The 'Hero' In Our Midsts

These can seem to be desperate times.

The arena, in which idyllic democratic principle infuses with popular secular sentimentalism, fills everyday with hundreds of thousands of loyalists on either side of traditionalism—those for and those against. They are engaged in a bitterly divisive culture war. Everything, it seems, is at stake. Millions more remain outside the coliseum as they listen to the distant clatter of clashing swords. Agents of change champion their cause with bouts of emotion that shift political momentum. The indifferent one reassures his companions that the best position is one of political abstinence, lest the side he roots to victory instead suffers defeat, leaving the loser on the "wrong side" of a history written by political winners. The neutral one focuses on the struggles of daily sustenance, though he remains cognizant of a growing feeling of angst and helplessness. He pretends to ignore the dissipating numbers among his ranks as another son or daughter leaves his side, stumbles towards the entrance of the coliseum, and transforms into a culture warrior. The sound from within the coliseum matches that of a giant wave smashing against a jagged shoreline, its motion carried forth by seismic political tremors.

At some point, this constant grind of partisan politics will numb the sensibilities of the average American, who, generally speaking, wants his or her country to achieve an idyllic good. However, after having endured the second worse economic downturn in modern history, after years of persistent military flashes of violence in the country’s longest ever wars of Iraq and Afghanistan, and in light of persistent agitations from countries like Syria, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Egypt, and Pakistan—let alone growing domestic tension over diminishing credit ratings, looming Government shutdowns over debt ceilings debates, and a ballooning deficit—the nation faces the quiet crisis of an impending powder keg moment—a cultural flashpoint—that would ignite such civil restlessness not known since the day of our 16^th President.

In short—however implausible it may seem—we are in the midst of America’s existential identity crisis.
 
Ok, now for the good news; after all, melodramatic though my account of today's political climate may seem, there is, like in most dire circumstances, good news to be had. There is a Hero in our midst, one capable of elevating us above the partisan bickering to reunite us in light of the grave challenges that threaten the nation. In fact, there are many Heroes. Yet who are these Heroes, and, perhaps more importantly, where will they lead us?    
 
How could one possibly know where he or she is going unless the same one understands where he or she has been? To a larger extent, how could any country coalesce around a virtuous vision for the future unless that nation’s leaders understand where that nation has been? Put a third way, as Maya Angelou, the acclaimed American author, poet, and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, said, “No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place...Each of us has the right and the responsibility to assess the roads which lie ahead, and those over which we have travelled, and if the future road looms ominous or unpromising, and the roads back uninviting, then we need to gather our resolve and, carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction.”

In this entry, I will present two narratives, a personal narrative and a national one. They are each a narrative of identity and of virtuous intention, and, echoing Angelou, of the need to gather resolve and, carrying only the necessary baggage, step off the present path into another direction.
 
"...nothing but a dog. You're not a thing but a dog.”

At the time of the interview in 1937, Walter Calloway was 89 years old. In spite of his age and aside from the purpose of journalist W.P. Jordan’s arrangement of the interview, Walter Calloway was lively. Though he was quick tongued and full of spirit on the day of the interview, he reported feeling ill with what W.P Jordan called a “temporary illness.” Walter not only had a quick tongue, but a characteristically suitable style of talk that represented his poor path through life. It is also worth noting that the narrative of the interview presented here was transcribed verbatim and can be challenging to read. W.P. Jordan made an effort to transcribe what he heard Walter say, so one suggestion is to read the narrative aloud for better understanding. Jordan wrote, “As [Walter] sat in the sunshine on his tiny front porch [as we walked up], his greeting was: "Come in, white folks. You ain't no doctor is you?"  

After replying in the negative, Walter’s reply, written exactly in his own voice, went, "Fo' de las' past twenty-five years I been keepin' right on, wukkin' for de city in de street department. 'Bout two mont's ago dis mis'ry attackted me an' don't 'pear lak nothin' dem doctors gimme do no good. De preacher he come to see me dis mornin' an' he say he know a white gemman doctor, what he gwine to sen' him to see me. I sho' wants to get well ag'in pow'ful bad, but mebby I done live long 'nuff an' my time 'bout come." 

