William Sanders Scarborough, reason, & the anti-racist struggle

There is an incredible history of Black American intellectuals, stretching back to the era of slavery, and of outstanding intellectual achievement against overwhelming odds. Intertwined with this history is a history of Black American scholars of the Greek and Roman classics, who pursued and transmitted their expertise, took on administrative functions in higher education, and as writers and activists pursued the goal of racial equality. It is a noble and inspiring history.

One such pioneer was William Sanders Scarborough (1852-1926). I will have more to say about him and the larger tradition later on. (For now, see another post: William Sanders Scarborough & Volapük in the Black Press.) Here is an excerpt from Scarborough's essay opposing the prevailing superstition of  "Race Integrity" (i.e. racial purity and superiority).

This age is regarded as one of great enlightenment. Yet With all its knowledge, there is a vast deal of ignorance or wilful blindness manifested along some lines. This state is born of many things, but when based upon traditional ideas, deep rooted, not only in error, but in prejudice and malice, there we find the most insensate manifestations.

Cherished beliefs, no matter upon what founded, have always resulted in rearing idols to be worshiped. Before such icons the world has bowed again and again. Religion has had its share of them, but the religious world also raised idol-breakers—the Iconoclasts who set to work in the eighth and ninth centuries to shatter them as did the Protestants in the Netherlands in the sixteenth century Dogmas have crept into every phase of human life and endeavor, and no doubt will continue to do so, while mankind exists with its passions, its prejudices and its weaknesses, its preconceived notions and its obstinacy; so the labors of the Iconoclast have been and will be demanded for the sake of progress.

Among the multitude of cherished superstitions to which world-masses cling at one time or another, there are none more erroneous, more mischievous than that included under the unctuous expression, “Race Integrity.” Here is heroic, legitimate work for the Iconoclast. Here his labors are an absolute necessity. But we are aware that to lay hands upon this idol, to tear it from its place, will covenant profaning the holy altar itself; that there are those who, viewing such an act, will fear that punishment to follow that overtook Uzziah when he sought simply to steady the ark on the memorable journey from Kirjathjearim. There is no doubt whether that if the ranting Dixons and Tilmans and Vardamans and men of that ilk could become avenging fates, any one who dared attempt to shatter this idol would suffer instant annihilation.

But in the progress of civilization those who would overthrow cherished superstitions have had to suffer. Galileo’s idea of the world systems ran counter to set theories, and under awful penalties he had to recant, though he whispered under his breath “E pur si muove.” “It moves for all that.” Luther, Cranmer, Latimer and countless other martyrs have suffered when seeking to pull the bandage from eyes so long blinded, and let in the light of truth. Today no one disputes Galileo’s claim; and theological freedom of thought and expression agrees with Luther and others of his school.

These men had to suffer I say; but they did good service and accepted the stake, or dungeon, or ban, bravely for the sake of truth. They shattered falsity; and the Iconoclast of today will render equally good service in dissipating the errors of the present, none of which, I repeat, is worse than the hydra-headed dogma that masquerades under the alluring title of Race Integrity—the one of all of Errors’ vile brood, most fitly designed to perpetuate race discrimination, race hatred and race conflict.

To the task of an Iconoclast I propose to devote this article, with the postulate that there is no such thing as “Race Integrity.”

SOURCE: Scarborough, William Sanders. “Race Integrity,” in The Works of William Sanders Scarborough: Black Classicist and Race Leader, edited by Michele Valerie Ronnick (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 473-481. Above excerpt from beginning of article, pp. 473-474. Original publication: Voice of the Negro 4, no. 4 (1907): 197-202.

Frederick Douglass & Darwinism

"I do not know that I am an evolutionist, but to this extent I am one. I certainly have more patience with those who trace mankind upward from a low condition, even from the lower animals, than with those that start him at a high point of perfection and conduct him to the level with the brutes. I have no sympathy with a theory that starts man in heaven and stops him in hell."

   — Frederick Douglass, "'It Moves': or the Philosophy of Reform", address delivered in Washington, DC, 20 November 1883; in The Frederick Douglass Papers, series 1, vol. 5; ed. John W. Blassingame et al (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), pp. 124-145.

Note that the title of this speech is inspired by Galileo's reaction to the suppression of his work: "Eppur si mouve"— "nevertheless, it moves" (the Earth round the sun). Interestingly, this formulation of Douglass reminds me of Bakunin's antitheist argument in God and the State.

Galileo’s Birthday

Written 15 February 2007:

That’s today, the birthday of the founder of modern science, Galileo Galilei (February 15, 1564—January 8, 1642).

As a child, many many decades ago, I subscribed to an innocuous kid’s magazine called Highlights for Children. All I really cared about in those years was science and science fiction, and spent whatever money came my way by way of gifts on science books for children. Well, some issue of this magazine had an article on Galileo, also mentioning his birthday. I never really wanted to celebrate any holiday I didn’t invent myself, and I decided at that very young age that I would make Galileo’s birthday my very own holiday. What could be more important, after all, than celebrating science, the founder of modern science, and a martyr of science as well? I had no explicit position on religion back then that I can recall, but the scientific world view (spiced up by science fiction) was my own, so instinctively my priorities were set. It just doesn’t make sense to have all these religious holidays but none for the scientific revolution, which has done so much more for the human race. And I have never forgotten Galileo’s birthday since.

When not worried over my personal safety and the social chaos of the late ‘60s, I was bored to tears in high school a good percentage of the time. One of my many eccentric indulgences to fill the void was to teach myself Esperanto, the language created by L. L. Zamenhof, who was also pretty much a secular humanist though not an outright atheist and who also invented his own universal religion, akin in many ways to Ethical Culture, which he dubbed “Homaranismo” (literally, “being-a-member-of-the-human-race-ism”, a generalization of a rationalized stripped-down Judaism he called Hillelismo named after Rabbi Hillel). Eventually I acquired and began to read literature in Esperanto (yes, there is such a thing, original as well as translated), and I was captivated by a short story written by an author noted for his work in Hungarian as well as in Esperanto, Sandor Szathmari. The story “Vincenzo” is about the lifelong relationship between Galileo (portrayed as an idealist) and his fictional brother Vincenzo, who is a pragmatic cynic and eventually a cleric. With my instinctive passion for freedom and hatred of authoritarian repression, I always loved anticlerical, especially anti-Catholic, literary efforts, another favorite being Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. So finally for a class project I translated this story into English. Thirty years later I put it on the web:

“Vincent” by Sandor Szathmari

It won’t go down in the annals of literature as a specimen of brilliant translation, but hey, I did what I could at the time.