Birmingham’s Child Heroes

Activist Heroes

By Steve Theunissen

The heroic figures of the Alabama civil rights movement are well known and rightly revered. Who can forget the stoic resilience of Rosa Parks, the brilliant rhetoric of Martin Luther King or the fearless tenacity of Fred Shuttlesworth? These ones were, after all, the faces of the movement, the ones who others rallied around, the people at the forefront. Heroes, however, come in all shapes and sizes and nowhere was this more evident than in the blistering streets of Birmingham in the summer of 1963. At that time, a generation of oppressed youngsters, some as young as five years of age, traded in their play-things and quietly said “enough”, taking their stand on the front-lines of a battle that was turning their state into a war zone.

By April of 1963, the campaign to desegregate the city of Birmingham was spluttering to a standstill. Support from local Black people was waning under threats that they would lose their jobs if they got involved. The imprisonment of Martin Luther King on April 12 did nothing to bolster support. With it’s chairman behind bars, it was now up to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s (SCLC) director of direct action, James Bevel, to find a way to reinvigorate the campaign.

Bevel came up with a controversial strategy, one that King was, initially, opposed to.  Get the children involved, Bevel urged. Children, he reasoned, were full of energy, they had no jobs to be threatened with losing and they were already organized and unified through their schooling. They were more teachable than their parents, more inclined to adopt the non-violent philosophy.

And so it was that on May 2nd, more than one thousand Black students skipped school and congregated at the 16th Street Baptist church ready to march downtown. Police Chief Eugene “Bull” Connor marshaled his forces against them. Coming out of the church in waves of 50, the students were arrested and carted off in police vans. Soon, however, there were no vans left and the police had to recruit school busses. Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violent goal of filling the jails was being realized.

The next day hundreds more children turned up at 16th Street Baptist, ready and willing to be carted off to jail. In fact, going to jail became a symbol of honor and pride, to the clear disgust of Bull Connor. Needing a trump card, Connor directed the police force and fire department to use force in order to put a stop to the marches. By so doing, he was unwittingly playing into the SCLC’s hand. They knew that images of innocent children being pummeled by fire hoses and mauled by police dogs would force the nation to confront what Dr. King called “a crisis of conscience.”

The images that captured the events of May 3rd and 4th did, indeed, shock not only the nation, but the entire world. There, in black and white, under screaming headlines, was undeniable proof of the racially fueled injustice that millions of Americans were suffering under day in and day out. But there, too, were images of young African-Americans standing proud. The cameras captured their dignity, their resolve and their courage. In contrast, the vitriol of the white crowds, the cold, clinical Gestapo-like efficiency of the Birmingham police department and the smirking, cigar crunching countenance of Bull Connor were also captured on film.

The contrast between good and evil was blatant and millions of people around the world were won over to the cause that the young people of Birmingham were championing. As a result national force was brought to bear on the issue of segregation. Although desegregation occurred slowly in Birmingham, the Children’s marches were a major factor in the national push towards the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited racial discrimination in hiring practices and public services in the United States. And it was all thanks to the children.

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About the author: Steve Theunissen is a history teacher and author. His new Young Adult novel “Through Angel’s Eyes” chronicles the historic events of the Birmingham campaign as seen through the eyes of a 13 year old black girl.  Here is the trailer previewing the novel.

You can purchase “Through Angel’s Eyes” by clicking here.

Will Kane: The Unconventional Hero of High Noon

Fictional Heroes

By Jesse Schultz

In many ways the hero of the western genre has it easy. They’re often tough as nails, a sure and expert shot with a six-shooter or two, and can meet any threat with a steely-eyed resolve. While their opponents can be formidable, in the end these adversaries will be not quite as brave, tough, or good with a gun.

That was what made the portrayal of the character of Will Kane so jarring in the 1952 film High Noon. America was familiar with the western, ranging from well-made dramas to B-grade outings with comedy and song. The plot is a familiar enough one: the lawman of a small frontier town receives word that a bad man and sworn enemy has been released from jail and is en route to meet up with his gang. Revenge is promised and a showdown inevitable.

But already Kane is reluctant to face his old nemesis. Newly married to a Quaker wife (played by Grace Kelly), Kane only wants to retire from his position as Marshal and ride off with his bride — which he actually does at first at the behest of his friends. But he can’t.

Instinctively, Kane knows that he will have to face his enemy, Frank Miller, eventually and he decides that he’d rather do it at his home with a badge and a gun. Here the plot deviates from formula as Kane receives no help from his old friends and even his new wife is urging him to flee. His attempts to recruit deputies is an abject failure and his current deputy will only help if he’s promised the job of Marshal — a position Kane does not believe he’s fit for.

