That all changed a few years ago when I started working for the Tracing Center. I was trying to think of an interesting introductory activity for a teacher workshop – I wanted something that would ground people in the content of slavery and get them comfortable with the idea of talking about difficult subjects. I chose four words – “slave”, “master”, “cracker”, and “quadroon” – and each person was given one word to respond to in writing. They were to write down whatever came to mind about the word and then we went around in a circle and shared responses. I’ve done this activity multiple times hence and have found it a great way to start a discussion. However, I always run into the same problem … people will ask about the origin of the word “cracker”?

We would probably all agree that in contemporary lexicon, “cracker” refers to a poor, white person from the South with racist tendencies. However, everyone has their own opinion on the word’s origin. Lots of people think it originated in the antebellum era and has something to do with the cracking sound made by the whip of an overseer or driver. That would be an incorrect assumption. The etymology of the word is so much more interesting than that.

During the Elizabethan era, the word was used to describe braggarts – the root of this is the Middle English word “crack” referring to entertaining conversation. Ever hear someone use the phrase “crack a joke”? Same origin. Our favorite wordsmith William Shakespeare used it in his 1595 play King John, “What cracker is this that deafs our ears with this abundance of superfluous breath?”

The word’s origin in the Americas appears as early as a 1766 letter to the Earl of Dartmouth from a G. Cochrane, “I should explain to your Lordship what is meant by crackers, a name they have got from being best boasters, they are a lawless set of rascals on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas and Georgia, who often change their places of abode.”² So we know that “crackers” mid-18th century foundation in the Americas was as a reference to a group of nomadic, unruly southern windbags. I’ve also seen it used as a derivative of “corn-cracker,” a diminutive used to reference poor farmers who raise only “cracked” products such as wheat and corn. It wasn’t until the early-mid 20th century that “cracker” became a pejorative racial epithet.

So I now proudly deputize all Tracing Center blog-readers as “Myth Busters.” If you hear people giving the wrong origin of this word, please correct them. Stop the mythology!

1. The title of this blog post comes from www.vendio.com.
2. Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang, by Jonathon Green, 2005.

Why don’t black Americans swim?

This is the provocative headline of a BBC News story, and it would be easy to misinterpret the BBC’s meaning. This is, after all, a sweeping generalization, and one which has been a racial stereotype in the United States for many generations.

However, the BBC reporter cites credible statistics to support the widely-held belief that swimming is, in fact, nowhere near as common among black Americans as it is among white Americans.

More importantly, the article argues that this situation arises out of the nation’s painful legacy of slavery and race and has deadly consequences.

According to the BBC, accidental drownings take 3,500 lives in the United States each year, and the drowning rate for black children is three times that of white children.

Relatively few black children can swim

The cause, this story suggests, is that relatively few black children learn to swim. In an incident in Shreveport, Louisiana in 2010, six black teenagers drowned when they went to help another teenager in trouble in the Red River. None of the teenagers could swim, and neither could any of the adults present with them.

In a study conducted by sociologist Carol Irwin, 70% of black children in the U.S. report having no ability to swim, or only enough to splash around in shallow water. Another 12% are self-taught.

Irwin reports that this is a vicious cycle, with many black parents unable to swim and therefore unable, or unwilling, to teach their children. The major cause, Irwin says, is that black parents who cannot swim will not let their children learn to swim because they are afraid their children would drown.

Ironically, this fear that children will drown seems to be what is causing more black children to drown.

The historical legacy

Historian Jeff Wiltse, author of Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in America, argues that this situation is largely the result of historical discrimination against African Americans.

The social history of swimming in the United States, according to Wiltse, took off in the 1920 and 1930s, when recreational swimming first entered mainstream culture and thousands of community swimming pools were built across the country. Black Americans were generally banned from using those municipal facilities, and as this discrimination ended, in the 1940s and 1950s in the northern U.S. and later in the southern states, white families often shifted to private facilities and public swimming pools were systematically neglected.

When swimming pools finally started being built in black neighborhoods, after the 1960s, they were generally small, shallow pools that accommodated playful splashing, but were not designed for swimming.

The result, Wiltse says, of the historic exclusion of black families from swimming is that swimming is not generally a part of the experience of black families and institutions, and tends to be viewed with skepticism. Irwin would add that swimming, being unfamiliar, also tends to be viewed in the black community with fear, which in turn often results in danger when black children are exposed to swimming, as they often eventually are.

