a fairly obvious allegory of the old, “For want of a nail, a horseshoe was lost”.

One take away I got from the PBS special was how my view of Nixon’s frailties was softened by today’s events, such as the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and President Trump’s comments about it or, perhaps, the bombing of Iran or the sinking of the Venezuelan drug boat. I kept watching President Nixon digging a deeper hole for himself and the rest of us as my thoughts conjured up President Trump. Nixon went from winning every state but Massachusetts to resigning in disgrace. As a side note, Nixon’s first Vice-President, Spiro Agnew, had resigned in disgrace only a year before.

I do not predict nor am I soliciting any contemporary resignations, but the lessons of history should be heeded by those who lead us. Maybe some type of epiphany is called for. I know I had to reevaluate what I thought I had learned when I lived through similar times. Perhaps President Trump who is about my age was up watching the special too.

PARDON ME, PRESIDENT FORD
(Week of January 8, 2007)

President Gerald Ford died December 26, 2006.  In a life filled with public service, he will always be best known for his pardon of President Nixon in 1974.

President Nixon personally chose Gerald Ford to replace the disgraced Vice-President Spiro Agnew who resigned in 1973 amid disclosures of bribery while Agnew was Governor of Maryland. Vice-President Ford served under President Nixon until Nixon resigned in August of 1974.  One month after President Nixon resigned, President Ford issued him a full pardon for any crimes he may have committed while president.

At the time, I and most Americans were calling for a complete investigation of the Watergate debacle and especially Nixon’s involvement in it.  It was a time of a media feeding frenzy and blood in the water.  President Ford took the unprecedented step of going personally before Congress and flatly stating that President Nixon and then Vice-President Ford had no deal to pardon Nixon if he would resign.

I recall how dubious I was when President Ford stated that he issued the pardon only to help our country to start healing from the loss of confidence caused by Watergate. Yet, after a few months I began to have second thoughts about my initial reaction to the pardon.  I began to see how much courage it took for President Ford to go straight into the anti-Nixon firestorm sweeping the United States.

As a country, we were almost paralyzed by the partisan fighting at home and the War in Viet Nam.  We needed a new direction and a renewed spirit. Surely President Ford with his twenty-two (22) years in Congress knew he was committing political suicide by not giving us our pound of flesh.  Still, he put his country first.  Of course, the country rewarded his sacrifice by booting him from office and electing President Jimmy Carter to replace him.

But during the campaign of 1976, when President Ford came to Evansville, Indiana on April the 23rd, I took my son, Jim, out of school and we went to the Downtown Walkway to cheer the man who put country above self. For while William Shakespeare may almost always get his character analysis right, when it came to President Ford, “The good he did lived after him.”   Julius Caesar, Act III, sc. ii.

Even President Carter, one of America’s most courageous and best former presidents said of President Ford:

“President Ford was one of the most admirable public servants I have ever known.”

And when it came to the pardon of President Nixon, Senator Ted Kennedy, while admitting that he had severely criticized the pardon in 1974, said that he had come to realize that:

“The pardon was an extraordinary act of courage that historians recognize was truly in the national interest.”

So, President Ford, since even your political opponents came to appreciate your courage and goodness, I am confident that you have long ago “pardoned” all of us who doubted you back when we needed your leadership.

The Battle of Honey Springs

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In the Honey Springs Battlefield Gift Shop. Photo taken by Peg Redwine

Just as my public-school education failed to lead one to analogies involving America’s Manifest Destiny and slavery or the genocide of indigenous peoples, it often concentrated on the perceived benefits bestowed on both Negroes and first Americans by their white governors. Black and Indian contributions to our shared history were generally omitted or diminished. My knowledge of these significant influences on America’s unrelenting march from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico came mostly by coincidence. Such was the case when Peg and I heard about the Civil War Battle of Honey Springs.