The town is unanimous: despite the crimes Frank Miller has committed or the fact that collectively they outnumber his gang several times over they want Will Kane to take the fight elsewhere. They want no part of it.

Alone and betrayed, Kane is understandably terrified. He has lost his long-time friends, his wife, and soon he is likely to loose his life as Miller is due to arrive by train at high noon. Gary Cooper does an excellent job of portraying Kane’s fear without seeming cowardly. But despite having lost everything he refuses to run. He will face Frank Miller no matter how terrified he is.

In movies we’re accustomed to seeing the hero face down and defeat armies of opponents as if it were merely a day at the office. That is what made High Noon special for its time. Will Kane is understandably fearful in facing a gang single-handedly and knows he would likely face defeat, but he stays anyway.

Still not all appreciated the film and it is said that the later film western, 1959’s Rio Bravo starring John Wayne, is a counter-point to High Noon. Both films have their merits and both have their own depiction of heroism. But High Noon has, I think, the most telling portrayal of a hero. The story of a man, who while completely terrified, opts to stay and do the right thing regardless of the cost.

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The author, Jesse Schultz, really does live in the West and frequently becomes nervous when the clock strikes twelve.  Two of his previous blog posts on Merlin and The Makers of Fire will appear in our new book Heroic Leadership: An Influence Taxonomy of 100 Exceptional Individuals.

 

Louis Zamperini: The Unbroken Hero

War Heroes

By Scott T. Allison and George R. Goethals

Human warfare brings out the worst in people. Prisoners of war, especially, can be at the receiving end of the most unimaginable brutality. During World War II, Second Lieutenant Louis Zamperini underwent horrific suffering after he survived a plane crash and was sent to several of the most brutal Japanese prison camps. Zamperini’s story is told in bold, vivid detail in Laura Hillenbrand’s book Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, which was named Time Magazine’s best book of the year in 2010.

Zamperini’s heroic odyssey began with a few successful missions as a bombardier in the Pacific theater in 1942 and 1943.  In the spring of 1943, while on a routine mission searching for a lost plane, his own aircraft experienced mechanical trouble and plunged into the ocean about 850 miles west of Hawaii.  He and two other men drifted for 46 days on a raft, heading west into Japanese-held waters.  They suffered from thirst, starvation, violent storms, intense sunburn, menacing sharks, and strafing from a Japanese plane.  After floating 33 days, one of the three men died from starvation.

As much as Zamperini suffered on the raft, he would later recall that it was far preferable to what awaited him after the Japanese captured him on the 47th day near the Marshall Islands.  Already in an emaciated state from weeks on the raft, Zamperini was tortured and starved before being transferred to the notorious Ofuna Prisoner of War Camp, which was known for its egregious violations of the terms of the Geneva Convention.  At the Ofuna camp, Zamperini performed slave labor under the watchful eye of Imperial Japanese Army Sergeant Mutsuhiro Watanabe, perhaps the cruelest of all camp guards of World War II.

The level of hostility directed toward the prisoners by Watanabe was staggering.  He especially targeted Zamperini.  Watanabe was prone to violent outbursts during which he beat the prisoners daily, starved them, made them perform humiliating acts, refused to treat their illnesses, and exposed them to bitter cold.  Watanabe’s level of barbarism was so great that after the war he was classified as a Class-A war criminal.  The punishment heaped on Zamperini’s mind and body at the hands of Watanabe was extraordinary.

In one striking example of Watanabe’s sadism, Zamperini was once ordered to hold an extremely heavy wooden beam above his head.  He could barely raise it. Watanabe told a guard to strike Zamperini in the face with a gun if he dropped the beam.  No one expected Zamperini, in his weakened state, to hold it aloft for more than a few minutes.  Watanabe waited for Zamperini’s quick and inevitable failure.  Minutes ticked by.  Then a half hour.  Zamperini recalls the intense pain but also the fierce resolve not to let Watanabe defeat him.  After 37 minutes elapsed, Watanabe grew so frustrated waiting that he charged Zamperini and slammed his fist into the prisoner’s stomach, sending them both toppling to the ground.  Zamperini’s bold act of strength and defiance gave great inspiration to the throngs of POWs who witnessed the event.

But these moments of triumph were few and far between.  By August of 1945, Zamperini was near death, suffering from starvation, exhaustion, dysentery, and beriberi.  The dropping of the atomic bombs and Japan’s surrender soon thereafter saved Zamperini and other prisoners, all of them walking skeletons, who somehow managed to cling to life.

