Harvey Goldberg Center for the Study of Contemporary History
Biennial Report for January 2006 & June 2007

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The past eighteen months have seen the Goldberg Center continue its mission and accomplish two longstanding goals. We are proud to announce the availability of CDs of Harvey Goldberg's lectures at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. We provided primary sponsorship for a major conference on the U.S. and imperialism, which took place in November 2006 and was convened by Center board members Al McCoy and Francisco Scarano. We also continued our traditional co-sponsorship of talks, workshops, conferences, and other activities.

GOLDBERG CENTER SPONSORED EVENTS, JANUARY 2006- JUNE 2007

Co-sponsorship of a conference at UW-Madison, “The African Diaspora and the Disciplines,” March 26, 2006.

Co-sponsorship of a “Workshop on Equatorial Africa” at UW-Madison, October 13-14, 2006.

Primary sponsor of a major interational conference, “Transitions & Transformations in the US Imperial State,” at UW-Madison, November 9-12, 2006. (See below, for detailed description.)

Co-sponsorship of a presentation by Prof. Nikhil Pal Singh of the University of Washington on his new book, Black is a Country, April 26, 2007.

Co-sponsorship of Prof. Greg Grandin's Keynote address to the Wisconsin Labor History Society's 26th Annual Conference, April 28, 2007.

Launch of Harvey Golberg’s Lectures, a collection of CDs, at Rainbow Books, Madison, WI, May 18, 2007. (See below, for detailed description of the CD project).

Primary sponsor for a delegation of UW-Madison students to attend 43rd Annual memorial service and conference for the victims of the “Freedom Summer” murders, Philadelphia, Mississippi, June 23-24, 2007. (See below, for detailed description.)

THE HARVEY GOLDBERG CD PROJECT

We are delighted to announce that we have completed the process of compiling and digitizing a selection of Harvey Goldberg's famous lectures at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Produced in collaboration with another organization--the community-based Harvey Goldberg Memorial Fund--this collection of Harvey's unsurpassed lessons on the origins of our contemporary world, some of them now 30 years old and more salient than ever, will certainly amaze those who knew him back in the day and enlighten those who never had the privilege to hear him in person.
Harvey Goldberg began his academic career as an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in the early 1940s and stayed on to pursue a Ph.D. in French history. He began his teaching career at Oberlin College and Ohio State University, but he returned to Madison in 1963. At both Columbus and Madison, Goldberg captivated countless thousands of students with his spellbinding and politically powerful lectures. Here in Madison, he quickly outgrew the moderately sized lecture hall he had been assigned and moved to the massive auditorium in Wisconsin’s venerable “Ag Hall,” where 600 students hung from the rafters in rapt attention to his orations. Becoming one of the most popular professors and public figures in Madison, Goldberg worked to give his students an awareness of the historical struggles by the weakest for justice and to inspire and engagement with the social issues of their day. Harvey Goldberg’s teaching profoundly affected the lives of a student generation, and though he passed away in 1987, his legacy lives on today in the struggles of his former students.
These lectures, given in the 1970s, provide alumni, staff, and students with the opportunity to relive an extraordinary intellectual and political experience. In these unforgettable “bootleg lectures,” taped by students in defiance of his strict instructions, legendary University of Wisconsin--Madison professor Harvey Goldberg plunged his student audiences into the struggles of their day, instilling in them an understanding that history is not a musty mélange of dates and facts but a call-to-arms for social change. These meticulously crafted performances, delivered mainly to his famed "Contemporary Societies" class, applied the lessons of history to analysis of the contemporary world, ranging from Europe, across north Africa, to Asia and America. While they were based on the extensive research many scholars reserve for their published work, Professor Goldberg delivered them with an actor's sense of timing and emphasis. For all the drama of his performances, we should not overlook the message Professor Goldberg offered in these lectures. He drew mesmerizing lessons about courage and commitment, risk and responsibility, and the role of individuals and organized struggle in effecting social change.
Those interested in information about acquiring a set of these lectures in CD format, can visit “Harvey Goldberg Center’s” home page on the UW History Department’s website, at http://www.history.wisc.edu/goldberg/hgc_cd/cd.htm.

