Reading this article felt like deja vu. Another story of how white people basically just suck and their attempts at keeping black people’s voices and political opinions quiet. But this story is different to all the others. Hayter’s point that Richmond is significant because African Americans in the city organized a black electorate prior to the VRA stood out. It was really cool to read that, even with all the odds against them, African Americans in Richmond found a way to organize and a system to elect their preferred candidates. Richmond’s African Americans had help though, with Burger Court and John Mitchell’s Department of Justice allying with them which was really cool to hear.

I think it can apply to what is happening on campus. I think the BSC is similar to Richmond’s initial group that started before the VRA in that they are having the way for so much change to happen on this campus. It is really inspiring to see how it once worked out, with the VRA, so it is possible for real change to happen here again. So hopefully it goes as they say, history repeats itself.

The podcast and reading for Tuesday were both really interesting and definitely gave me a lot to think about. I have learned last semester a lot about ‘real’ history and the ordinary people who actually made revolutions happen. I also leaned a lot about the importance that Richmond has to U.S. history and present and how lucky we are to live in a city of such historical importance. However, the history is also dark and complicated, plagued with hardship, redlining, and suppression of minority individuals. It made me learn that history is just as relevant as the present and you can not separate history from current events. For example, in Dr. Hayter’s Justice and Civil Society class last semester, he pulled up a map of Richmond and asked us to point out random parts of the city. We would click on a random part of the city and every time, if it was a previously redlined district, then that district would be exponentially hotter than other areas of the city that were not redlined. This held for every part of the city. It was unbelievable to see and it really showed that America’s dark history is unfortunately still relevant and important today. It is even resulting in unintended consequences, like climate change.

Learning about this was really upsetting because as Bezio says in the podcast, “This is not ancient history, it is lived history.” This statement is so true because history books make it seem like the Civil Rights movement happened so many years ago when it is not that far in the past. This deliberate, false distancing from history needs to be stopped and we need to realize that these actions and ideologies are still relevant. This reminds me of the movie Just Mercy because it takes place in the 1980s, 20 years after the Civil Rights movement yet the racist ideologies were so overwhelming and stopping justice.

Dr. Hayter’s seems especially relevant in today’s political climate. Both close to home and across the country, racism is infecting us. I will not delve into the Board of Trustees questionable decision making recently, as I believe it is likely we are all decently well versed. The voting restriction laws passed in Georgia is the most recent example of lawmakers disenfranchising minority voters. The restriction of absentee ballots, stricter ID laws, and the near absolute removal of drop boxes among other dangerous changes poses a real threat to a supposedly democratic system. What I found most interesting about the annexation of Chesterfield County and today’s voter restriction laws are the financial ramifications. Individuals on both sides of the annexation, and how it would affect black voting, saw it as necessary to combat flagging tax revenue in the city because of white flight. The way activists balanced the financial needs of the city, which they lived in, and the fight for voters rights is impressive. The activist found a method for success, at that time, that enabled proper representation and provided more money for Richmond. The financial ramifications of Georgia’s new voting laws are potentially even larger. Leadership from nearly two hundred of the nation’s largest companies spoke out yesterday (April 2nd) condemning all actions to restrict voting. In arguably the most damning stand against Georgia’s new law, Major League Baseball(MLB) has pulled its All-star game, its festivities and the MLB draft from Atlanta, Georgia. These events would have brought countless millions of dollars in revenue and taxes to the surrounding areas. However, in a joint decision MLB and the Players Association decided that holding the game in Atlanta would not be commensurate with the sports ideals. Playing the game in Atlanta would have been especially hypocritical in light of the fact the game was meant to honor Hank Aaron, the Atlanta and Milwaukee baseball and civil rights icon. Dusty Baker, a former teammate of Aaron’s in Milwaukee and the current manager of the Houston Astros, thinks Hank would be proud of baseball’s decision to stand up for voter rights and move the All-Star Game. MLB most likely will not lose a lot of money from their decision. Some sponsors may disaffiliate from MLB, but inevitably some organizations are going to be more willing to get in bed with them. However, the state of Georgia is the big loser. Corporations are showing that there will be financial ramifications to endorsing voter suppression.