Because Zamperini was presumed dead, the reunion with his family was especially poignant.  He slowly regained his physical strength, but he suffered from severe post-traumatic stress disorder.  Each night in his dreams, Zamperini was haunted by images of Watanabe beating him.  Zamperini was agitated, depressed, and unemployed.  To soothe his pain, he turned to alcohol and was consumed by revengeful thoughts of returning to Japan to murder Watanabe, the man who ruined his life.

During this emotionally tumultuous period, Zamperini fell in love with a young woman named Cynthia Applewhite, and they married in 1946. Cynthia was aghast at the level of Zamperini’s emotional pain.  One day in 1948 she convinced him to attend a speech given by a young Reverend named Billy Graham.  Zamperini was transfixed by Graham’s message of forgiveness.  He made a life-changing decision to turn his life over to God and to forgive his Japanese captors, even Watanabe.  Zamperini traveled to Japan in 1950 to communicate his forgiveness to his former prison guards, now in prison.  The trip went well, but unfortunately Watanabe was nowhere to be found.  The cruelest of prison guards in all of World War II had somehow evaded capture.

Zamperini’s religious conversion helped him overcome his emotional scars and lead a happy, productive life.  After enduring a plane crash, weeks without food and water on a raft, and appalling treatment at illegal prison camps, Zamperini found a way to survive and even thrive afterward.  His military service to his country, by itself, made him a great hero.  His remarkable resilience as a POW has made him an inspiration to millions.  Today, at the age of 95, he still draws big crowds as a motivational speaker.  In Laura Hillenbrand’s words, Louis Zamperini is indeed a man unbroken in mind, in body, and in spirit.

Do We Expect Too Much From Our Heroes?

Commentary and Analysis

By Scott T. Allison and George R. Goethals

In a recent New York Magazine article, Frank Rich argues that no one should have been surprised at the downfall of highly decorated U.S. Army General and CIA Director David Petraeus.  After the reputational demise of so many heroes before him — Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong, and Joe Paterno, to name a few — why should we have expected anything different from Petraeus?

According to Rich, “What’s really shocking about the Petraeus affair is not Petraeus’s affair but the fact that once again, we were taken in by a secular plaster saint who turns out to bear only a faint resemblance to the image purveyed by the man himself and the mass media that abetted his self-glorification.”

Rich’s essay raises many interesting questions:  Why do people we admire tend to succumb to repeated moral failings? Do we expect moral perfection from those who show great competence in one sphere of life?  Why do we conveniently overlook the obvious fact that all human heroes are inevitably as human as they are heroic?  And then why do we seem to punish heroes more for their human foibles than we do non-heroes?

Prior to their downfall, we personally never imagined Woods, Armstrong, or Petraeus to be perfect individuals.  Perhaps people are too quick to assume that greatness in one realm implies (however naively) greatness in all realms, including — and perhaps especially — morality. Our thirst for heroes may be so urgent that we cannot help but harbor unrealistic impressions of their universal virtue.  In our first book on heroes, we discuss how the higher standards we hold for heroes make it easier to topple them from their pedestals.

Rich also reminds us of the often-heard speculation that ever since the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s, public figures’ misdeeds are sought out by the media rather than covered-up by them.  Untarnished heroes of yesteryear, such as George Washington, JFK, and FDR, were probably as riddled with flaws as were Paterno and Patraeus.  The media of their day simply placed a higher priority on building heroes than on tearing them down.  We recommend Susan Drucker’s book, American Heroes in a Media Age, for a cogent analysis of this topic.

Lost in all the media frenzy about the many recent fallen heroes is the observation that many, many extremely successful people (and heroes to many) continue to maintain almost impeccably clean moral reputations.  These individuals come from all walks of life and a partial list of them includes Coach K at Duke University, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama, Meryl Streep, Stephen Hawking, and Michael Jordan.  Frank Rich’s essay suggests that it may only be a matter of time before at least a few of these icons crumble.  We hope he’s wrong.

The Seven Paradoxes of Heroism

Commentary and Analysis

By Scott T. Allison and George R. Goethals

In our research on the subject of heroism, we’ve been surprised at times about the ways in which people choose and maintain their heroes.  Here we present these surprises to you in the form of seven paradoxes.  Maybe these paradoxes don’t strike you as surprising at all, but to us they reveal an unexpected psychological richness about the hero concept.