THE EMPIRES CONFERENCE

In November 2006, the Harvey Goldberg Center joined six different academic departments here at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, including History, in hosting a groundbreaking three-day conference titled, “Transitions and Transformations in the U.S. Imperial State.” Operating from the overarching premise that the US empire was central to shaping states in both colonial periphery and American metropole, the conference attracted 47 scholars from four continents whose breadth of expertise thus mirrored the original territorial expanse of the early U.S. Empire. Participants thus included specialists in the history of Cuba, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and of course, the United States.

By bringing together such a diverse collection of scholars, the “Empires Conference” provided participants with an opportunity to break away from their usual geographic focus on a particular region or nation and to consider the U.S. empire as a single analytical unit. Apart from broad, thematic surveys in the opening and closing sessions, presenters delivered papers at panels that covered many of the key transformative facets of this empire, including law enforcement/police, education/language, race/anthropology, public health, law/constitution, the military, and environmental cum economic management. All of the panels generated spirited debate, fresh insight into a host of problems, and considerable excitement among the attendees who included faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates. Moreover, the concluding panel helped to point in the direction of how such a diverse community of scholars could work toward synthesizing their work into a broad understanding of the mutual transformations of empire.

Taking a cue from this productive gathering, conference participants are continuing their work by collecting their revised papers in a volume titled “Colonial Crucible: Transitions and Transformations in the U.S. Imperial State,” to be published by University of Wisconsin Press in spring 2009. This work will provide a broadly comparative approach and contribute to an understanding of how the American state was, to an extent not appreciated by current scholarship, shaped by its colonial periphery. Apart from publications, this conference has inspired a series of continuing inter-department seminars in Madison and grant from the World Universities Network for an international colloquium at the University of Sydney in July 2008.
With its focus on America’s debut on the world stage in the imperial age, the Empires Conference has, in effect, covered the early emergence of the United States as a global power in the first half of the twentieth century, 1898 to 1946. In a close complementation, a second conference sponsored by the Goldberg Center, scheduled for Spring 2009 and focused on the Cold War as history, will cover America’s ascent as the world’s sole superpower in this same century’s second half, 1948 to 1991. In sum, these two conferences, Empires and Cold War, represent a comprehensive review of America's rise to world power in the twentieth century--a revival, in a sense, of the venerable “Wisconsin School of Diplomatic History” that once brought great distinction to both the History Department and the Madison campus. We are hopeful, therefore, of building upon this important Wisconsin tradition to produce insights of interest to the larger community, at local, state, and national levels.

THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN MISSISSIPPI

The Goldberg Center was extremely pleased to provide transportation and lodging assistance enabling graduate students at UW-Madison to attend 43rd Annual memorial service and conference for the victims of the "Freedom Summer" murders, Philadelphia, Mississippi, June 23-24, 2007. A report on the event and the students' individual reflections are included here. Together, they suggest that Harvey Goldberg's legacy is alive and well, from Madison to Mississippi.

1.) A Letter from Trudy Fredericks, Graduate Student in the UW-Madison Department of History:

Dear committee members of the Harvey Goldberg Center,

I wanted to pass along a sincere "thank you" for your Center's financial support that allowed myself and nine other UW graduate students to attend the "43rd Annual Mississippi Civil Rights Martyrs Service and Caravan for Justice" held on June 23 and 24. The event was amazing and surpassed all hopes we carried with us. We made some important contacts while at the event and are currently planning an event that will bring civil rights activist Ed Whitfield to UW-Madison to discuss current events related to civil rights in Mississippi and Madison. We are also beginning plans to bring a larger cohort of students, activists, and community members to Mississippi for next year's conference. A brief summary of the event follows (the summary is taken from conference organizer John Gibson's summary and infused with our cohort's experiences.)

We began our journey on Friday morning, June 22, at the 31st Baptist Church in Meridian, MS. Over 400 people were there from Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, Wisconsin, and Minnesota among other locations. From this meeting place we held a "Caravan for Justice" complete with signage calling for full measures of justice for fallen civil rights activists through Meridian to the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) office which was the location from which Freedom Summer volunteers James Cheney, Mickey Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman departed from on the night they were murdered in 1964. Organizers held a press conference in front of the COFO office, which was covered by the local TV station and newspaper. Ed Whitfield opened with a sweeping eloquent statement of why we were there: to honor the Mississippi civil rights martyrs and demand as full a measure of justice as is obtainable for each and every victim of violence. Compelling remarks were also provided by Richard Coleman (Meridian/Lauderdale Co. NAACP Branch President); John Steele (Chairman of 43rd Annual Mississippi Civil Rights Martyrs Memorial Service and Conference Planning Committee); Curtis Muhammad (Mississippi Civil Rights Movement veteran), A.C. Henderson (Neshoba County resident and civil rights activist); Joe Morse (MN resident and SNCC veteran); and several others. One speaker issued a challenge to the media to challenge Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood and Mississippi 8th District Attorney Mark Duncan on the grossly inadequate prosecution done by them thus far in the Neshoba murders case.

