American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century [Updated with a new chapter on the Age of Obama] 9781400883097

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AM E RICAN C RUC I B L E

GARY

GERSTLE

RACE THE

AND

NATION

TWENTIETH

IN

CENTURY

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS • PRINCETON AND OXFORD

COPYRIGHT  2001 BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW CHAPTER 10 COPYRIGHT  2017 BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PUBLISHED BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, 41 WILLIAM STREET, PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY 08540 IN THE UNITED KINGDOM: PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, 6 O XFORD PLACE, WOODSTOCK, OXFORDSHIRE OX20 1TR ALL RIGHTS RESERVED SECOND PRINTING, AND FIRST PAPERBACK PRINTING, 2002 NEW PAPERBACK PRINTING, 2017 PAPERBACK ISBN: 978-0-691-17327-6 THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CONTROL NUMBER: 2016960375 BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA IS AVAILABLE THIS BOOK HAS BEEN COMPOSED IN SABON TEXT DESIGNED BY CARMINA ALVAREZ PRINTED ON ACID-FREE PAPER. ∞ PRESS.PRINCETON.EDU PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

1

FOR DANNY AND SAM

Contents

List of Figures Prefa ce a nd Acknowledgments Acknowledgments INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1 Theodore Roosevelt’s Racialized Nation, 1890–1900 A History of the American “Race” War, Renewal, and the Problem of the “Smoked Yankee”

xi xiii xvii 3 14 17 25

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER 2 Civic Nationalism and Its Contradictions, 1890–1917 “True Americanism” Racial Dilemmas The New Nationalism

CHAPTER 3 Hardening the Boundaries of the Nation, 1917–1929 War and Discipline “Keeping Pure the Blood of America” Civic Nationalism in the New Racial Regime Aborting the New Nationalism

CHAPTER 4 The Rooseveltian Nation Ascendant, 1930–1940 A Kinder and Gentler Nation Builder Radicalizing the Civic Nationalist Creed Conservative Counterattack The Survival of Racialized Nationalism

CHAPTER 5 Good War, Race War, 1941–1945 The Good War Race War “Something Drastic Should Be Done”: The Military’s Hidden Race War Combat and White Male Comradeship

CHAPTER 6 The Cold War, Anticommunism, and a Nation in Flux, 1946–1960 War, Repression, and Nation Building The Red Scare and the Decline of Racial Nationalism Racial Nationalism Redux: The Case of Immigration Reform

44 47 59 65

81 83 95 115 122

128 131 139 156 162

187 189 201 210 220

238 241 246 256

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 7 Civil Rights, White Resistance, and Black Nationalism, 1960–1968 Civil Rights and Civic Nationalism “I Question America”: The Crisis in Atlantic City “Speaking as a Victim of This American System”

CHAPTER 8 Vietnam, Cultural Revolt, and the Collapse of the Rooseveltian Nation, 1968–1975 A Catastrophic War The Spread of Anti-Americanism and the Revolt against Assimilation The Collapse of the Rooseveltian Nation

CHAPTER 9 Beyond the Rooseveltian Nation, 1975–2000 Varieties of Multiculturalism “A Springtime of Hope”: Ronald Reagan and the Nationalist Renaissance Reviving the Liberal Nation

CHAPTER 10 The Ag e of Obama , 2000–2016 Clinton, Bush, and Civic Nationalist Renewal “The American Dream Come True Tonight” Racial Nationalism Resurgent Black Lives Matter, Donald Trump, and the , Fraying of Obama s Dream

Notes Index

ix

268 270 286 295

311 313 327 342

347 349 357 365

375 377 385 393 409 427 505

Figures

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

“The Spanish Brute,” 1898 Theodore Roosevelt and His Rough Riders, 1898 The Ninth or Tenth Cavalry, Cuba, 1898 Artist’s Rendition of the Great Charge Theodore Roosevelt Visits a Brooklyn Garment Shop, 1915 Booker T. Washington and Theodore Roosevelt, 1903 Theodore Roosevelt Campaigning for the Presidency, 1912 The “Hun,” 1918 “Your First Thrill of American Liberty,” 1917

30 33 34 39 52 63 73 86 90

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FIGURES

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21–22. 23–24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

“I Am the Undesirable Immigrant,” 1924 The Japanese “Invade” America, 1920 Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933 The Labor Movement Embraces America, 1940 Men at Work, Women at Home, 1930s “Migrant Mother,” 1936 Rabbis March on Washington, 1943 African American Soldiers, 1941–43 Japanese American Soldiers, 1943 First Graduating Class of African American Pilots, Army Air Corps, 1942 War and Euro-American Male Fraternity, 1944 The Two Faces of Communism, 1961 Contrasting Images of European Ethnics in the 1950s Martin Luther King Jr., 1963 “Jobs and Freedom” at the March on Washington, 1963 Fannie Lou Hamer, 1964 Black Power Protest at the Olympics, 1968 Angela Davis, c. 1970 Protesting the Vietnam War, 1969 Vietnam Vets against the War, 1971 Beyond the Euro-American Platoon, c. 1970 Black Soldiers, Black Power, c. 1970 A New Nation for the Twenty-First Century? Obama and Civic Nationalism Triumphant Obama’s Inauguration Obama as Witch Doctor Obama as Chimpanzee Ferguson Police in Militarized Show of Force