Paradox 1:  The truest heroes are fictional heroes.  When we’ve asked people to list their heroes, a third of the heroes listed were the products of someone else’s imagination.  In fact, many people listed only fictional characters as their heroes.  When we asked one respondent to explain why he listed only fictional heroes, his reply was very revealing:  “The only real heroes are fictional heroes.”  This mindset prompted us to conduct a study in which participants were asked to rate the overall “goodness” of a group of randomly selected heroes and villains. We found that fictional heroes and villains were rated as more definitely good or bad than their real-world counterparts. Fictional heroes are indeed “truer” heroes.

Paradox 2:  We all agree what a hero is, but we disagree who heroes are.  Our research has shown that most people agree that heroes are supremely moral, supremely competent, or both.  But people rarely share the same heroes. Thus people who agree about the definition of heroes often vehemently disagree about specific choices of heroes.  A telling example occurred when a colleague of ours loved our definition of heroes, agreed with our philosophy that “heroism is in the eye of the beholder”, but then fervently questioned our decision to include actress Meryl Streep as an example of a hero.  It didn’t matter that we pointed to the fact that some of our survey respondents listed Streep as their hero.  What was most important to our colleague was that Streep simply didn’t appear on her own personal list of hero exemplars.

Paradox 3:  The most abundant heroes are also the most invisible.  An important type of hero is called the Transparent Hero, who does his or her heroic work behind the scenes, outside the public spotlight.  Transparent heroes include teachers, coaches, mentors, healthcare workers, law enforcement personnel, firefighters, and our military personnel.  People judge the transparent hero as the most abundant in society, by far.  Transparent heroes are everywhere.  Yet they largely go unnoticed and are our most unsung heroes.

Paradox 4:  The worst of human nature brings out the best of human nature. This paradox probably needs little explanation. Human-caused catastrophes such as the holocaust, the September 11th attacks, and the Virginia Tech shooting tragedy were fertile soil from which great acts of heroism blossomed.  One year ago exactly, when Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot outside a supermarket in Arizona, heroes stepped forward to protect Giffords from further harm and to prevent the gunman from targeting others.  Stories of such heroism abound.  Villainy always begets heroism.

Paradox 5:  We don’t choose our heroes; they choose us.  There is considerable research evidence supporting the idea of inherited cognitive capacities that interact with experience to produce the ways that people think and construct their worlds. To us, the idea of inherited, universal hero narrative structures that provide a ready basis for adopting heroes seems quite plausible. Our minds may equipped with images of the looks, traits, and behavior of heroes, as well as the narrative structure of heroism as outlined in Joseph Campbell’s (1949) hero monomyth.  These archetypes may prepare us for seeing and identifying heroes. Thus our heroes may choose us as much as we choose them.

Paradox 6:  We love to build up our heroes and we also love to destroy them.  Our research shows that people are captivated by dramatic tales of underdogs who heroically prevail against the odds.  Hero construction is inspiring and offers hope to all of us.  But the reverse is also true: people also appear to crave the undoing of heroes.  In fact, we suspect that this type of schadenfreude is heightened in hero-perception.  Our studies show that our greatest heroes cannot get away with anything less than near-perfect moral behavior.  For this reason, many heroes are bound to fall from grace.  People appear to believe in, and relish, a perverse law of heroic gravity:  What goes up must come down.

Paradox 7:  We love heroes the most when they’re gone.  Many studies we’ve conducted point to a rather morbid conclusion:  As much as we love our heroes when they are around, we love them even more when they’re dead. We call this phenomenon the death positivity bias. This bias is seen in the factors that determine the perceived greatness of U.S. Presidents. Getting assassinated truly helps a president gain stature as a great leader. The greatest of our heroes must die to achieve their greatness.

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What accounts for these seven paradoxes?  For us, the concept of heroism has proven to be slippery, mysterious, and surprising. To understand the paradoxes, we introduce the term intuitive heroism, which refers to people’s naïve beliefs about the way heroism operates.  Intuitive heroism is similar to intuitive psychology or intuitive physics: What we think isn’t necessary so.  Our naïve beliefs may lead us to underestimate the idiosyncratic nature of people’s hero choices. Intuitive heroism can make us oblivious to the impact of death in promoting heroism, and it can make us blind to our desire to see heroes fall as much as our desire to see them rise.

It is the misleading nature of intuitive heroism that has prompted us to undertake a more scientific approach toward understanding heroes.  We invite you to learn more about these paradoxes at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology website.  We’ve been delighted by all the surprising findings in our studies of heroism, and we look forward to uncovering – and understanding – many more.

 References

Allison, S. T., & Goethals, G. R. (2011). Heroes: What they do & why we need them.  New York: Oxford University Press.