After the rally at the COFO office, the Caravan for Justice traveled to Okatibbee Baptist Church Cemetery, home to the grave sites of James Chaney and his mother Fannie Lee Chaney who passed less than a month prior to this year's event. We shared a moment of silence, some prayers, as well as some beautiful gospel songs at this location. From there the Caravan for Justice rolled on to the murder site on Rock Cut Road off of Highway 19 between Meridian and Philadelphia. This was a particularly moving stop as students from Tennessee read excerpts from Cagin and Dray's book, We Are Not Afraid, describing in detail the murders of these three civil rights workers. From there the caravan traveled to downtown Philadelphia where we held a Rally for Justice at the Neshoba County Courthouse. Movement activists including George Smith and Diane Nash, key figures in the 1960s civil rights struggle in Meridian, MS and in the 1961 Freedom Rides and campaign for desegregation of Nashville lunch counters respectively.

While there were many inspired moments filled with love and hope, there were many other times when we were reminded of just why we were in Mississippi bringing attention to issues of racism and injustice. There was harassment and worse by white racists during the caravan. A pickup truck driven by a young white man ran several vehicles off Highway 19. He made obscene gestures as he dangerously passed many of the vehicles in the caravan. He drove his truck into the rear of a caravan vehicle. This was done when the caravan was at low speed or stopped, and the assailant was also at low speed. He intentionally bumped the caravan vehicle a second time. When the occupants of the caravan vehicle emerged to check for damage, the assailant waved a club or bat from within his truck. The assailant then backed up, then accelerated forward, swerving toward the two men from the caravan vehicle, causing them to jump out of the way to avoid serious injury or worse.

More harassment occurred in downtown Philadelphia. One Justice Rider was carrying a sign that read "JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE DENIED." As the Justice Rider crossed the street to reach the courthouse square, a middle aged white man in a late model red truck at the stop light shouted in a hostile manner, "What justice delayed are you talking about?" The Justice Rider shouted back, "All the murderers in this town." The red light changed and the truck sped away. Also, while the Justice Riders were at the rally, a sign calling for Olin Burrage, the owner of the property where the three men's bodies were found in 1964, to be brought to justice was ripped off the car it was on, torn to pieces, and the pieces left on the hood of the car.

After the rally at the courthouse, the caravan proceeded to the Longdale Community Center site. After a welcoming ceremony and the 
invocation by Rev. Barton of Kemper Co.'s Unity Springs Church (George Roberts' church), a good meal was enjoyed by all. Curtis Muhammad served as Master of Ceremonies for the Saturday segment of the memorial service/conference. Curtis did his usual great job. Of course, there was freedom singing then and throughout the service and conference.

Several participants shared their experiences as civil rights activists with the growing crowd. Steven McNichols, a retired attorney and human rights activist from California, read his personal account of a Freedom Ride he was on that ended with his arrest and placement in the Harris Co. (Houston, TX) jail. The story gripped the audience in the reality of the brutality that movement people faced. A panel dealing with the topic of Civil Rights Murders of Mississippi followed Mr. McNichols. Ed Whitfield moderated the panel that included Keith Beauchamp, producer of The Untold Story of Emmett Till; Ben Chaney, brother of Mississippi civil rights martyr James Chaney, civil rights crimes researcher Benjamin Greenberg of Boston, and John Gibson of the Arkansas Delta Truth and Justice Center. An engaged question and answer session followed the individual presentations by the panel members.

The Saturday session adjourned around 6:00, but the day was far from over. From about 8:00 to midnight a pizza party was held in and outside of one participant's room back at the Motel 6 in Meridian. There was making of new friends and reconnecting with old friends. And much swapping of stories. It wasn't long before Mississippi veteran Margaret Block and the group of History graduate students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison had a freedom singing song-fest outside the motel door.