Our first exposure to this most important Civil War conflict in Indian Territory came from a brief mention of it on PBS just this past spring. We researched it, on the Internet of course, and discovered it occurred July 17, 1863 near Checotah, Oklahoma which is only about an hour and a half from our home in Osage County, Oklahoma. It was readily apparent why this “Gettysburg of the West” is barely a blip in our nation’s consciousness. Although the battle determined whether the Union or Confederate forces would control the vital Texas Road that protected supply lines from Mexico to Kansas right through the heart of Indian Territory (Oklahoma), the soldiers who fought the desperate fight consisted of white, Black and several tribes of Native Americans who supported both sides.

Photo by Peg Redwine.

In fact, the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry was instrumental in the battle for the Union and several Black soldiers fought alongside Creek, Choctaw, Cherokee, Seminole and Chickasaw warriors who had divided loyalties for both the North and the South. The commander of the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry was the only white man for that brigade.

Honey Springs, the location of this battle involving several thousand soldiers for each side, was named for a gigantic beehive that was attached to a large oak tree near the running spring. As with much of military history the outcome of the battle hinged on the weather. The Southern forces were in that location because the commander of Southern Forces in the Indian Territory, Maj. Gen. William Steele, ordered the capture of fairly nearby Ft. Gibson. Steele dispatched troops under Brig. Gen. Douglas Cooper to meet up with other Confederate troops under the command of Gen. Cabell whose men were about 25 miles from Honey Springs. His soldiers did a forced march through rain, mud and swollen streams but arrived late to the battle between Cooper’s and Union Gen. James G. Blunt’s soldiers. The fight was already a Union victory and the Texas Road as well as Ft. Gibson remained in Union control throughout the remainder of the Civil War.

Photo by Peg Redwine.

History may normally be written by the victors but America’s history has usually been written by white people east of the Mississippi River. Such is the case of Honey Springs. Some Civil War analysts posit this battle crippled any chance the Confederacy could recover from U.S. Grant’s victorious siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi that caused Southern Gen. John Pemberton to surrender to Grant on July 04, 1863, two weeks before the Union victory at Honey Springs.

Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi River and the South’s loss at Honey Springs prevented the South from circumventing the Mississippi via the Texas Road. Gen. Cooper blamed the loss on inferior gunpowder that the South had to purchase from Mexico. Also, the rain made the inferior powder even more defective.

But what I suggest I and other Americans should have learned is the service of Black and First American conflicting loyalties and the reasons for them. Also, it should be noted that the “Gettysburg of the West” was and is deserving of a place in our country’s Volksgeist. If you are prone to Civil War reenactments, Gentle Reader, the Battle of Honey Springs reenactment will take place after the intense Oklahoma July heat is more kind to woolen uniforms on November 8, 2025. You can find more information about the battle and the reenactment weekend activities online at www.okhistory.org.

 

Photo by Peg Redwine.

The Best Celebration

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The Church at 9th and Prudom with side balconies. Picture taken by Peg Redwine

The Fourth of July has slowly gained prominence in my pantheon of special commemorations. Once all seasons paled next to Christmas with the memories of the autumnal aromas of oyster dressing and pumpkin pie fading away to electric trains and baseball mitts. Easter was okay because school would soon be out and girls in pink dresses with blue satin sashes would dash about exposing their laughter and crinoline. But the Fourth of July brought ice cold pop, firecrackers and roman candle battles. However, as a commemoration it seemed to mean a great deal to my elders, but for me it just presaged a return to a regimen of school that broke into my summer freedom.

I am not sure when the trappings of the Fourth began the metamorphosis into my imperceptible awareness that America and I had already struggled through numerous radical stages and, alarmingly and expectantly, might face many more as a man and a country. I think the true reasons the Fourth deserves its place at the head of commemorations began to seep into my consciousness the first time my large and gentle father took me with him to collect a Metropolitan Life Insurance Company policy monthly premium from a Colored family who lived across Bird Creek in a two-room clapboard house with a front porch held up by blackjack oak saplings.

