Standard 4.11: Political Courage and Those Who Affirmed or Denied Democratic Ideals
Examine the varied understandings of the role of elected representatives and discuss those who have demonstrated political courage or those whose actions have failed to live up to the ideals of the Constitution. (Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for History and Social Studies) [8.T4.11]
FOCUS QUESTION: When and how have politically courageous individuals and groups worked to realize democratic ideals?
Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Copper sculpture Full Circle: Profile of Courage in the John F. Kennedy Federal Building, Boston, Massachusetts | Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, from Library of Congress collection
Political courage is the act of standing up for and affirming democratic ideals no matter how popular or unpopular those ideas may be at a given time in history.
Women and men who demonstrate political courage are essential to a democracy, for as the 35th President John F. Kennedy wrote in the 1957 Pulitzer Prize winning book, Profiles in Courage: "The true democracy, living and growing and inspiring, puts its faith in the people – faith that the people will not simply elect men who will represent their views ably and faithfully, but also elect men who will exercise their conscientious judgment – faith that the people will not condemn those whose devotion to principle leads them to unpopular courses, but will reward courage, respect honor and ultimately recognize right" (quoted from About the Book: Profiles in Courage, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum).
United States history is filled with times when political figures and everyday people affirmed the ideals of democracy and the nation's Constitution. The INVESTIGATE and UNCOVER modules for this standard offer examples of individuals who had the political courage to affirm the ideals of freedom and justice for all during crucial times on the nation's past, including the Amistad Case, the Scopes Trial, and the Delano Grape Strike and Boycott.
At the same time, and most recently during the January 6, 2021 attack on the nation's Capitol by a pro-Trump group of insurrectionists seeking to overturn the 2020 Presidential election (Rampage at the Capitol, The New York Times, January 7, 2021), our history also has many occasions of individuals, policymakers, and groups engaging in actions that contradicted and suppressed American ideals. Our ENGAGE module discusses the Reconstruction Era, the Indian Wars of the American West, McCarthyism, the Red Scare, and the Lavender Scare.
4.11.1 INVESTIGATE: When American Ideals Were Affirmed
Political courage is illustrated by the actions of those who stand up for the ideals of liberty and justice in sharp contrast to those who do not.
United States history is filled with examples of courageous women and men who, facing discrimination, injustice, and hatred, worked ceaselessly to build a better, more equitable society. African American leaders Harriet Tubman, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Shirley Chisholm; women activists Alice Paul and Helen Keller; labor organizer Mother Jones; socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs; and gay civil rights pioneers Bayard Rustin and Harvey Milk are highlighted in other chapters of this book.
There are many little-known individuals who exhibited great political courage throughout our history. Elizabeth Peratrovich, a Tlingit Nation member, led a campaign that led to the passage of the nation's first anti-discrimination law in Alaska in 1945. She was honored with a Google Doodle on December 30, 2020. Austin Bearse, a ship captain from Cape Cod, Massachusetts who smuggled escaped slaves to freedom as part of the underground railroad at sea. You can read about his exploits in his book, Reminiscenes of the Fugitive-Slave Law Days (1880) available from the Library of Congress and at the National Park Service site Safe Harbor: The Maritime Underground Railroad in Boston.
What other examples of hidden histories and untold stories of political courage can you find?
Writing About Politically Courageous Elected Officialsa video from John F. Kennedy Presidential Library provides an opportunity to learn more about courageous Americans. You can view the The Struggle for Justice, an exhibition from the National Portrait Gallery or read Teaching about Unsung Heroes: Encouraging Students to Appreciate Those Who Fought for Social Justice, a chapter in Bill Bigelow's A People's History for the Classroom (2008).
Here are three more occasions of political courage where the actions of individuals affirmed American ideals:
4.11.1.1 Joseph Cinque, John Quincy Adams, and the Amistad Case
Joseph Cinque (Sengbe Pieh) led a slave revolt aboard the ship Amistad in 1839 and was defended in court by the former President, John Quincy Adams.
Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): A portrait of Cinque (Sengbe Pieh), the leader of the Mende revolt aboard the Amistad | Sengbe Pieh by Nathaniel Jocelyn | Public Domain
4.11.1.2 The Scopes Trial and the Debate Over Charles Darwin's Origin of Species
In a famous court case, John Scopes, a public school science teacher, went to jail because he taught the theory of evolution in a Tennessee school in 1925.
Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\): William Jennings Bryan (seated at left) being interrogated by Clarence Darrow during the Scopes Trial, July 20, 1925 | "Tennessee v. John T. Scopes Trial" by Watson Davis
4.11.1.3 Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Larry Itliong, and the Delano Grape Strike and Boycott
The five-year-long Delano Grape Strike and Boycott (1965-1970) was a transformative moment in the American Labor Movement. The strike began on September 8, 1965 when Filipino-American grape workers in California’s San Joaquin Valley went on strike against poor pay and deplorable working conditions. Initially led by Larry Itliong and Philip Vera Cruz, the strikers hoped for a 15 cents an hour raise. California celebrates Larry Itliong Day every year on October 25.
Figure \(\PageIndex{4}\): United Farm Workers Black Eagle Flag Containing the Huelga Bird on a White Disc on a Red Field |Public domain
Soon after, Mexican American labor activists Cesar Chavez (An American Hero: Biography of Cesar E. Chavez) and Dolores Huerta (Biography from Dolores Huerta.org) joined the strike. They organized Filipino and Mexican-American workers into the United Farm Workers union. Promoting nonviolent tactics in the face of violence from supporters of the grape producers, the Farm Workers Union began a national boycott and millions of Americans stopped eating grapes in support of the strikers.
When the strike ended in 1970, farm workers everywhere were able to receive higher wages and better benefits. However the original Filipino strikers have been largely forgotten for their role in launching the strike. Learn more: The 1965-1970 Delano Grape Strike and Boycott.
One outgrowth of the strike is a movement to create a Cesar Chavez National Holiday. Presently, Cesar Chavez is honored with a state holiday in California and an optional holiday in Colorado and Texas. Additionally, there are yearly celebrations in Arizona, Michigan, Nebraska and New Mexico.
There is more information about the Cesar Chavez and the Grape Strike at a resourcesforhistoryteachers wiki page for the Latino Civil Rights Movement.
Suggested Learning Activities
Write your opinion
The examples in this section showcase the actions of those who stood up for the ideals of liberty and justice. What, or who, would you stand up for?
State your view: Do you support the movement to create the Cesar Chavez National Holiday?
State your view: Should students, teachers, and community members go about renaming schools to honor individuals who stood for American ideals?
In Education Week, Corey Mitchell (2020) reported that as of June 2020, there were 174 schools in 16 states named for historical figures connected to the Confederay during the Civil War; most commonly, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Sidney Lanier. There are over 1,700 Confederate monuments still standing.
Activists have demanded, and many community leaders have agreed, that Confederate-themed school names deeply offend African Americans and inaccurately portray the history of slavery and the Civil War (Whose Heritage? Public Symbols of the Confederacy, Southern Poverty Law Center, February 1, 2019).
In Minnesota, students, teachers, families, and community members led an effort to change the name of Alexander Ramsey Middle School (Ramsey was a territorial governor in the mid-19th century who forced Native Americans from their homelands) to Alan Page Middle School (Page is the first African American Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court and Hall of Fame football player for the Minnesota Vikings.
Whose heritage does the name of your school honor?
Online Resources for the Delano Grape Strike and the United Farm Workers Union
4.11.2 UNCOVER: Claudette Colvin, the Browder v. Gayle Case (1956), and the Struggle to Desegregate Public Transportation
Nine months before Rosa Parks's famous protest, a fifteen-year-old high school student named Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery Alabama city bus. She was dragged from the vehicle and arrested by white police officers, becoming the first person arrested for resisting bus segregation in Montgomery.
Figure \(\PageIndex{5}\): Claudette Colvin, aged 13, in 1953 | Public domain
Claudette Colvin subsequently joined three other women—Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith—in the Browder v. Gayle court case challenging segregation on the city's public buses.