Photo and stories courtesy of Bruce Fort
of Corcoran Department of History
at the University of Virginia;
original collection with George P. Rawick,
ed., The American Slave: A Composite
Autobiography (Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood Press, 1972-79).
His full interview can be found here.
 

Nonetheless, judging by the photo which accompanies the interview, Walter looked in good general health and good spirits. What is more striking than his body’s fit condition, however, is his body’s position; if one looks close enough at the photo, he or she could detect a measure of suspiciousness on Walter’s face. He appears in the photo ready either to run from the photographer at a moment’s notice or, if his spunky disposition is an indication of a fighting spirit, to reach for his cane, leaning on the post to his right, to use as a weapon should the photographer make any sudden motion. The tension in his right hand is undeniable. The way his body contorts away from the photo leaves no question in mind for the viewer that Walter Calloway did not trust the men who came to interview him. And yet, what reason did Walter have to trust these men?

Walter Calloway was born in Richmond, Virginia into slavery in 1848. W.P. Jordan, associated with the Works Progress Administration, was one of many writers and journalists interviewing some twenty-three hundred former slaves across the American south between 1936 and1938, of whom Walter was one. Imagine, white men at the height of the Great Depression journeying across the Jim Crow south asking former slaves to recall their memory of slavery; what reason did Walter have to trust these men? In another interview from the same repository, former slave Fountain Hughes, also born in 1848 and 101 years old at the time of his interview on June 11, 1949, recounted the day in which the Union Army arrived to Charlottesville, Virginia, saying they “throwed all the meat an' flour an' sugar an' stuff out in the river an' let it go down the river. An' they knowed the people wouldn' have nothing to live on, but they done that. An' thats the reason why I don' like to talk about it… Colored people tha's free ought to be awful thankful. An' some of them is sorry they are free now. Some of them now would rather be slaves.”

Strikingly, to this comment, interviewer Hermond Norwood asked Fountain with a patronizing chuckle, “Which had you rather be Uncle Fountain?”

Fountain snapped back, “Me? Which I'd rather be? You know what I'd rather do?” Then, in an intensely focused cadence, Fountain sharply added, “If I thought, had any idea, that I'd ever be a slave again, I'd take a gun an' jus' end it all right away. Because you're nothing but a dog. You're not a thing but a dog.”   

Back to Walter, who started his story like this: "Well, Sir, Cap'n, I was born in Richmond, Virginny, in 1848. Befo' I was ole 'nuff to 'member much, my mammy wid me an' my older brudder was sold to Marse John Calloway at Snodoun in Montgomery County, ten miles south of de town of Montgomery. Marse John hab a big plantation an' lots of slaves. Dey treated us purty good, but we hab to wuk hard. Time I was ten years ole I was makin' a reg'lar han' 'hin de plow. Oh, yassuh, Marse John good 'nough to us an' we get plenty to eat, but he had a oberseer name Green Bush what sho' whup us iffen we don't do to suit him. Yassuh, he mighty rough wid us be he didn't do de whippin' hisse'f. He had a big black boy name Mose, mean as de debil an' strong as a ox, and de oberseer let him do all de whuppin'. An', man, he could sho' lay on dat rawhide lash. He whupped a nigger gal 'bout thirteen years old so hard she nearly die, an' allus atterwa'ds she hab spells of fits or somp'n. Dat make Marse John pow'ful mad, so he run dat oberseer off de place an' Mose didn' do no mo' whuppin'.”

Not long after this comment, Walter made the following point about learning of the Union Army’s victory and of his freedom, “we ain't nebber been what I calls free. 'Cose ole marster didn' own us no mo', an' all de folks soon scatter all ober, but iffen dey all lak me day still hafter wuk jes' as hard, an some times hab less dan we useter hab when we stay on Marster John's plantation.”
 

It should stand out that Walter and Fountain had two obvious things in common; they were both former slaves and they were both born in 1848. To their company, I will add a third man, one who also shares these two similarities. His name is James M. Pride and he is my paternal great-grandfather.