On a different note, I found Dr. Hayter’s article very easy to read and enjoyable. The succinct writing style made it easier to stay engaged. Furthermore, the placement of the notes at the end created a more aesthetically pleasing article. The section headers helped clearly delineate the flow of the article. I may just like reading history more than philosophy (I think that one is pretty obvious) or other humanities’ genres. Regardless, I though the article was clear in getting its point across.

I deeply appreciated this podcast’s discussion of Invisible Leadership. After learning about it last year, I have remained very interested in the concept. I think it tied in well with Dr. Bezio’s statement that leaders are not necessarily any different from other individuals in attributes. This two ideas seem to suggest that even the leaders that we see as prominent and well-known are actually a product of the invisible leadership of many different people or groups. This idea is reflected in Hayter’s work, discussing how the Black voter population of Richmond, VA organized and were able effectively outvote and oppose those attempting to suppress their right to vote. This was not a result of one or a few select, “special” leaders, but a collective effort by numerous individuals gathering and collaborating to unite under a common goal. This is not meant to minimize or diminish the work of those who initiated and primarily organized these efforts, but these individuals were still not the leaders who we remember most commonly from the Civil Rights Movements, such as Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks as Dr. Bezio mentions in the podcast, but rather leaders that helped guide other to all participate in this common goal under invisible leadership.

One thing I am curious about is the role of invisible leadership in determining who specifically become the face of a given movement. Dr. Bezio describes the reasons that both Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks became the public-facing leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. However, I am interested in understanding how those individuals were chosen. The podcast discusses how these individuals were chosen in part to appeal to white people, but how did these individuals come to the forefront of a movement fueled by invisible leadership? Did many people collectively agree to support these individuals, or were they chosen by a select number of individuals? This is one area of invisible leadership that I would like to better understand, because I think to an extent it relates to the power structures that exist in our society. Many of our common goals in society require collective effort and invisible leadership, however, in the United States, our focus tends to be on the actions of Congress people, the President, and other individuals in the highest positions of power. We seem to lose sight of the power invisible leadership in our communities throughout the country. How does invisible leadership connect, or potentially not connect, to the ways we select public-facing leaders and influencers in our society?

Like Dr. Bezio says in the podcast, sometimes history can feel like a laundry list of names and dates to memorize. But I find the odd things, the little narratives of history are far more compelling, and actually, help me remember the big events better.  Adding more context to an event or person can make them feel more like fallible, complicated, regular people, which I find also makes them easier to remember. 

I feel like history likes to paint in all one color, you’re either a terrible person, country, movement, or you are a victor. It brushes over the nuances and complexities and forgets that you can be both a terrible person and do good things, and vice versa. One thing that came up for me while listening to the podcast was the intersections of the feminist movements and the civil rights movement. While they were originally in lockstep for the abolition movement, they eventually separated as the white feminists distanced themselves from the abolition movement in order to curry favor with white southerners. White feminists used racist arguments to justify why white women should have the vote. Meanwhile, the civil rights movement had a history of disenfranchising women within the movement. This separation had a lasting impact that pitted the civil rights movement and the feminist movement against each other, as Black women found themselves at an intersection where they had to choose to prioritize their racial identity or their gender identity. But these identities of race and gender collide in such ways that create a unique experience of the world. Now, we use the term intersectionality to talk about how these identities come together, but according to history, all civil rights leaders were men (except for Rosa Parks) and all feminists were white. Black women are erased from the narrative since they don’t completely fit into the boxes provided. And some people who made great changes in civil rights and feminists movements were extremely sexist or racist. But we ignore the less favorable perspective in order to glorify the work they did. This is simply an incomplete history. The other thing Dr. Bezio mentioned was Martin Luther King, Jr.’s role in the civil rights movement. In addition to the fact that he could only be successful due to ordinary people, his role in the movement was white-washed. After his assassination, the public history painted him as this great unifier, someone who championed peace, and was loved by everyone, both white and black. This is simply incorrect. MLK was a democratic socialist, warned against the white moderate, and the FBI tried to get him to kill himself. A lot of people hated him, even as he preached non-violent resistance. He was sexist, and a womanizer, and if the recent FBI memos are to be believed, he allowed and encouraged a rape in his presence. His moral shortcomings do not detract from the work he accomplished, but they do require a closer look at his ‘Great Man’ history. This proves not only that ‘great men’ are often more than history portrays them as, but also that they are not so great in the first place.

