The Eyes of David Barton Are Upon You
Paul Harvey
All the freakin' live-long day, Texans.
Yes, it's time again for the culture wars in Texas, this time over the teaching in K-12 history texts. The politically appointed board breaks down along familiar lines: scholars in the field of history (imagine that) sit on the committee alongside others who are . . . umm. . . well, less qualified, shall we say, in the field of history. Heck, Lynne
Cheney looks like Leopold Von Ranke compared to these guys. Nonetheless, like Forrest Gump and influenza, these guys seem to turn up everywhere.
The three reviewers appointed by the moderate and liberal board members are all professors of history or education at Texas universities, including Mr. de la Teja, a former state historian. The reviewers appointed by conservatives include two who run conservative Christian organizations: David Barton, founder of WallBuilders, a group that promotes America's Christian heritage; and Rev. Marshall, who preaches that Watergate, the Vietnam War and Hurricane Katrina were God's judgments on the nation's sexual immorality.
Watergate!? That's weird. Whatever. Don't they remember the Lynrd Skynrd line about Watergate in "Sweet Home Alabama"? Other highlights from Marshall's career as a public policy analyst and commentator are here. Read it and then ask, "does your conscience bother you? Tell me true."
Anyway, Marshall and company are leading the charge to sanitize the texts of icky stuff they don't like. A lot of that icky stuff happens to involve non-white people; there's a shocker. Here's my favorite:
Delete César Chávez from a list of figures who modeled active participation in the democratic process.
Two reviewers objected to citing Mr. Chávez, who led a strike and boycott to improve working conditions for immigrant farmhands, as an example of citizenship for fifth-graders. "He's hardly the kind of role model that ought to be held up to our children as someone worthy of emulation," Rev. Marshall wrote.
Last time I checked, Mr Chavez was awfully religious, so you think Barton and Marshall would latch onto that. Is it because he's Catholic, or because he's a Latino? Or both?
All the freakin' live-long day, Texans.
Yes, it's time again for the culture wars in Texas, this time over the teaching in K-12 history texts. The politically appointed board breaks down along familiar lines: scholars in the field of history (imagine that) sit on the committee alongside others who are . . . umm. . . well, less qualified, shall we say, in the field of history. Heck, Lynne
Cheney looks like Leopold Von Ranke compared to these guys. Nonetheless, like Forrest Gump and influenza, these guys seem to turn up everywhere.The three reviewers appointed by the moderate and liberal board members are all professors of history or education at Texas universities, including Mr. de la Teja, a former state historian. The reviewers appointed by conservatives include two who run conservative Christian organizations: David Barton, founder of WallBuilders, a group that promotes America's Christian heritage; and Rev. Marshall, who preaches that Watergate, the Vietnam War and Hurricane Katrina were God's judgments on the nation's sexual immorality.
Watergate!? That's weird. Whatever. Don't they remember the Lynrd Skynrd line about Watergate in "Sweet Home Alabama"? Other highlights from Marshall's career as a public policy analyst and commentator are here. Read it and then ask, "does your conscience bother you? Tell me true."
Anyway, Marshall and company are leading the charge to sanitize the texts of icky stuff they don't like. A lot of that icky stuff happens to involve non-white people; there's a shocker. Here's my favorite:
Delete César Chávez from a list of figures who modeled active participation in the democratic process.
Two reviewers objected to citing Mr. Chávez, who led a strike and boycott to improve working conditions for immigrant farmhands, as an example of citizenship for fifth-graders. "He's hardly the kind of role model that ought to be held up to our children as someone worthy of emulation," Rev. Marshall wrote.
Last time I checked, Mr Chavez was awfully religious, so you think Barton and Marshall would latch onto that. Is it because he's Catholic, or because he's a Latino? Or both?
Then there's Anne Hutchinson of colonial Massachusetts fame, airbrushed out of colonial history. Same goes for Thurgood Marshall -- gone! Shazam, Sgt. Carter!
If this was my home state of Oklahoma, no one would care -- too small-time. But this is Texas -- a market
big enough to affect textbook writers everywhere (as has been the case previously with science standards).
Like star fullback Tim Riggins so eloquently intones in Friday Night Lights -- "Texas forever" . . . [tequila shot downed] . . . " No regrets." The Dillon Panthers got their Jumbotron (thanks to Buddy Garrity's greatest line ever, "Have you ever seen two people engaged on a Jumbotron?"), and Texans will get the textbooks they deserve. My guess is students will keep not reading them, regardless of who's in and who's out. On the other hand, standards matter, even if only symbolically, and besides, can't they find a cowboy or cowgirl or two to kick Marshall's butt once and for all -- is that too much to ask, Texas? All together now, on three: Clear minds -- full hearts -- can't lose.