106 111 134 144 179 181 184 215 219 229 234 244 265 275 279 287 305 307 319 320 323 326 370 391 392 404 405 414

y deepest thanks to the many readers of American Crucible, who have given the book a long and productive life, and whose continuing interest in it has made possible this new edition. My profound thanks to my Princeton University Press editor, Brigitta van Rheinberg, who has been a great supporter of this book since sometime before the turn of the last millennium, and who has contributed in so many ways, large and small, to its success. I have decided to let the original American Crucible stand as written, with one more exception: what appears as the Epilogue in the original edition has been re-labeled “Chapter Nine.” A book can always be improved upon, of course. And so much good work

has appeared these last fifteen years on race and nationhood in America. But to revise also risks losing the clarity of a book’s argument and exposition. Better to let a book well known for its interpretation retain its form, and to encourage readers to compare and contrast it with approaches that other writers have pursued. What this edition does offer is a new last chapter, “The Age of Obama, 2000–2016” that extends the story of American Crucible from the election of George W. Bush in 2000 through the end of the Obama presidency in 2016. The chapter’s first part examines how Obama, given a lift by both Bill Clinton and Bush, reenergized and refurbished the civic nationalist tradition after its post– civil rights movement demise. The magnitude of Obama’s work in reviving this tradition, and in engendering hope in America once again, can be hard to grasp in this 2016 moment of political pessimism. But Obama’s contribution to this revival, specifically in making an age-old dream of civic nationalism integral to the process of America’s becoming a majority minority nation, will one day be recognized for the major intervention it has been. The chapter’s second half makes clear why Obama’s civic nationalist dream seems so distant now: at every turn of his presidency, his opponents challenged not only his policies but his legitimacy to serve as president and his authority to speak for the American people. Millions of white Americans, it turns out, simply could not accept that a black man was sitting in the White House. Obama’s election in 2008 triggered a full-scale, twentyfirst-century revival of the country’s racial nationalist tradition. I analyze this revival, from the birther controversy through the Tea Party, from the resurgence of Pat Buchanan to the ascent of Donald Trump. This revival brings into focus once again American Crucible’s core argument: namely, that America’s civic and racial nationalist traditions operate simultaneously, jostling each other in the same public sphere, both shaping the contours of the American nation. The tenacity and protean character of both traditions is remarkable, their simultaneous strength imparting across the twentieth century, and now the twenty-first, a paradoxical cast to the American nation.

What to some seems like a paradox to others can feel like a trap, especially to minorities who are first drawn in with a promise that they too can partake of the American dream, and then are told that they will always be subordinate to whites on account of their color. It is understandable, then, that as the Obama dream has dimmed, a black left has reawakened. This left has taken multiple forms, from protests against mass incarceration, to Black Lives Matter, to the emergence of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Michelle Alexander as public intellectuals. The chapter’s latter sections take up these developments. Initially, I thought that the additional chapter would be easy to write. James Schneider, senior publicist at Princeton University Press, was the first to pour cold water on the idea, when he told me that the number of pages I would need to tell this story would be double what I had been contemplating. He was right. An invitation to give the 2016 Race and Resistance lecture at the University of Leeds proved an invaluable trial run for the chapter’s central ideas. My Cambridge Ph.D. students were wonderfully encouraging about the draft I showed them several months ago but clear in their sentiment that what I thought was a finished chapter was in fact a manuscript in need of some serious revision. In giving me a healthy dose of the medicine I usually hand out to them, Tom Arnold-Forster, Katherine Ballantyne, Eric Cervini, Merve Fejzula, Sveinn Jóhannesson, and Ruth Lawlor have made this a much better piece of work. So have Michael Kazin and Desmond King, who know me and my work well, and whose judgments I deeply trust. Meanwhile, my wife, Liz, and sons, Dan and Sam, lived up to their reputation as constituting the best family-run editorial shop in town. Those who have read earlier drafts—or who gave me feedback at Leeds—will notice that I have not been able to take up all their suggestions; that would take a book, which I may someday write. But much in this chapter has changed as a result of their input, and for the better. In addition to Brigitta, I also wish to thank the rest of the Princeton team: Larissa Skurka, Princeton paperbacks editor, for expertly guiding this new edition and me through every step of the