A district court ruled that segregation on buses inside the state of Alabama was unconstitutional because it denied African Americans equal protection of the law under the 14th Amendment. On December 17, 1956, the United States Supreme Court affirmed the district court's decision. Three days later an order for integrated buses ended the Montgomery Bus Boycott (Browder v. Gayle: The Women Before Rosa Parks).
Video \(\PageIndex{1}\): An 2013 interview with Claudette Colvin from Democracy Now!
Others Who Refused to Give Up Their Seats
Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks were not the only African Americans who refused to give up their seats on streetcars, railroad cars, and buses as a form of protest against discrimination. As the website Teaching for Change has documented, the struggle for the racial desegregation of transportation has a long history of courageous individuals taking great risks for social and racial justice (Transportation Protests: 1841 to 1992).
Frederick Douglass refused to leave a Whites-only train car in 1841.
Elizabeth Jennings Graham was forcibly expelled from a New York City bus in 1854 (she was defended in court by the future President of the United States, Chester Arthur).
Charlotte Brown began a legal suit against a company that three times forced her off a horse-powered streetcar in San Francisco in 1863.
In 1884, Ida B. Wells refused to give up her seat in a ladies' railroad car and was removed by force from the train; she filed suit against the Chesapeake, Ohio and Southwestern Railroad Company. She won, but the decision was reversed on appeal.
The future baseball hall of fame star Jackie Robinson faced an Army court-martial in 1944 after he refused to move further back in a bus (he was acquitted at the trial). Learn more at Jim Crow, Meet Lieutenant Robinson: A 1944 Court Martial.
The 1956 Tallahassee (Florida) Bus Boycott happened after two Black students were arrested for sitting in the Whites-only section of a segregated bus.
These are just some of the stories of political courage, resistance and action by African Americans in response to discrimination in transportation.
Suggested Learning Activity
Construct a People's History or interactive timeline of those who refused to give up their seats
BOOK: The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, Jeanne Theoharis (Beacon Press, 2015)
4.11.3 ENGAGE: When and How Were American Ideals Denied?
United States history is filled with occasions when undemocratic and oppressive policies fueled by political and financial gain and racist and sexist attitudes negated the ideals of freedom, liberty, and social justice. Examples include the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the nation's Capitol, the 1898 Wilmington Massacre and White Southerners' responses to Reconstruction; the Indian Wars of the American West; and the 1950s McCarthy Era in American politics with its accompanying the anti-Communist Red Scare and the anti-gay Lavender Scare.
4.11.3.1 The January 6, 2021 Insurrection at the Capitol
Shortly after noon on January 6, 2021, following a inciting speech by President Donald Trump, a mob of thousands of White supremactists, Neo-Nazis, election conspiracy adherents, MAGA supporters and other far-right insurrectionists attacked the nation's Capitol as Congress was meeting to certify the results of the 2020 Presidential election. Their goal was to shut down and take over the government by preventing Congress from approving Joe Biden as the 46th President and Kamala Harris at the 49th Vice-President.
Figure \(\PageIndex{6}\): Screenshot of a FBI poster seeking information on pipe bombs found in Washington, D.C. on January 5, 2021 | Public domain
The ensuring riot resulted in people's deaths, destruction of property, and debasement of democratic norms. Members of Congress, their staffs, reporters, and other media professionals were forced into lockdown, fearing for their lives and safety. The event was shown live on television cable news networks and streamed on social media. Rioters carried Confederate and Trump flags, broke into Congressional offices, and for a time occupied the floor of the House of Representatives - one individual even posed sitting in the seat of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Two bombs were found. Violent confrontations happened between rioters and police officers.
Alarming evidence of an organized assault rather than a spontaneous riot emerged almost immediately afterwards. There had been tours of the Capitol building the day before the attack, despite pandemic restrictions on public access to the building. The President was apparently not rushed to a secure location, but remained in the White House watching events on television. The acting Department of Defense secretary delayed sending in the National Guard to assist Capitol police as they were being overrun by the mob. Attackers had information of where to find different Congressional offices. Members of the mob were communicating and coordinating in real time on social media during the assault. While many rioters took selfies and videos, others carefully hid their faces from cameras and authorities to avoid recognition.
