Beyond the Margins: The University of California Press Podcast

I think this is really interesting. Among the thousands of iconic and easily recognizable photographs of segregated water fountains in the American South, you will almost never find one that features a black woman, a white woman or a white man drinking. They are nearly all of black men drinking. Why is that?

In her fine and thoughtful book Signs of the Times: The Visual Politics of Jim Crow (University of California Press, 2010), Elizabeth Abel tells us why. Segregation, like many social phenomena, had a triple life. 1) It was a thing, part of an objective reality now past (one wants to cite Ranke here). 2) It was a thing seen, an object filtered through the subjective experience of viewers (one wants to cite Kant here). 3) And it was a thing shown, a sign made by one person to be communicated to others (one wants to cite Saussure here). We can see these three lives in the sources Abel examines: photographs of segregation signs: “Whites Only”, “No Negroes”, “Colored Entrance”, and so on. They simultaneously tell us about the way segregation actually worked (Ranke), the way participants observed it (Kant), and the way photographers tried to show it to their audiences (Saussure). Able analyses all three lives, but her focus–and the explanation for the black-man-at-a-water-fountain photographic cliché–is really to be found in her investigation of the third. The photographers, most of whom were white liberal northerners, framed the depictions of the signs so as to convince spectators that segregation was degrading to blacks. Thus they usually moved whites completely out of the frame. Moreover, they elected to focus attention on the subject who could be most humiliated because that subject had, relatively speaking, the most status. So black men (high status) were shown rather than black women (low status).

This example is only one of Abel’s many fine readings of these photographs. There are many others. I encourage you to pick up the book and see for yourself.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I imagine the guys who first faced Bill Russell felt like I did when I had to guard Antoine Carr in high school. I “held” Carr to 32 points. But no dunks! Russell’s opponents in college and the NBA rarely fared any better. Sports talk is full of hyperbole, but in Russell’s case most of it is true. In his time, he was far and away the best player to ever step on the court and, for most of his career, he completely owned every court he stepped on. He was so dominant that they changed the rules so less gifted players would have a chance.

Bill Russell, however, was not only a surpassingly great basketball player, he was also an African American star in an era in which being an African American star (or just being an African American) was very complicated. Today we are used to seeing outstandingly successful blacks in all (or almost all) spheres of life. In the mid-1950s that just wasn’t true. The American ruling elite was lily white, and that’s the way most white Americans thought it should be. Bill Russell (and Jackie Robinson, Althea Gibson, Willie Mays, Cassius Clay, Jim Brown, among others) were anomalies: they were black, but they were both extraordinarily accomplished and remarkably famous. They couldn’t just be athletes; they had to be symbols of some promising (or frightening) new world as well. That’s quite a burden to bear.

In King of the Court: Bill Russell and the Basketball Revolution (University of California Press, 2010), Aram Goudsouzian has done a great service by detailing the ways Russell bore this weight, and the ways in which he fought to throw it off. Aram makes clear that Russell was a conflicted soul. He lacked self-confidence, but he was brusk and even arrogant. He was friendly and gregarious to some, but often simply rude to others. He was hot tempered, but he affected a cool, distant demeanor. He believed he was a man of principle (and convinced others he was), but he periodically abandoned his family for a playboy lifestyle. If Russell couldn’t be honest about himself, he insisted on being honest about everything and everyone around him. He meant what he said and said what he meant–about race, about sports, about anything that bothered him. He was a sort of athletic Socrates, always questioning and never fully accepting the way things were. And, like Socrates, Russell was willing to suffer for his beliefs. As Aram points out, he did in many ways. But in the process he gained the respect of almost everyone he encountered. He was a hard man to like, but he was an easy man to admire.

I should add that if you like white-hot game narratives, this book is full of them. Remember this?: “Greer is putting the ball in play. He gets it out deep and Havlicek steals it! Over to Sam Jones… Havlicek stole the ball! It’s all over… It’s all-l-l-l over!” Johnny Most, RIP.

Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.