Swimming is, therefore, yet another example of the myriad ways in which historic discrimination is not simply in the past, but had left a legacy of living consequences today.

The thing that first most struck me was the level of security provided.  Our buses traveled in motorcade, with streets cleared for us, and with several dozen officers present everywhere we went. It was certainly because of all the members of Congress on the trip, but as we were on a journey with civil rights luminaries, going to the sites where local and state police had been the enemy, it was a striking, tangible, symbol of how much times have changed.  And after all these were members of Congress, not on a regular day, but on a pilgrimage to pay tribute to the history of the Civil Rights movement.

Another potent occasion that drove home the degree to which progress has been made, was the dinner hosted by the Governor of Alabama, Robert Bentley, at the State Capitol.  This was where the state legislature had passed articles of secession in 1861, where Jefferson Davis was sworn in as President of the Confederacy, and where Governor Wallace had presided over staunch segregationism.

The March from Selma to Montgomery that catalyzed passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, had culminated at this State Capitol building.  Now the pilgrimage delegation, led by John Lewis and his compatriots, were invited for the first time for a formal dinner to pay tribute to the movement.  Also present was Peggy Wallace Kennedy, George Wallace’s daughter, who works on improving race relations and speaks about how Governor Wallace later apologized to the movement and directly to John Lewis. (Congressman Lewis shown here in front of portrait of Gov. Wallace.)

As someone for whom, like many liberals/progressives, it is almost gospel to be focused on “the work that still needs to be done” – I was deeply moved by how much change was accomplished in a decade.  It struck me that it is almost a disservice to the incredible courage summoned and the sacrifices made by leaders and foot soldiers of the movement to talk as if not that much has changed.  So much has changed.  If I were older, I would know it viscerally.  I now “get it” more than ever before.  This doesn’t negate the incredible challenges that still exist, but it gives me an important new perspective.

I’m reading a book right now called There Goes My Everything: White Southerners in the Age of Civil Rights, 1945-1975 by Jason Sokol.  It delves into the sentiments of everyday white Southerners during those years and how much they experienced their world as turned upside down.  So it too shows how profound the changes were.

This book and this pilgrimage are also providing an interesting counterpoint to my usual focus: the degree to which the North was far more complicit in slavery and racism that common mythology allows.  Just as it is wrong to paint the white North as wholesale heroic, it is wrong to paint the white South as wholesale racist.  The book, and the white Southerners we heard from this weekend—Bob Zellner, John Seigenthaler, Congressman Spencer Bachus talking about a brave choice his father made—were proof that white people in the South did take risks and stand up for what was right, and many who didn’t were at least on the right side in their heads, but scared of repercussions for taking a stand.

The supreme significance of courage was the ultimate message of the weekend for me.  It is beyond words to describe the power of visiting the parsonage where Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King lived as a young couple and family from 1954-1960.  Dr. King had been called to serve Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery and this is where his leadership of the movement really began in connection with the Montgomery bus boycott.  He received a particularly ominous threat late one night in 1956, saying that if his family did not leave town in three days, they would be bombed.  He stayed awake talking to God, and at the kitchen table, he heard God tell him not to be afraid.  He later spoke of this epiphany as a turning point in his ability to lead in the face of constant threats.  Their home was in fact bombed three days later, but providentially no one was hurt.

May we all have the courage of our convictions, and the vision to pursue beloved community in these days.

A handful of key passages, and a link to Tim’s full statement on his web site, are below.

This is Tim’s overarching description of what accountability means to him:

Accountability, in an antiracist context, means engaging in “the work” (whatever that work might be, from organizing to educating to providing some social service, to parenting, as just a few examples) in a way that is responsive to the needs and concerns of people of color, communities of color, and their interest in the eradication of white supremacy.

It also means being responsive to the needs and concerns of other whites with whom we may be struggling or working. In all, accountability is about openness, and about “checking in” with others whose insights on your antiracist efforts may be more incisive than your own.

Tim acknowledges that the principle of accountability inherently contains limitations:

Obviously, accountability can never be perfect. For one thing, there are many different individuals, organizations and communities of color, and they will not always agree as to the direction in which antiracist work should go, let alone how white antiracist allies should engage in the struggle. But by listening to as many different voices as possible on these matters, and by forging real relationship with individuals, organizations and communities of color, it becomes easier to know whose voices are themselves rooted in structures of accountability, and thus, especially important to heed.