In podcast #9, Dr. Bezio discusses how history is more than what we are led to believe. History is supposed to inform us why any person, place or thing is the way it is. While this is true, before the printing press and other technological advances, we didn’t have a way to mass record history. There also wasn’t a quick way to do it. People would use a typewriter or before that, only ink. Because of this, only the important stuff was written down, and in early history this meant only events or facts having to do with important white men were recorded. While this is true, we have deterred other things about culture in that time period from other sources. It’s important to consider that the majority of our population is common people, so why do we focus on the great leaders.

Speaking of leaders, a term that Dr. Bezio discussed that caught my eye was invisible leadership. I learned about it last semester, but I had forgotten how important it is to consider when analyzing early history. Invisible leadership includes those who helped create history but aren’t recognized for it. For example, when we think about the civil rights movement, our minds usually go to Martin Luther King Jr. What we tend to disregard is the fact that there were so many other people involved in this movement. For example, we can consider all the black women who helped King with this movement to be invisible leaders because they aren’t mentioned in history records.

The Hayter reading was interesting because I felt like he recognized some of history that isn’t normally recorded. One thing that really stuck out to me in the reading was the fact that in the mid 1960’s, Richmond’s black voter population had out registered and out organized white voters. The reason this stuck out to me so much is that (maybe this is just me) it isn’t a fact that has ever really been taught to me when learning about the civil rights movement. It was always that one day black people were given the right to vote, but only as 3/5 of a person and then another day, they were given the right to vote. None of these small facts about the black population gaining the right to vote were ever taught to me, especially ones that said black people out registered white people.

After watching the ads for the election year 1968, what really stood out to me was the difference between the ads from the two questions. From Nixon, we saw a lot more war imagery whereas, on Humphrey’s side, there were a lot more ads that attacked Nixon. I really thought that, especially in political campaigns, if one side publishes an attack ad, the other side would respond with one. I am not saying that Nixon is a great person (*cough cough* Watergate) but I do think his campaign was smart by not fighting fire with fire and retaliating to the attack ads from Humphrey’s team with attacks on Humphrey. I may be naive but I really appreciate it when people keep stuff like this clean and are polite to each other in their ads, something we didn’t see in the 2020 election.

My favorite ad from this week was from the 1964 election between Lyndon B. Johnson and Barry Goldwater. The commercial that stuck out to me most showed a little girl eating an ice cream cone. While this little girl was eating her ice cream the narrator began talking about the science behind atomic bombs, highlighting Goldwater’s plans to continue research on the topic. I was shocked during my first watch-through that this was an actual commercial for a presidential election. Taking another look at the commercial I was able to see that the commercial appears to several different audiences. The main audience is parents and those with young children. The action of a child eating an ice cream cone is so innocent as their only care in the world is making sure they don’t get their hands sticky. If Goldwater is elected and funds more research into atomic bombs then there is the potential of war which could involve young children as they grow older. In comparison to modern-day campaigns, I am still shocked at this commercial. It really does not have any significance let alone convey a compelling message at first glance.

I really enjoyed this exercise. My favorite was the “Turned a Corner” ad because the charts are so funny and it reminded me of the how statistics can be deceiving. They were so sassy and iMovie quality I was laughing. I also thought the Tears of the Mother ad was very effective though it was a very different tone.