In fact, James and Walter share one other similarity. Walter, though he was born in Virginia, was sold to John Calloway and spent his childhood a slave in Alabama, whereas my great-grandfather was born and raised a slave in Franklin County, Alabama. At this point I should note that I do not know much else about my great-grandfather except from what little inconsistent clues are left in the public record, such as U.S. Census records (in fact, the Census first included a registry of slaves and their owners in 1850, two years after my great-grandfather’s birth), and whatever other public documents may have survived the times. So to imagine what James’ life was like, I look to stories like Walter’s account. And, as you can imagine, when I look at Walter’s photo, at how his hand is poised ready to grab his cane and defend his life, I cannot help but to imagine the man who raised my grandfather, who in turn raised my father, who in turn, raised me. And in the event this fact evades you, the aforementioned chronology spans 165 years at the time of this writing, just under half the age of our country.

 Prophets, Nomads, Heroes, and Artists
 

We will return to this point, and to my Great-grandfather, a little later. In 2007, a demographer and a historian, Neil Howe and William Strauss, respectively, wrote an article in the Harvard Business Review as part of a larger study on various generational forces. Their article was titled, The Next 20 Years: How Customer and Workforce Attitudes Will Evolve. As provided in the articles’ abstract, “Howe and Strauss, the authors of Generations, The Fourth Turning, Millennials Rising, and other books, have studied the differences among generations for some 30 years. Their extensive research has revealed a fascinating pattern—one so strong that it supports a measure of predictability. On the basis of historical precedent, they say, we can foresee how the generations that are alive today will think and act in decades to come.” Although the authors do make sweeping generalizations throughout the article, they achieve success in advancing an intriguing and fascinating observation and argument about all American generations, including older, lesser known generations, by leveraging well established sociological terms and associations of more remarked about generations in modern American history ( such as the Greatest Generation, the Baby Boomer generation, Generation X, and the Millennials).

The authors write, “A generation encompasses a series of consecutive birth years spanning roughly the  length of time needed to become an adult; its members share a location in history, and, as a consequence, exhibit distinct beliefs and behavior patterns. Nineteen generations have lived on American soil since the Puritans came to New England, [with] the twentieth just now arriving.”

* The authors noted that "the absence of a hero archetype during the mid-1800s is the one exception [they] observed in a cycle that extends back through American and Anglo-American history to the Renaissance....demonstrating that the course of history is never predetermined."

If you focus your attention to the far right column of the chart above, you'll notice, in a cyclic pattern, generational archetypes. This is one of the more intriguing elements of Howe and Strauss' article, the portion in where the authors introduce these archetypes as based on inherent characteristics shaped by the influence of past generations, and which lend to a degree of predictability for how each generations would respond to external world events. The authors write, “It matters very much to the makeup of a generation whether it comes of age during or after a period of national crisis, or during or after a period of cultural renewal or awakening. We like to label these four major kinds of generations with the shorthand of archetypes: prophet, nomad, hero, and artist. The generations of each archetype share not only a similar age location in history, but also similar attitudes toward family, culture and values, risk, and civic engagement. As each archetype ages, its persona undergoes profound and characteristic changes.”

In short, the archetypes descriptors are:

(1) Prophet: Members of a Prophetic generation are “born after a great war or other crisis, during a time of rejuvenated community life and consensus around a new societal order. Prophets grow up as increasingly indulged children, come of age as the narcissistic young crusaders of a spiritual awakening, cultivate principles as moralistic mid-lifers, and emerge as wise elders guiding another historical crisis.”

(2) Nomad: Members of a Nomadic generation are “born during a cultural renewal, a time of social ideals and spiritual agendas, when youth-fired attacks break out against the established institutional order. They grow up as under-protected children, come of age as the alienated young adults of a post-awakening world, mellow into pragmatic midlife leaders during a crisis, and age into tough post-crisis elders.”

 

(3) Hero: Members of a Heroic generation are “born after a spiritual awakening, during a time of individual pragmatism, self-reliance, laissez-faire, and national (or sectional or ethnic) chauvinism. Heroes grow up as increasingly protected children, come of age as the valiant young team workers of a crisis, demonstrate hubris as energetic mid-lifers, and emerge as powerful elders beset by another spiritual awakening.”