production process; Lauren Lepow, for her sensitive and sensible copyediting; Quinn Fusting and Lyndsey Claro for their timely interventions; and Steven Moore for his expertly-crafted index. Little in this chapter would have been possible but for the excellent work of my assistant, Jonathan Goodwin. He was involved in all phases of the project, from assembling fat folders of research, to writing memos, to chasing down photographs and permissions, to checking endnotes and quotes, to helping me make sense of Donald Trump (impossible). In the process, he has acquired quite an education about race and politics in America. Only he can say whether he’s the better for it. I am, however, much better off for having had the benefit of his help. It is hard to place contemporary events, as they are unfolding day by day, into a proper historical context. And the rush of events in the past year, regarding police shooting of black men, for example, or the twists and turns of the Trump campaign, sometimes have acquired such velocity that they have overwhelmed our ability to process them in real time, let alone place them in the sweep of history. Thus, my humility deepened as my writing progressed. Historians who come along in another five to ten years will likely have a perspective superior to my own. And yet the search for understanding, especially in regard to a matter as important as race, can never cease. Race was and is America’s crucible.

Acknowledgments

I

t is a pleasure to thank those who made it possible for me to write this book. Fellowships from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Graduate Research Board of the University of Maryland provided encouragement and precious time to research, study, and write. I benefited greatly from opportunities to present my work in progress at American University, University of Tokyo, Ritsumeikan University (Kyoto, Japan), University of Massachusetts, Columbia University, Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars,

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Princeton University, University of Minnesota, Catholic University of America, University of New Hampshire, University of Maryland, Ben Gurion University (Israel), and Michigan State University. I am grateful to the 1995 Social Science Research Council conference in Sanibel, Florida, and to the 1998 Journal of American History workshops at the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam and at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University. The formulation of the book’s key ideas also took shape in stimulating graduate seminars on American nationalism and nationhood that I taught at the University of Pennsylvania and the Catholic University of America. Valuable feedback came from many other graduate students as well, including John Allen, Jeremy Bonner, Michael Coventry, Carlos Davila, Mary Beth Fraser, Christopher Gildemeister, Jeffrey Hornstein, Susan Hudson, Russell Kazal, Stephen Nordhoff, and Kathleen Trainor. A special thanks to two former graduate students who have now become colleagues: Jerald Podair scrutinized the penultimate version of my manuscript, filling every page with useful comments, large and small, while Maria Mazzenga assembled much of the research on which the last two chapters and epilogue are based while emerging as one of my best and toughest critics. The progress and content of this work often depended on the diligence and imagination of research assistants—Jennifer Delton, Ryan Ellis, Michael Peterson, and Kelly Ryan—who uncovered many valuable textual and photographic materials. Photo researcher Lili Wiener was exceptionally generous with her time, advice, and expertise. Dick Blofson, neighbor and documentary filmmaker extraordinaire, enabled me to transform a key film image into a photo that I could use for this book. And historian Nancy Weiss Malkiel made it possible for me to use another important photo by sharing with me her marvelous knowledge of the civil rights movement. I am indebted to scholars and friends who read chapters and, through their astute comments, helped me to make this a better book: Susan Armeny, Steve Fraser, John Higham, Jennifer Hochschild, Nancy Green, David Levy, Jerry Muller, Robyn

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

xix

Muncy, Nell Painter, Tom Sugrue, Dave Thelen, and Lt. General Bernard E. Trainor (USMC Ret.). Alan Brinkley, Michael Kazin, Nelson Lichtenstein, and Roy Rosenzweig took time from busy schedules to read the entire manuscript and offer me indispensable advice. I hope that they will find evidence of the many contributions they have made in the pages that follow. Colleagues at two history departments, the Catholic University of America and the University of Maryland, nurtured me and this project along, and I want to thank them for their enthusiasm and support. Special thanks to my family away from home, Robbie Schneider and Sarah Mitchell and their daughters, Kate and Laura. I can hardly imagine a better home for this book than that provided by Princeton University Press. Brigitta van Rheinberg worked with me on every aspect of the manuscript, not satisfied until we got it right. From start to finish, she has been a superb advocate and critic. Others at Princeton have contributed to the book’s design, production, and quality, including designer Carmina Alvarez, production editor Brigitte Pelner, production director Neil Litt, and editorial assistant Mark Spencer. Jim O’Brien expertly assembled the index. The walls between scholarship and family life are more permeable than they sometimes appear. My mother, Epsie, and sister, Linda, will know that this book is in part an attempt to comprehend how the different generations of our immigrant family made their way and remade themselves in America. I’m sorry that my father Jack didn’t live to see this book, for he would have enjoyed it immensely. Whether my sons, Danny and Sam, will enjoy this book is another matter, but they have left their mark on it and on me. Their presence in my life is an extraordinary gift. The joys of parenthood and the complicated connections between work and family will come as no surprise to Liz, my partner in life, love, and intellectual pursuits. Our journey has been remarkable.

AM E RICAN C RUC I B L E

INTRODUCTION