We drove across the Bird Creek bridge in our family’s 1954 Ford sedan. On the way we stopped at Henry’s Bar-B-Q to buy what Dad called heaven’s own ribs. Dad was called “Mister Metropolitan” by Henry and Dad made sure I called the old Colored man “Mister” too. The two sections of two ribs and two Grapette pops cost about a dollar. Dad had bad heart trouble and Mom would not let him eat those beloved fatback pork ribs unless he sneaked over to Henry’s. They were worth any old heart attack as far as Dad was concerned.

After we savored that hickory smoked ambrosia, we drove about another quarter mile up the dirt road of Colored town to Dad’s customer’s house. He told me to stay in the car but I was already out and on the porch before he got the words out. A skinny Colored woman wearing a yellow flour-bag gingham dress and a denim wash rag as an apron opened the screen door and said, “Lord’a mercy, Mr. Metropolitan, is it premium time again already?” Her eyes were downcast.

Dad said, “Son, run back to the car and get my debit book. I must have made a mistake”. I hustled to the front seat to get Dad’s account book and returned just in time to see him taking his hand from his hip pocket.

Then he gently said, “Alright, boy, we better get back before your mother figures out where we went”. We left and I realized somehow the premium had been paid. I think that was my earliest understanding of what possibilities America afforded. Our family was about like all white families in our little town yet Mom and Dad knew from their own Great Depression Days that in America there is always hope if we all help one another. I like to think that that Black family paid forward some of the money that came from that life insurance policy to help someone else.

It took several more years of living with a slowly changing society of segregated schools, restaurants and churches, but I finally learned what the Fourth of July truly meant in 1964 when I returned from where I was stationed in the United States Air Force to attend Dad’s funeral. Our church had a large sanctuary surrounded on three sides with a balcony. When I walked into the church with Mom and looked up, the balcony was filled with Black people who stood in respect for Mom and Mr. Metropolitan.

Black people had never been allowed in our church, but the woman I saw that day years before with Dad was there with her family as were numerous other Black people from across Bird Creek. Later my sister told me that Black lady had come by our house and asked Mom if Colored folks could attend Mr. Metropolitan’s funeral. Mom had to get Church Board permission which was granted only after Mom threatened to leave the church. Coloreds would be allowed that one time if they sat in the balcony, but that was a sea change many years in the making.

That day was when I knew America had the capacity to atone for past sins, and that was when the Fourth of July became my favorite holiday.

The Aft Balcony.
Picture taken by Peg Redwine.

 

An Anniversary

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Just over one hundred years ago (June 1921), what historians consider one of the worst incidents of White on Black racial violence occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma. An entire Black business district and many Black owned residences were destroyed by White vigilantes. Approximately 300 Negro citizens were murdered. The matter was omitted from official historical records until 2001. As a student in Oklahoma public schools from 1950-1961, I never heard of this event. It is now being included in school curricula. I recently was doing research for this column when I referred to a book, The Oklahoma Story, by former Oklahoma University Professor of History Arrell Morgan Gibson (1921-1987). In an informative and interesting book on the history of Oklahoma published in 1978, there is no mention of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre even though Professor Gibson does include Oklahoma’s history of segregation and racial prejudice.

For example, the book points out that the first Legislature of Oklahoma formally adopted legal segregation of public schools, public transportation, public toilets, water fountains and other facilities. While I have never forgotten living in a culture steeped in Jim Crow formal and societal expected segregation, Gibson’s book sharpened my memories and caused me to return to my frequently sublimated curiosity about America’s caste systems. One of my most difficult father/son experiences I had was attempting to explain the apartheid of my youth to my son who could not comprehend the incomprehensible. It is difficult to explain what one does not understand. I approached our numerous conversations about Jim Crow by relating my personal experiences with it. Of course, my experiences remained almost as mysterious to me as they were to my young son.