UPDATE: A reader and recent visitor to Colorado Springs wrote and said the following: Focus on the Family pushes Barton's Drive Thru History America series, and I overheard an interesting conversation between a public school history teacher and his friend at Focus Welcome Centers. They were very enthusiastic about Drive Thru History America and talked about how he would be able to show it to his students in spite of it being a Christian product since it is not explicitly evangelizing. A little bit of sneaky preaching in the class room.
If this was my home state of Oklahoma, no one would care -- too small-time. But this is Texas -- a market
big enough to affect textbook writers everywhere (as has been the case previously with science standards).Like star fullback Tim Riggins so eloquently intones in Friday Night Lights -- "Texas forever" . . . [tequila shot downed] . . . " No regrets." The Dillon Panthers got their Jumbotron (thanks to Buddy Garrity's greatest line ever, "Have you ever seen two people engaged on a Jumbotron?"), and Texans will get the textbooks they deserve. My guess is students will keep not reading them, regardless of who's in and who's out. On the other hand, standards matter, even if only symbolically, and besides, can't they find a cowboy or cowgirl or two to kick Marshall's butt once and for all -- is that too much to ask, Texas? All together now, on three: Clear minds -- full hearts -- can't lose.
UPDATE: A reader and recent visitor to Colorado Springs wrote and said the following: Focus on the Family pushes Barton's Drive Thru History America series, and I overheard an interesting conversation between a public school history teacher and his friend at Focus Welcome Centers. They were very enthusiastic about Drive Thru History America and talked about how he would be able to show it to his students in spite of it being a Christian product since it is not explicitly evangelizing. A little bit of sneaky preaching in the class room.
Comments
Delete Cesar Chavez and Anne Hutchinson from textbooks? Wow.
All of which is to say that members of curriculum boards are one thing, kids and teachers in classrooms are another. I would imagine that some rural, predominantly white Texas high schools (like mine) often teach Barton's version of the past, but certainly not all of them. Moreover, I would imagine that urban schools and West Texas rural schools (many of which have a majority Hispanic student body) receive a narrative of American history that would include Chavez regardless of state curriculum mandates.
These are just hunches. Does anyone have a more concrete analysis to offer?
I failed to mention that my American history teacher was a Civil War/American Revolution/Texas Revolution reenactor, Catholic convert, history M.A., and spouse of a Mexican-American teacher. He once refused to call a student named "Lord" by his first name, since "There is only one Lord." Memories...
Anyways, I hope you're right about publicity leading to opposition against Barton's foolishness. It should make for an entertaining sideshow.
Isn't it amazing that the loudest voices against a "revision" of history are coming from the same people who have eliminated Cesar Chavez and Anne Hutchinson from the historical record. Hypocrisy at its best! Maybe Bertrand Russell was right when he wrote, "The problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so sure of themselves while wiser people are so full of doubts."
Part of me blames the actual historians in Texas for not speaking out on this. Now, I know that their voices tend to get muffled by the likes of Barton and his ilk, but come on! I hope people aren't simply standing by while Chavez and Hutchinson are left to the dogs. Hopefully somebody will oppose this nonsense before Texas history becomes nothing more than a tale of how the devout orthodox Evangelical founding fathers gave birth to a Christian nation with Jesus as its King, only to be destroyed by the EVIL Northern incursion of the South during the War of Northern Aggression."
Ugh!!!
The War of Northern Aggression part in your comments is some nice snark -- good job!
This is a pushback for minor but politically correct figures being slipped into the textbooks some years back, and it was some major figures of American history who got "deleted" in the first place.
Anne Hathaway is an interesting story, but does she get more play than Samuel Adams? Likely. I'd bet Sam Adams gets no play atall, and certainly not John Witherspoon or Roger Sherman.
There were 100s of labor figures as significant as Chavez. Why him? And is he as significant as that great American patriot who organized millions of voters and saved the Founding principles from the sewer of secular humanism...
I of course speak of the late Rev. Jerry Falwell.
I don't like defending David Barton, nor any of his allies. They seem to have made some dumb statements already. However, the politicization of schoolbook history cannot be laid at their feet. This is a reaction to it.
Being childless, I can't comment much on particulars except to say once I scooped up a history textbook here in California, and it read more like a secular Lives of the Saints, shaped by ethnicity and gender.
I agree that Samuel Adams doesn't get the attention he deserves. No argument there. However, I think you are downgrading the significance of Cesar Chavez a bit. He is a relevant figure who should be included in the history books. I fail to see how anybody benefits from having him removed.
I also have to strongly disagree with your claim that Jerry Falwell, "saved the founding principles from the sewer of secular humanism." If you respect Jerry Falwell that's fine. I don't begrudge your right to do so. However, I don't see any evidence that he "saved" any founding principles. As you would put it, "none atall."
