my life

Once again, I have missed the most important semester of the year (fall) and I'm stuck with whatever is offered in the spring and summer semesters, hoping I can scrape together enough of the right kind of credits to stay on track with what I intend to be a master's of liberal arts in history.

History interested me little or not at all as a child. It was a subject we were required to take, with names and dates and places we were required to memorize. It was hateful and boring, and I couldn't wait to get away from it into something more interesting and useful. I never saw the gaping hole in my knowledge and understanding of my own culture--let alone of the outside world--until I was an adult. I began to see how interesting it could be when I worked at Arlington National Cemetery and was given a personal tour by a knowledgable friend; she told me the interesting stories associated with various famous and not-so-famous people who'd been buried there.

Then later, in college (as an English major), I read much the original American literature, including many famous documents, all of which gave me historical insight I never got from history textbooks (Columbus' journal, for example, shows how human the man was. He was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a man many Americans would admire if they knew the whole story).

After college, I picked up Lies My Teacher Told Me, and was intrigued by the different view of history presented by the author. He made his point well. To wit: "history," as taught to American schoolchildren, is presented in such a way as to instill pride in their heritage and justify the actions of their ancestors. This history is overwhelmingly "white-washed," misrepresenting and omitting the contributions and/or reasons for the actions of non-whites.

I personally believe such "historical instruction" is a huge mistake. Don't we learn history to better understand where we came from? Aren't we supposed to learn from the mistakes of others? What happened to "those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it"?

In the few college history courses I've taken, I've been delighted to learn that history--like current events and politics now--is always controversial. Ironically, the very controversy that is not taught in schools is precisely what makes history forever engaging. Then as now, everybody had an opinion of what happened and why. You can't just read one person's synopsis and consider yourself educated on the subject. You have to take everyone's viewpoint into account and find the most reasonable explanation; in the process, you come to understand the human motivations from all sides. Understanding why people made the choices they did is what keeps history from repeating itself.

So anyhow...here I am, studying history. My historical knowledge is gappy everywhere, so it doesn't even really matter which history classes I take. This turns out for the best, because when the semester's selection is whittled down to master's level courses that are offered after working hours, I don't really have a choice at all.

This semester, among other things, I'm taking a course called Perspectives on Alabama's Black Belt. It didn't strike me as very interesting at the outset. I'm not even sure what the "Black Belt" is, but I know I didn't have much interest in Alabama. Or at least, I thought I didn't. It turns out that, while I many not like the state much, it is infinitely interesting.

I've been doing some reading in one of our textbooks, in an effort to get a jump start on required reading before I'm deluged with it. This book is Alabama in the Twentieth Century (by Wayne Flynt). I readily admit that title isn't much of a "grabber," and I'd have never even been motivated to take it off the shelf to read the back cover, if left to my own devises. However, my professors insist upon selecting texts without consulting me, so I found myself sitting down with this tome (~500 pages) yesterday with the sort of resigned attitude with which I greet an imminent root canal.

Never judge a book by its cover. This book is delightful. It's chock full of colorful anecdotes and information presented in a very accessible style (which reminds me of one of my favorite authors: Bill Bryson). The author has lived in Alabama for 60 years and has very strong opinions about all aspects of Alabama history and culture, but presents them in an understated but pointed wit that flows with the narrative.

I'll bore you with specific sections of the book presently.

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