I had no explanation for why White society used its majority power to keep Blacks, what we called Coloreds, at a distance and a disadvantage. Why was the water from a White’s only public fountain better than that from a Colored fountain when they were both connected to the same source only a couple of feet apart? What difference did it make if Colored waste was separated at a commode when the sewers claimed both? And why was it okay for Coloreds to pay White restaurant owners for food to go but it was illegal for Coloreds to sit at the counter? What was so vile about Colored bodies that they could not ride in the White only seats? Most puzzling of all was what was so sinful about Colored Christianity that it could not be expiated along with White sin on Sunday?

Well, Gentle Reader, if you did not live under apartheid, this probably makes no more sense to you than it did to my son, or frankly, to me. On the other hand, I do wonder if we still have far to go as a society when it comes to race, or religion or gender or…. I also wonder if such public spectacles as the Sean Diddy Combs trial would be the titillating social phenomenon it is if the participants were White. Does America still suffer from a 400-year-old need to keep Black culture in a separate category from White?

Have we progressed or have we found ways to assuage our prejudice with bemusement? Even our President appears to fear that any recognition that America has need to make reparations is somehow morally wrong. As for that conversation with my son who now has children of his own, well, his daughter’s best friend is Black. However, the better news is, I do not think either his daughter or her friend knows there is a distinction.

 

Ah, Spring!

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Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) was one of America’s best-known authorities on the universality and similarity of religions and myths we humans have created and lived by for hundreds of thousands of years. Campbell saw these recurring cultural explanations and superstitions as deeply imbedded in our daily lives. One similarity many of these phenomena have is they often center around springtime. While mankind has left countless records of beliefs in supernatural beings long before Judaism, Christianity and Islam, these three currently ascendant faiths each reflect the significance of spring’s influence, especially in stories of rebirth. The famous prosecutor of the Charles Manson Family, Vincent Bugliosi (1934-2015), even based his understanding of Manson’s motives for murdering people he did not even know on Manson’s convoluted interpretation of the Biblical Rapture myth (Revelation: Ch. 14, 15-20).

In the springtime, Jews celebrate Passover with eight days of special prayers and a Seder supper. The Judaic legend is that God gave Moses the laws of the Torah and Moses passed those commandments for living onto the Jewish people. The Torah is the record of those guidelines.

Christians celebrate their belief in a promised rebirth and their God’s instructions on behaving, as delivered directly from God – the Son, Jesus. Christians have a period of Lent leading up to Easter Sunday and an Easter dinner. The New Testament contains those principles to live by.

Muslims venerate the Quran as the word from their God spoken through Muhammad for a period of time they call Ramadan. Each day starts with a meal, Suhar, then a period of fasting ending with a second meal, Iftar.

Jews and Muslims view themselves as descendants from the same progenitor, Abraham, and worship the same God. Christians also worship that God but further deify Jesus as God. These ostensibly symbiotic religious phenomena have not produced consistently symbiotic relationships between and among the three groups.

Repentance, reflection, prayer, forgiveness, generosity, hope and joy are some of the elements in each of these three religions springtime celebrations of rebirth. For Christians, Easter Eggs are a ubiquitous symbol of what many so-called pagan cultures use to represent these same important rituals.

However, springtime is not just for organized religions. It may be mere coincidence that our government sees springtime as a propitious time to suck tribute from us, but I doubt it. When April 15 rolls around the IRS starts its period of concentrated accounting for any money we may have somehow managed to stash aside. It is time for what President Abraham Lincoln, the creator of the income tax to finance the Union’s Civil War, called “A new birth of freedom”, yeah, right.

Call me a cynic, but I do not see it as a mere happenstance that as most of America is awash in the good feelings brought on by Passover, Ramadan and Easter our government is demanding from us what it wants to spend on its own priorities. I see method in the timing of TAX-TIME and spring flowers. I am even a little superstitious that the first hummingbird that appeared at Peg’s feeder showed up April 15. Its avaricious slurping reminded me of other blood suckers that appear for “rebirth” along with the dandelions.