Investigations into the Events and Donald Trump's Role
On February 1, 2021, investigative reporting by The New York Times found connections between the Trump Campaign and the insurrectionists who attacked the capital. The Times concluded that "For 77 days between the election and the inauguration, President Donald J. Trump attempted to subvert American democracy with a lie about election fraud that he had been grooming for years" (Rosenberg & Rutenberg, 2021, para. 1). Members of the campaign and the former President himself worked to organize not only a rally on January 6, 2021, but also the march that led to the attack on the Capitol.
The Coup D'état Projectat the Cline Center of the University of Illinois determined that the storming of the Capitol "was an attempted coup d'état: an organized, illegal attempt to intervene in the presidential transition by displacing the power of the Congress to certify the election" (2021, para. 1).
On October 31, 2021, The Washington Post released "The Attack: Before, During and After," a three-part investigation into the events surrounding the January 6 assault on the Capitol. The Post concluded that President Donald Trump was at the center of what happened: "Trump was the driving force at every turn as he orchestrated what would become an attempted coup." Reporters looked at what had been happening weeks before January 6 and what has happened in the weeks and months following. Again, the Post concluded that the attack was "not a spontaneous nor an isolated event. It was a battle in the broader war over the truth and the future of American democracy."
Domestic Terrorists
Further evidence of deliberate and planned intent to disrupt the election and the government was provided by FBI Director Christopher A. Wray in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 2, 2021. Wray stated the Bureau had determined that there were three groups involved on January 6: 1) those who protested lawfully and without violence; 2) those who committed minor, non-violent offenses after getting caught up in the actions of the mob; and 3) those who arrived in paramilitary gear, carrying weapons, and planning to stop the certification of electoral college ballots by any means. He called these individuals domestic terrorists, adding that inside-the-United States White supremacist organizations are, along with ISIS, the country's top national security threats.
In March 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a report - Domestic Violent Extremism Poses Heightened Threat in 2020 - warning of the ongoing threat from violent individuals and organized militia groups who are using social media platforms to spread hate, promote the superiority of the white race, and mobilize and radicalize members to commit violence against the local, state, and national government.
The Eastman Memo
In fall 2021, Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa discovered a memo written by a Trump lawyer, John Eastman, outlining a 6-point plan to overturn the election and install Trump as President. You can read the memo here. The January 6 insurrection and the Eastman memo were deliberate attempts to overthrow a democratically-held election.
Differing Responses by Law Enforcement
There was also the troubling differences in how law enforcement responded to these right-wing, largely White U.S. Capitol rioters as compared with Black Lives Matter (BLM) protestors during the summer of 2020. BLM protestors were met with tear gas, flash-bangs, low-flying helicopters, and many more arrests. Researcher Roudabeth Kishi examined recent marches and protests and found police more than twice as likely to attempt to break-up left-wing protests than those by right-wing groups, and using force more often (The Police's Tepid Response to the Capitol Breach Wasn't an Aberration, FiveThirtyEight, January 7, 2021).
In the aftermath of the events in Washington, D.C., members of the media struggled to label what had happened: Was it a rampage, a riot, a protest, an insurrection, a conspiracy, an assault, a siege? Were those involved rioters, insurrectionists, extremists, conspirators? It was an attempt to overturn a duly elected government, making it a completely anti-democratic action.
4.11.3.2 Wilmington, Tulsa, and Other Race Massacres
Incidents of horrific violence against Black communities by White mobs is another example where democratic ideals were denied by the actions of individuals and groups. At the 1898 Wilmington Massacre a heavily armed mob of 1,500 white men attacked and killed Black citizens and took over the legally elected government of Wilmington, North Carolina (Zucchino, 2020). Learn more about this event at Nov. 18, 1898: Wilmington Massacre from the Zinn Education Project website.