(4) Artist: Members of an Artistic generation are “born during a great war or other crisis, a time when worldly perils boil off the complexity of life, and public consensus, aggressive institutions, and personal sacrifice prevail. Artists grow up as overprotected children, come of age as the sensitive young adults of a post-crisis world, break free as indecisive midlife leaders during a spiritual awakening and age into empathic post-awakening elders.”

"..in certain circumstances a virtue can be made of necessity."

One cannot help but to locate his or her birth year on the above chart to figure how he or she fits into this larger scheme.

 

My Grandfather, Dan Pride, one of only a
handful of existing images.

On the one hand, in seeing that the three men I focused on for this writing, James Pride, Dan Pride (my paternal grandfather), and Willie Pride (my father), all coming of age at or just after a great national crisis, it makes sense to me now why I might instinctively think, behave, and act the way that I do pertaining to present day crises. Two Artists, James and Dad, and two Heroes, my Grandfather and, included to their company, the Millennial, me. And yet, on the other hand, this study assumes uniform and even distribution of certain characteristics among general society, but two of these three men, my father excluded, were not members of general society. They were member of a sub-group of desolate black southern farmers. Though societal influences certainly do play a role in forming a mind at the time and location it becomes conscious, there is another, more fundamental formation in the mind and heart of the self-conscious African-American, particularly in the early American south. Stories like Fountain's and Walter's and James' tell of an entirely different American experience.  

 

James Pride, former slave and, at the time of his death in October of 1931, a poor farmer, must have passed along to my grandfather a value of freedom infused with the doggedness of survival. To witness this value in practice would not have been glamorous. I imagine it would have been like watching a starved decrepit mule pull desperately at an old, rusty, eight-hundred pound field plow, struggling to move through rugged terrain. No matter how hard the thing worked, rocks would barely be upheaved and the plow hardly moved. My grandfather, in picking up his father's trade of farming, infused these values into his instruction of my father and my father's siblings, adding to their mix an iron resolve, resiliency, and a firm will to persevere. Seeing how my father does not speak lovingly of my grandfather, these values, witnessed in practice, would not have been glamorous.

 

My Grandmother, Lola Pride, in the
only existing photo my father owns.

But my father had an entirely different circumstance with which to contend. You see, my paternal grandmother, Lola, died due to complications during childbirth in 1944, when my father was just eleven years old. My Dad’s stillborn sibling, either a girl or a boy—I do not know—did not survive the ordeal. This event was so tragic a loss for my father that it’s memory still forces upon him such discomfort and heaviness of heart that I’ve seen him physically slump in his seat under its crushing weight during each retelling—which, for this reason and for that, has been countless times. In spite of itself, time does not heal every wound. And yet, as a member of the Silent generation, an Artist by archetype, my father, in spite of his pain and the misery his father put him through, assessed his future road, which on the outset loomed ominous and unpromising, the road back—the same path of his father, Dan, and his grandfather, James, of being a poor farmer—less inviting, he gathered his resolve and, with only the necessary values and lessons he'd need to survive, started off on his own journey in life.

To help put my grandmother's passing into full context, consider this: In chapter five of Malcolm Gladwell’s David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, Gladwell wrote that, “In the 1950s, while studying a sample of famous biologists, the science historian Anne Roe had remarked in passing on how many had at least one parent who died while they were young. The same observation was made a few years later in an informal survey of famous poets and writers... More than half, it turned out, had lost a father or mother before the age of fifteen.”

With this observation in mind, in 1963 or 1964, psychologist Marvin Eisenstadt generated a list of every person whose life merited more than one column—a rough proxy, he felt, for achievement—in either the Encyclopedia Britannica or the Encyclopedia Americana. Gladwell writes, “Of the 573 eminent people for whom Eisenstadt could find reliable biographical information, a quarter had lost at least one parent before the age of ten. By fifteen, 34.5 percent had had at least one parent die, and by the age of twenty, 45 percent. Even for the years before the twentieth century, when life expectancy due to illness and accidents and warfare was much lower than it is today, those are astonishing numbers.”