Perhaps this is a reaction to secular "revision" but why fight fire with fire? It seems that Barton and his supporters are every bit as guilty of making the same efforts to "revise" history that they level against the "evil" secularist historians.
You can't prove a double negative.
And I was having a little evil fun with Rev. Falwell, just to set a few teeth on edge. But he was a provably bigger influence on American politics [and American social politics] than César Chávez, but has zero place in the politically correct history books.
And I'll argue that fact until Texas' cows and cattle all come home.
And I'll return to the original argument, that the historical revisionism took place several years ago, not with today's "deletion" of César Chávez.
Not a double negative atall, just Newton's Third Law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Yeah, I agree that Falwell played a role in American social politics. No doubt about that. I guess I don't understand why any of these figures should be removed. I'm all for having Falwell's influence included in the textbooks. But again, why remove Chavez, Hutchinson, etc.? Clearly Barton and his minions have an agenda...and a bogus one at that.
I don't know if I agree with the notion that Barton was simply responding to the already ongoing historical revision of the secularists. I seriously doubt that his intentions were that pure. Instead I think Barton is simply advocating for his own agenda...yes, just like many of the devilish secularists.
Let's be clear on one thing: Barton is not advocating for objective or accurate history. Instead, he wants to see the evangelical Christian version of history become mainstream. And guess what everyone...the man is having quite a bit of success.
Are there secularists who are guilty of the same charges? Of course (Howard Zinn comes to mind). But none of this exonerates Barton. It's not an "equal and opposite reaction" to anything. Instead it’s just the same crap being preached from a different pulpit...and a bully pulpit at that.
He's no César Chávez or Jerry Falwell, that's for damnsure, although come to think of it, those men found parades to stand in front of themselves. And if you examine your history, so did MLK and Ronald Reagan.
And to be fair to the greatness of both those last two, those parades were both ready and needful of leadership.
Fact is, Anne Hutchinson isn't more or even equally significant in American history than Samuel Adams.
Yes, this is an "equal and opposite reaction" to the ethnic/gender revision of the textbooks of several years ago. I'd give Frederick Douglass a number of pages, but I bet Booker T. Washington gets little or no mention atall. We're talking politically correct revisionism and now the blowback.
So let's acknowledge that we have an ideological battle here. If César Chávez is being "deleted," Booker T. Washington was deleted long ago.
Anybody who wants to argue that César Chávez stands with anywhere near the stature of Booker T. Washington in American history, well, let's give it a go.
If critics concerned with Chavez's place as a liberal icon were smart (I like hypotheticals, even unlikely ones), I'd suggest they'd push for more attention to Chavez, specifically is Catholic faith and his views on restricting immigration. Chavez certainly was "awfully" religious, but it would be hard to discover that in most textbook treatments.
I'm not sure if Texas still demands that public school textbooks be drawn from a statewide "approved" list, but it's not surprising that Barton and Marshall chose to fight their battle in the Lone Star State. If they are successful in purging the icky parts of history from textbooks there, it could have ramifications nationwide.
See the Gablers' website here. Also, William Martin wrote an excellent article about the Gablers ("The Guardians Who Slumbereth Not") in the November 1982 issue of Texas Monthly (unfortunately not available online).
Instead, I would like to suggest that I am indeed an historical figure worthy of inclusion in K-12 textbooks - every bit as worthy as Anne Hutchinson, and certainly more so than Jerry Falwell or Cesar Chavez - I was in "Princess Diaries" for cryin out loud, c'mon.
A commentator over at our blog mate the following observation of David Barton and his ilk, which I believe does a good job of illustrating why this is such a big deal. He noted that despite never mentioning his education credentials on his blog "Wallbuilders," David Barton did make the following delcaration:
"His exhaustive research has rendered him an expert in historical and constitutional issues."
An expert? That's funny, especially when we consider the fact that Barton made the following apology/excuse when ACTUAL historians confronted him about his crappy work:
"Therefore, we unilaterally initiated within our own works a standard of documentation that would exceed the academic standard and instead would conform to the superior legal standard (i.e., relying solely on primary or original sources, using best evidence, rather than relying on the writings of attorneys, professors, or historians)."
Except that many of those "primary sources" are proven fabrications.
If this man thinks he meets a "superior standard" then heaven help us!
And this man is going to have a say in what goes into history textbooks???
That must be one damn thick book if so many minor characters are included. Is Daily Kos in there?
As for Barton's errors, he's largely corrected them. He was a high school principal or something when he started, and made amateur errors, like taking quotes from books written in 1850 as true. It didn't occur to him that history books sometimes lie.