The 1921Tulsa Race Massacre destroyed 35 blocks of the prosperous Greenwood neighborhood, wiping out 1,100 homes and businesses and taking hundreds of Black lives, robbing Black families of generational wealth and the opportunities that come with it. Learn more about The Tulsa Race Massacre, including the little-known roles of two women reporters who documented the events.
The Washington Post's Retropolis series has reported on more race massacres that most students ever learn about in school, including ones in Colfax, Louisiana (1873); Washington, D.C. (1919); Elaine, Arkansas (1919); Ocoee, Florida (1920); and Rosewood, Florida (1923). Massacres in the United States, 1782-2021 is an interactive graph of violence against African Americans, Native Americans, labor unions, and other groups.
Historians have concluded that mob actions and violence are a recurring pattern in American history, as Eric Foner noted: "In other ways, it is not unprecedented at all. It represents something deeply rooted in the American experience, which is actually hostility to democracy" (quoted in "Was the Assault on the Capitol Really 'Unprecedented'? Historians Weigh In," National Geographic, January 8, 2021).
4.11.3.3 The Reconstruction Era
Reconstruction, what historian Eric Foner (2014) has called "America's unfinished revolution," was a time when American ideals were both affirmed and denied in the period between the end of the Civil War and 1877.
Affirming and extending core American ideals of democracy: the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments became law; Blacks were elected to local, state, and national offices throughout the South (there had only been five African Americans elected officeholders in the entire country prior to 1877); land was redistributed to freed Blacks by the Freedmen’s Bureau; the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was passed; Black schools and colleges were established across the South.
But the Reconstruction Era also saw actions by White politicians and all White extralegal groups that fundamentally negated America's constitutional freedoms. The Klu Klux Klan emerged in Tennessee in 1866 before spreading to every state in the South. Along with other white supremacy organizations in southern states, the Klan engaged in murder, lynchings, church bombing, and other acts of domestic terror, including the Colfax Massacre on Easter Sunday, 1873.
The passage of Black Codes that helped establish a system of agricultural sharecropping that left Black families in debt for life. To learn more about white supremacy, read Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s book, Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow (2019) (see the New York Times Book Review: In 'Stony the Road,' Henry Louis Gates Jr. Captures the History and Images of the Fraught Years After the Civil War) The sharp contrasts of the Reconstruction era sets the stage for exploring other times in our history when the actions of individuals and groups served to affirm or deny the ideals of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
You can learn more at a Jim Crow Era wiki page on the resourcesforhistoryteachers wiki which includes material on Juan Crow Laws targeting Mexican Americans.
Today, in the words of historian Heather Cox Richardson, "we are reliving the Reconstruction years after the Civil War." Following the election defeat of Donald Trump and the failed January 6, 2021 insurrection, Republican-led state legislatures began passing "voter integrity" laws that, like the Black Codes and Jim Crow laws of the Reconstruction era, will disproportionately target and disenfranchise Black and Brown voters. In June 2021, the Supreme Court allowed voter suppression laws in Arizona to stand, further narrowing the impact of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to prevent discriminatory voting laws in states. The Court allowed election officials to discard ballots cast at the wrong precinct and upheld rules that only family members, mail carriers, and election officials can deliver a person's ballot to a polling location. Florida imposed what amounted to a poll tax (a practice outlawed by the Constitution's 24th Amendment) by requiring former felons to pay off debts incurred while in jail (such as medical fees and other expenses) before they can vote in elections. Whether this trend will continue, or whether public opinion will reject these efforts at restricting the right to vote, remains a open question as we move toward the 2022 and 2024 elections.
4.11.3.4 The Indian Wars of the American West
The Indian Wars of the American West were a series of armed conflicts between native peoples, settlers, and the U.S. Army that lasted from the end of the Civil War to about 1890 (Cozzens, 2016).
Figure \(\PageIndex{7}\): Photo of a marker at Bosque Redondo, Fort Sumner, in New Mexico | "Bosque Redondo" by Phil Konstantin, public domain
These wars included some of the most lasting and complex stories and personalities in the history of the American West: The Little Bighorn or Greasy Grass Fight; the Transcontinental Railroad; the African American Buffalo Soldiers; Gernonimo; Wounded Knee; the Dawes Act; and reservations for native tribes. Learn more from the Western Indian Wars page on the Museum of American History.