The examples continue: Historian Lucille Iremonger found that sixty-seven percent of England’s prime ministers had lost a parent before the age of sixteen, “roughly twice the rate of parental loss during the same period of members of the British upper class,” from which prime ministers generally came. The same pattern can be found among American Presidents. Twelve of the nation’s forty-four U.S. Presidents lost their fathers while they were young.

Gladwell finally concludes his point by saying, “I realize these studies make it sound as if losing a parent is a good thing…Psychiatrist Felix Brown found that prisoners are somewhere between two and three times more likely to have lost a parent in childhood than is the population as a whole. That’s too great a difference to be a coincidence…“This is not an argument in favor of orphanhood and deprivation,” Brown writes, “but the existence of these eminent orphans does suggest that in certain circumstances a virtue can be made of necessity.” As the English essayist Thomas De Quincey said—noted in the foot margin—“It is, or it is not, according to the nature of men, an advantage to be orphaned at an early age.”
 

Did my father benefit, even if unwittingly, by enduring his mother’s passing at so early an age? Perhaps no more than did my great-grandfather benefit by being freed from slavery at the age of six, nor did my grandfather benefit by coming of age at the height of the Great Depression and by becoming a single father around the time of the second world war. These are extraordinary life events, and their impacts become infused into the mindset of subsequent generations in the form of values and principles. And yet, the combination of my father's upbringing, values and principles that date back to James' life lesson, coupled with the extraordinary impact of losing his mother, led my father to find a way to forge a virtue out of necessity. And seeing how only two generations separate me from my Great-grandfather, while three times as many generations, six to be exact, exist between his generation and mine, one can very easily see how the intensity of his life's lessons do have some impact on my instinctual sub-cognitive processes.  

 

"These are the times that try men's souls."

 

So now, back to the setting of our coliseum.

In 1776, Thomas Paine opened the first of his well circulated articles, The American Crisis, with the line, "These are the times that try men's souls." He continues, "The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated." Of course it is necessary to keep Thomas Paine's words in their proper context of the brooding American Revolutionary cause, but we should find comfort in the notion that his words may be substituted for any present day crisis. In fact, all throughout human history, crises have come and gone; this idea is one point, among many others, of the Howe and Strauss article. As the philosopher and novelist, George Santayana, reminds us, there is a historical cycle of human experiences that repeats, particularly for those who view history through a short lens. However consistent or tenuous this cycle may be, at the present moment, history reminds us that there are Heroes in our midst. The Millennial generation, my generation, comprised of the ones who have stepped out onto the world scene at the precise moment two towers fell to terrorism in New York, are, as Howe and Strauss wrote, "gravitating toward large institutions and government agencies, seeking teamwork, protection against risk, and solid work–life balance. Their culture is becoming less edgy, with a new focus on upbeat messages and big brands."

As I have done in reflecting on the lessons of my father's past, with more to be learned, so too must my generation learn the lessons of our nation's past, if not merely the lessons of their own respective past. We must do so for the health of the nation. We must somehow guide our nation through this identity crisis, to return her to, as President Ronald Reagan once put it, "the shining city on the hill." In the general sense, we, as a nation, promote community, and we have crafted an American community to include people of various ideals and political, religious, and social principles, so long as we all kept to a mutual degree of respect. This is true in principle, if not always achieved in practice. Furthermore, we have crafted American leadership among the global community by striking alliances with like-nations, while respecting those nation unlike us so long as we agreed to a common sense of companionship towards global unity.

 

Indeed, these are the times that will try one's soul, all the more reason why one must be ready when the moment comes to be called upon. And so, to my generation: Look to yourself and answer, "what have I done to be ready?" You are the Hero in our midst. So am I. And I believe our nation will call upon us one day for direction. When She does, keep in mind Angelou's advice, that "each of us has the right and the responsibility to assess the roads which lie ahead, and those over which we have travelled, and if the future road looms ominous or unpromising, and the roads back uninviting, then we need to gather our resolve and, carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction."

What direction, if given the chance, will you lead us? This is an important question that requires a meaningful answer. It is my hope that I have given you something more to think about in this regard.