Tim also suggests not allowing accountability to hold up one’s work, but instead to become a way of continually learning and improving in the course of doing that work:

Accountability should never be an excuse for inaction or paralysis — so, in other words, it is not a matter of vetting every action one takes through a committee of some sort before taking a stand or engaging in antiracist efforts — but it does mean being prepared to acknowledge when you screw up, apologize for mistakes, and commit to doing better next time.

The entire essay can be read on Tim’s web site as his “Statement of Appreciation and Accountability.”

The board of directors has hired James Perry to be our new executive director. James was the founding board chair and president of the Tracing Center and has been centrally involved, since 1999, with Traces of the Trade, for which he shared an Emmy nomination.

As an integral part of this leadership transition, we envision that Juanita Brown, a co-producer of Traces of the Trade and currently a consultant to the Tracing Center, will play an expanded role as a senior member of our leadership team.

We invite your support, in whatever form, to help us usher in this next exciting phase in our growth as an organization.

The essay, written by Executive Director Katrina Browne and Managing Director James DeWolf Perry, builds on our ongoing work around the sesquicentennial of the Civil War and the enduring historical myths which blind us to the legacy of slavery and race today.

Here is how the op-ed begins:

This week marks the 150th anniversary of the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War, a war that redefined national and regional identities and became an enduring tale of noble resistance in the South and, for the rest of the country, a mighty moral struggle to erase the stain of slavery.

On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces opened fire on the beleaguered Union garrison at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. By April 14, the fort had fallen and the war had begun in earnest.

By the time Fort Sumter was again in Union hands, following the evacuation of Charleston in the closing days of the war in 1865, the war had become the bloodiest in the nation’s history — and has not been surpassed. Yet the relationship of the North to the South, and to slavery before and during the war is not at all what we remember today. The reality is that both North and South were profoundly complicit in slavery and deeply reluctant to abolish our nation’s “peculiar institution.”

To read the full article, go to “Civil War’s dirty secret about slavery” at CNN.com.

I am so pleased to be sending the first newsletter from our new non-profit: The Tracing Center on Histories and Legacies of Slavery.  Here you can read great stories about what we’ve been up to this year with many different collaborators … all over the U.S. and overseas.  We wholeheartedly invite you to get further involved with our efforts, through programming and/or financial support.

We formed the Tracing Center in 2010 as an organic extension of two years of work screening Traces of the Trade, having heard, again and again, about the ongoing need for programming about slavery and race that works at a more systemic level, such as in the fields of education and public history.  We received encouraging feedback in a comprehensive on-line survey about our 2009 programming, showing high demand for broader and deeper programming.  You can read our mission statement here.

We are very encouraged by all that’s happened this year or is currently percolating in our various program areas, from work with the National Park Service at the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall and the President’s House, to work with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s Urban Projects, to workshops on teaching slavery in a way that prepares students for healthy race relations, to rebroadcasts connected to the 150^th anniversary of the Civil War.

If the film has impacted you, or you have witnessed the power of the education and dialogue that we help spark, please become further involved in our efforts.  You can support us by suggesting schools, universities, historic sites, religious congregations or denominations, workplaces and other venues that would be well-served by using the film for dialogue, education or training.  You can propose programming that you would like to see us do, or that you would like to do with us. To contact us, please click here.

We would also be very grateful for year-end financial support as we attempt to meet the growing demand for our programming while building a charitable organization from the ground up in a challenging climate. Please consider being one of the founding donors to our new Center.  Gifts are tax deductible.

Some of you have found our work compelling because you can trace your heritage to enslaved people; for others it is because you trace your heritage to enslavers. Others of you might not have, or know if you have, the most obvious links to this history, but you know that white privilege has put the wind at your back and set you up for success, or has put obstacles in your path.  Others of you have different lines that intertwine, giving you a joyous and/or demanding mix of windows into the past and present.

We imagine that for some of you, making a financial contribution to our work, large or small, would be a great extension of your passion for this unwinding, loosening of knots, this work of repair.  Gifts of any size would be gratefully appreciated!  If you can consider a significant donation, please contact us, as we would be happy to provide any additional information you might need.

We look forward to working with all of you where our good forces wish to meet!

Sincerely,

Katrina Browne

Executive Director, The Tracing Center on Histories and Legacies of Slavery