I think you make an important observation, Tom. As you wrote, Barton made "amateur errors." Yep, you couldn't be more correct. That's because he's NOT the expert he passes himself off to be.
But the third conservative on the advisory board---not mentioned presumably because he's not a lightning rod---is Daniel Dreisbach, whose scholarly credentials seem easily as strong as the "liberals'."
So I say look at the facts and quit with the delegitimization.
The "conservatives" want more emphasis on source documents. Who can object to that?
They want more Billy Graham. I say, maybe Jonathan Edwards and the Great Awakening, but Billy Graham? Pass.
As for the rest of it, I think parents---the public---have a right to have input in the education of their children and are under no obligation to surrender it to the professional academic machine.
As you know, the professional academic establishment is thought by many to lean heavily to one side of the partisan divide---let's call it a worldview---and that suspicion is not totally unfounded.
As an FYI, someone sent me a video link to a Barton presentation that aired during the July 4th weekend. If anyone is interested in seeing how he constructs (i.e. bludgeons) American history, I am posting the link below.
Since many of you are historians, I need not comment on the historical content of his presentation. However, it is interesting to note how he plays a shell game by rapidly jumping between periods and quickly shifting topics. In this, it is stylistically similar to much of the right-wing literature that has been produced since the Second Red Scare.
http://www.intouch.org/site/c.cnKBIPNuEoG/b.4943223/k.492B/In_Touch_Ministries__Video_Archives.htm
The Red Scare! McCarthyism!
Talk about shell games...
I share your distaste for David Barton. I can only wish that the commission had chosen true evangelical historians like Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch, or George Marsden instead.
Nevertheless, although you are right to note that Barton and Marshall have an agenda (don't all historians have one?) which causes them to obscure important historical figures, I believe that your accustion of racism is unwarranted based on the information presented here.
Race-baiting contributes nothing to the discussion. Ad hominem attacks are not even necessary; Barton and Marshall are transparently foolish enough as it is! :-)
Per the "29 signers of the DoI claim" Someone should ask Barton, when did the seminaries become colleges to justify his claim?
The following is a general definition for seminary that seems in accord with others that I found on-line:
Merriam-Webster
Etymology: Middle English, seedbed, nursery, from Latin seminarium, from semin-, semen see Date:1542
1: an environment in which something originates and from which it is propagated [a seminary of vice and crime]
2 a: an institution of secondary or higher education
2 b: an institution for the training of candidates for the priesthood, ministry, or rabbinate
As to “when did the seminaries become colleges,” why ask Barton? Here’s a brief rundown of three major institutions of higher learning of 18th century America:
The Harvard Guide
Harvard College was established in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and was named for its first benefactor, John Harvard of Charlestown, a young minister who, upon his death in 1638, left his library and half his estate to the new institution. Harvard's first scholarship fund was created in 1643 with a gift from Ann Radcliffe, Lady Mowlson.
During its early years, the College offered a classic academic course based on the English university model but consistent with the prevailing Puritan philosophy of the first colonists. Although many of its early graduates became ministers in Puritan congregations throughout New England, the College was never formally affiliated with a specific religious denomination. An early brochure, published in 1643, justified the College's existence: "To advance Learning and perpetuate it to Posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate Ministry to the Churches.
Yale University – About Yale
Yale’s roots can be traced back to the 1640s, when colonial clergymen led an effort to establish a college in New Haven to preserve the tradition of European liberal education in the New World. This vision was fulfilled in 1701, when the charter was granted for a school [the Collegiate School (Oviatt, 1916)] “wherein Youth may be instructed in the Arts and Sciences [and] through the blessing of Almighty God may be fitted for Publick employment both in Church and Civil State.” In 1718 the school was renamed “Yale College” in gratitude to the Welsh merchant Elihu Yale, who had donated the proceeds from the sale of nine bales of goods together with 417 books and a portrait of King George I.
More here (Edwin Oviatt, 1916. The Beginnings of Yale (1701-1726)).
WORKING AT PRINCETON
A Handbook for Administrative and Support Staff
Milestones: A Short History of Princeton University
Princeton University was founded in 1746 as the College of New Jersey. It was the result of a charter issued by John Hamilton, acting governor of the province, to the College’s board of trustees, whose members were leaders in the Presbyterian Church. They organized the College to train students, “different sentiments in religion not withstanding,” a policy that shaped the character of the school.
[…]
In 1896, the College of New Jersey became Princeton University.
To have attended any of these colleges/universities (seminaries) does not imply religious training toward ministry. No doubt there were seminaries devoted to this endeavor.
Your answer is precisely why I brought it up. Not to prop Barton, but he may believe those colleges had changed their curriculum.
No doubt Barton knowlingly or not, has an agenda, but Noll, and the others aren't infallible either.