4.11.3.5 McCarthyism, the Red Scare, and the Lavender Scare
McCarthyism, an anti-Communist Red Scare, and the anti-gay Lavender Scare happened in the early 1950s during a time of intensifying Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Figure \(\PageIndex{8}\): 1950s tract urging Americans to oppose communists in the entertainment industry | "Anticommunist Literature 1950s", public domain
McCarthyism
At the beginning of the 1950s, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy was convinced that the American government was being taken over by members of the American Communist Party who were under the control of Soviet leaders. A fear-monger and demagogue, McCarthy launched a series of televised hearings that ruined many careers through threats, innuendos, and blacklists, although "no one McCarthy investigated was ever convicted of anything" (Menard, 2020, p. 73). McCarthyism did not end till 1954, when President Eisenhower told members of the government that they did not have to testify before McCarthy's Senate committee. The resourcesforhistoryteachers wiki has primary sources and more historical information about McCarthyism and the Red Scare.
McCarthy was an extraordinary, but not singular, example of an uniquely American strain of political demagoguery, notes biographer Larry Tye in his book Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy (2020, p. 2). A demagogue is an politician who rises to power through lying, attacking opponents, and appealing to people's prejudices and fears, and in Tye's analysis, these are exactly the kind of activities that Donald Trump has used to gain and hold power.
The Red Scare
Historian Louis Menard, writing in the New Yorker (2020), notes that the Red Scare of the 1940s and 1950s, a product of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, preceded McCarthy's hearings. Menard cites President Harry Truman as the figure who launched the Scare, first with the aggressive anti-communist Truman Doctrine and then with the establishment of the Employee Loyalty Program in which 4,765,705 federal employees had to fill out forms that initiated loyalty investigations (Menard, 2020, p. 73). Congress followed with hearings by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and the Red Scare also produced the censorship of artists, writers, and musicians known as The Hollywood Blacklist. Charlie Chaplin, Langston Hughes, Orson Wells, Lena Horne, Dalton Trumbo, Leonard Bernstein and Dorothy Parker were among the individuals who were denied work in the entertainment industry.
McCarthyism and the Red Scare has primary source materials including comic book covers, posters, audio recordings, and documents.
Anti-Gay Lavender Scare of the 1950s
The Lavender Scare was a campaign against federal employees who were suspected of being gay or lesbian. People's civil rights and civil liberties were violated by surveillance, interrogations, and rumors. Thousands lost their jobs or resigned from the government. One historian noted that at the time "many politicians, journalists, and citizens thought that homosexuals posed more of a threat to national security than communists" (Johnson, 2004, p. 2).
It took decades, but in January 2017, outgoing Secretary of State John Kerry issued a formal apology to the LGBTQ+ community for decades of discrimination from the State Department (State Department Apologizes for the Lavender Scare). Still today, the Lavender Scare remains a little-taught history in many school curriculums.
Media Literacy Connections: Media Framing of the Events of January 6, 2021
The public's understanding of January 6 depends in large part on how the media chose to frame it. Media framing is how reporters and editors present what happened - the words used in stories, the images shown in videos, the pictures that accompany news bulletins, the choice of who to interview to gain information and insights, etc.
Figure \(\PageIndex{9}\): "6 January 2021" by Tyler Merbler
Political courage is an essential quality in a democracy. INVESTIGATE profiled three examples of courageous individuals who affirmed American ideals through their actions: Joseph Cinque, John Quincy Adams, and the Amistad Case; John Scopes and the Scopes Evolution Trial; and Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Larry Itliong and the Delano Grape Strike. UNCOVER reviewed the history of Claudette Colvin and the Browder V. Gayle case. ENGAGE asked what American ideals were denied during the Indian Wars of the American West, McCarthyism and the Anti-Communist Red Scare, and the Anti-Gay Lavender Scare of the 1950s.
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