On Sunday morning, participants gathered once again at the Longdale Community Center. Margaret Block was the Master of Ceremonies for Sunday. Rev. Advial McKenzie of Quitman did the invocation and Longdale native Jacqueline Spencer welcomed the gathering. A Roll Call of Mississippi Civil Rights Martyrs was read by movement veteran Diane Nash of Chicago; Jimmie Travis, movement veteran and Chairman of the Board of the Mississippi Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement; and Doris McKenzie, human rights activist from Quitman. The roll call consisted of reading summaries of the stories of each of the Mississippi Civil Rights Martyrs. Jacqueline Spencer followed the roll call with her personal recollections of her youth as a child of Neshoba County civil rights pioneers.

Then there was a scheduled and announced segment to recognize the food committee for their wonderful contributions to the success of the weekend. But there was a surprise, too. Four individuals were called forward to receive the first Longdale Freedom Fighter Awards: Rev. Advial McKenzie; George Roberts; Carolyn Sutton, the chair of the Food Committee; and Jacqueline Spencer. After another wonderful meal was shared by all, the Pursuit of Justice panel, moderated by Steve McNichols, began. Panel members were movement veteran Judge D'Army Bailey of Memphis, movement veteran Judge Olly Neal of Arkansas, Minnesota State Senator Richard Cohen, Mississippi veteran and Chairman of the Mississippi veterans group Jimmie Travis, and John Gibson. The panel made clear that there has been grossly inadequate justice rendered in Mississippi civil rights murders cases in general, and in the Neshoba murders case in particular. After a Q & A session, the gathering divided into discussion groups to continue addressing the pursuit of justice issue. Representatives from each discussion group then reported back to the reconvened entire gathering. Many good ideas were presented to pursue more adequate justice in the Mississippi civil rights murder cases.

Hank Thomas, movement veteran of Atlanta, gave a talk on the need for and some paths for economic development within African-American communities and other communities. John Steele presented a report on the progress and plans for the reopening of the Longdale Community Center. He stated that a nonprofit corporation has been officially formed and work to obtain federal tax-exempt status is in progress. After his report there were several comments from residents of the Longdale community about the strong need for the community center to be reopened.

The impact of this experience is difficult to capture in an email. It is eye-opening, infuriating, and inspiring all at the same time. It has inspired several of the attendees from UW to take it upon themselves to organize discussions on the UW campus about race, racism, and injustice in our own community. We welcome any ideas you might have for planning on-campus events. We are also working with some former Freedom Summer/SNCC workers from Minnesota and Wisconsin to organize to take a larger group of people down for next year's event. We encourage anyone including faculty, undergrad students, and staff who might be interested in attending next year's event to contact us for more information.

Thank you once again for your center's support. This has been an important experience for all of us and we look forward to sharing this experience with others in the future.
Thank you and all the best,
Trudy

2.) Reflections on the event from the participating students:

In the United States of America, where reasons to believe seem fewer and farther between with each passing day, it’s so very important that we make every effort to hold on to the people, things and memories which might restore our faith in democracy, and even humanity. As a historian, activist and American, I can’t think of anything that makes me prouder or more hopeful than the continuing legacy of the Freedom Movement, and the "Tell It Like It Was...And Is" Conference is one of the strongest reminders of that legacy that I've yet experienced. The warmth and energy with which the organizers and participants infused the entire proceedings is remarkable, and the spirit of continued struggle makes the Conference something far greater than even the most successful commemorative events. I'm so happy to have been a part of this event for the past two years, and can certainly attest that I look forward to future years, when the growing, loving community that gathers in Neshoba County can push towards our collective goals with even greater scope and effectiveness. I can't really think of a better way to spend a weekend than laughing, crying, singing, talking, listening, learning and remembering with folks whose commitment and passion remind me just what it is to be truly alive. Here's to the next fifty years...