Allison, S. T., Eylon, D., Beggan, J.K., & Bachelder, J. (2009).  The demise of leadership: Positivity and negativity in evaluations of dead leaders.  The Leadership Quarterly, 20, 115-129.

Carruthers, P., Laurence, S., & Stich, S. (2005). The innate mind: Structure and contents.  New York:  Oxford University Press.

Cialdini, R. B., Borden, R. J., Thorne, A., Walker, M. R., Freeman, S., & Sloan, L. R. (1976). Basking in reflected glory: Three (football) field studies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 366-375.

Dehaene, S. (1997, October 27, 1997). What Are Numbers, Really? A Cerebral Basis For Number Sense.  Retrieved from http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dehaene/dehaene_p2.html

Dunning, D. (2011). He turned toward the gunfire. Personality and Social Psychology Connections. Retrieved from http://spsptalks.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/he-turned-toward-the-gunfire/

Goethals, G. R., & Allison, S. T. (2012). Making heroes: The construction of courage, competence, and virtue.  Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 183-235.

Jung, C. G. (1917).  The psychology of unconscious processes.  In Long, C. (Ed.), Collected papers on analytical psychology.  London: Bailliere, Tindall, & Cox.

Jung, C. G. (1969).  Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 9 (Part 1):  Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious.  Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press.

Pinker, S. (1991).  Rules of language.  Science, 253, 530-535.

Simonton, D. K. (1994). Greatness: Who makes history and why. New York: Guilford Press.

The Allure of Fictional Non-Human Heroes

Fictional Heroes

By Zack Cerny, Megan McArdle, and Taylyn Hulse

Heroes in fiction are almost always human beings who perform great actions.  Often overlooked are the sizeable number of fictional characters who, despite their non-human status, show many of the most cherished qualities of our very best heroes.  Here are three such heroes:

Yoda from Star Wars

Heroes come in many shapes and sizes.  Sometimes the most unexpected hero becomes the most valiant.  The Star Wars movie franchise is filled with large and powerful heroes and villains.  It is a small, green, elfish character, though, who was the most influential of them all.

Yoda was the highest Jedi Master and was the leader of the Force.  He dedicated himself to the Force and to instructing new Jedi knights for his entire 900-year lifespan.  As he got older, his body weakened but the power of his mind increased.  In teaching new Jedi knights, he could be as comforting as a grandfather but as strict as a drill sergeant.  He adapted his style to be the teacher any Jedi knight needed.

Edward from Twilight

As can be read in Allison and Goethals’s book, Heroes: What They Do and Why We Need Them, there is a very fine line that separates a hero from a villain.  There are eight traits that describe heroes (called The Great Eight) and eight traits that describe villains (called The Evil Eight).  Interestingly, several traits can be found on both these lists — e.g., smart, strong, resilient, and charismatic.  Heroes only have two traits that villains don’t have – selfless and inspiring.  These two traits make all the difference.

It is precisely these traits of selflessness and inspiration that describe Edward, the heroic vampire of Stephenie Meyers’ Twilight series.  Edward thus represents a great departure from the evil reputation of the vampire species. In Twilight, Edward comes from a conscientious clan of vampires who have chosen not to prey on human flesh. This is not normal.  Feeding off humans is a natural instinct and even a pleasure for vampires. They are creatures who are designed to hunt humans.  But Edward chose something different.  His selflessness allowed him to find another way another way to live.  This rare restraint is what makes Edward so inspirational.

Selene from Underworld

What does it take to be a hero?  It takes courage, and above all it takes devotion to a noble cause.  Heroes are diverted from their heroic paths but by the end of their story they accomplish that which they set out to achieve.  Heroes defy the odds and make selfless decisions.  Their journey is never easy and is truly the road less traveled.

Selene from Underworld, the movie series, fits the description of a hero who takes the rarely traveled path.  Selene is dedicated to protecting a race of vampires that shuns her.  In doing so she shows true compassion for the lives of beings who are not of her same race.   Moreover, Selene inspires others with her utter fearlessness.  She remains true to her own race even when they mistreat her.  In Underworld, Selene always finds a way to emerge victorious.  Selene shows wisdom far superior to her elders, but never brags.  Ultimately, Selene inspires hope in the darkest of hours, never fears death, and does the right thing in the face of adversity.

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Zack Cerny, Megan McArdle, and Taylyn Hulse are undergraduate students at the University of Richmond.  They are enrolled in Scott Allison’s Social Psychology course and composed this essay as part of their course requirement.