Facing a legacy of slavery

Fulbright statue, name, inescapably involved

The founding of the United States was a landmark victory for democracy, but a landmark defeat in humankind’s battle against slavery. Enslavement is America’s original sin, and it haunts us still.

The tragedy began in 1619 when the first Africans were brought here by force. It continued through the 1700s as 2.5 million were enslaved to serve a million European migrants. The new U.S. Constitution allowed five Southern states to continue slavery despite the vehement opposition of Benjamin Franklin and others who understood the fatal error of this compromise. The issue culminated in the Civil War, President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and the defeat of the slave-holding states.

That tragic war was a legacy of the mistaken compromise with slavery. The devastation on both sides provided overwhelming evidence that the nation must mend its ways and actually honor our declaration that all humans are created equal and deserve the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The good guys won, the bad guys lost, and it would seem the way was clear for the nation to finally acknowledge, accept, compensate for and move beyond past errors.

Somehow we did not move on. It’s possible for nations to reconstruct themselves and eventually achieve true greatness following such national disasters. Germany’s World War II defeat was as complete as could be imagined. There was no question Germany had supported a corrupt cause. The winners had the good sense to provide aid to get the defeated nation back on its feet, and most Germans had the good sense to eventually recognize the Nazi regime’s malevolence. Germany reformed: They removed and forever banned all statues or other tributes to those who had led them into this disaster, while erecting holocaust museums and memorials to those who had suffered, as well as providing reparations to Jews and to the new state of Israel.

Thirty years ago, my wife and I visited the museum at the holocaust concentration camp in Dachau, Germany. It was one of the most devastating, painful days of my life. A large metal sculpture at the entrance declares “Nie Wieder,” with translations in four languages on the four sides of sides of the base: “Never again.” The German museum tells the objective truth, with no “Gone with the Wind” romanticism: Germany was wrong; they committed a nightmare of horrible crimes; nothing could compensate for it. Such museums are noble acts, because the truth needs to be told.

Germany pulled through their reconstruction and is today a leading moral force in the world. Although all historical analogies are inexact, America must rise to Germany’s example. We must rid ourselves of all monuments to our past failures, and we must do this not grudgingly but willingly.

America’s misguided history has recently come back to haunt us in Fayetteville. J. William Fulbright will forever be my hero, for his dedication to peace and his leadership against America’s notorious war in Vietnam. In 1968 I traveled with a small group to Washington, D.C., to participate in a week of “Vietnam Summer” action opposing the war. Fulbright welcomed us and extolled our group on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Without his wise leadership of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that war might, like Afghanistan, have become a “forever war.”

But all people, including me as well as you, my friend, are far from perfect, and in those days our culture made it impossible for a Southern senator to survive without toeing the segregationist line. Around 1970, I heard Fulbright speak to a “distinguished lecture” gathering of thousands in the university’s Barnhill Arena. He spoke brilliantly and passionately about war, peace and the arrogance of U.S. power.

During the questions, Fulbright was asked about his segregationist history: He signed the 1956 Southern Manifesto to obstruct the court-ordered end of segregated schools. He remained quiet when Gov. Orval Faubus defied a court order and kept nine black students from entering Little Rock Central High School until President Eisenhower sent federal troops. He joined Southern senators in filibustering against the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

It is with real pain that I must agree with the petition of the University of Arkansas Black Student Caucus that Fulbright’s statue and name need to be removed from the campus. Such agonizing actions are the inevitable consequence of our nation’s failure, again and again, to face up to its legacy of slavery. It’s been 401 years now. Our agony will continue until we get this right.