~ Charles Hughes, African-American Studies and U.S. History

The Mississippi Civil Rights Martyrs Memorial Service and Conference was an invaluable experience. Although we all study various aspects of the movement or the broader issues that were the subject of the conference, our studies are usually confined to books and the classroom. This conference provided a rare opportunity for students to meet and hear from activists. Furthermore, the civil rights movement drew much of its power from local organizing and consequently most of those grassroots participants’ stories are not present in history books. At the conference, we were able to hear about these individuals’ experiences firsthand. These speakers also discussed their activism today, demonstrating both their own continued dedication and that there is still much work to be done. Moreover, these activists vividly demonstrated that this current work is closely connected to the civil rights movement of the postwar era in their discussions of the need for justice for James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and other murdered civil rights workers. Along with the valuable insights activists shared during the formal programs, informal conversations proved to be an equally important source of both information and inspiration. I spent some time talking to a few local activists about my dissertation project and in the course of these conversations learned of local assumptions and knowledge surrounding the events I am studying. Activists even suggested individual names to investigate in my research. This sort of information is often difficult to attain through official records, which do not usually fully report on activists’ views and actions. I hope to follow up on these conversations and suggestions to guide some of my research to ensure that I am able to find not only the official version of events, but also that of local activists.

~ Christine Lamberson, U.S. History

I’m glad I went to Mississippi. Having come from the urban South – Atlanta – I encountered a different South than the one from which I originated. I also encountered the type of folks one rarely meets in the academy: true-blue activists who work within, and not just for, a cause. Most memorable for me, though, was the conversation I got to have with a few local men at the Motel Six (home to both stellar service and a lovely pool, if you’re into that sort of thing). All black, all young, these men were thrilled that a few Wisconsinites, most of them white, were down South for the Conference. But more interesting to them was that we were historians, scholars. One begged me to write about Mississippi, to show the world what is still happening in the Union’s most impoverished state. Racism still persists throughout this country, and it undeniably sounds more convenient when played with a southern accent, but the tenor of race relations in Mississippi remains startling to both residents and visitors alike. That the conference focuses as much on the continuing struggle as on the one we choose to memorialize remains the single biggest reason UW students should be back next year. Because maybe, one day, one of them will join it too.

~ Adam Malka, U.S. History

A fantastic trip all around. For starters, I got to know other grad students interested in this history, and learned a lot from them over the course of the trip. As I had hoped, I also established rapport with several movement veterans whom I now plan to interview for my research. More generally, the conference was an emotional experience that reaffirmed my commitment to documenting and analyzing the freedom movement. Participating in the rally at the Neshoba County courthouse was definitely a highlight for me!

~ Matt Nichter, Sociology

For just one short moment I forgot where we were. The night before, one of the conference organizers had given me some directions that would lead us through a “less friendly,” but historically important route from our hotel in Meridian to the Longdale Community Center near Philadelphia. This back road through Neshoba County, Mississippi led us past the school house where Ku Klux Klan members had made plans to scare off (and murder) civil rights workers. As we traveled the long and windy road through the rural landscape of Neshoba County my heart sank as I began to realize we were lost. As we passed by several homes proudly displaying the Confederate flag from flagpoles and front porches, the reality of the ongoing struggle against racism not just in Mississippi, but in the United States as a whole crept to the forefront of my mind. I felt awful, frightened, sick to my stomach, and embarrassed. I was embarrassed because I had, for just a brief time, forgotten where I was. It was not just that I was in rural Mississippi where racism and injustice festers on society’s surface in people’s front yards and on their car’s bumpers. I was embarrassed and horrified that I had forgotten that these struggles are not simply the stuff of books; that this hatred for the “other” thrives as strongly in 2007 as it did in 1865 and 1965; that it brews in Madison, Wisconsin as much as in rural Mississippi.

When we finally arrived at the Longdale Community Center more than one hour late for the start of the day’s events, I took a moment to promise myself that I would never again forget. I would never let myself get so lost in my books that I would forget the very reasons why I came to graduate school to study history in the first place. Participating in events such as this annual conference in Mississippi shake me to the core and force me to open my eyes to the reality that this world is long overdue for fundamental changes in how we, as neighbors and as strangers, treat one another in all aspects of our lives. I look forward to sharing this experience with others in the coming years.

~Trudy Fredericks, U.S. History

The “2007 Memorial Service and Tell It Like It Was and Is Conference” was an amazing experience. No matter how many books one wants to read about the movement, there is simply no substitute for meeting the people who were there. The movement veterans shared stories that can't be found in any book. Visiting the various sites on the caravan for justice was also immensely moving. When you realize that you're standing a few feet away from where the civil rights workers were murdered, it brings immediacy to the event that can't be attained in any other way. I am so grateful I was able to attend.

~ Paul Heideman, African-American Studies

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