Mark Naison: Heroism, A Great Tradition in Working Class New York
[Mark Naison is Professor of African American Studies and History, Fordham University.]
When Wesley Autrey threw himself on top of a young man who had fallen onto the tracks to save him from an oncoming train, he not only reminded us that heroism is something that manifests itself in daily life as well as war and times of emergency, he gave new life and meaning to a great New York tradition. In a city of immigrants, where almost every person is a descendent of someone who took extraordinary risks just to come here, courage, especially physical courage, is an important part of the cultural capital of our city's neighborhods. It is no accident that Wesley Autrey was a construction worker, but he could easily have been a transit worker, police officer, firefighter, sanitation worker, elevator repair person, EMT, or any one of the hundreds of thosands of people in our city whose work involves some level of danger. Though the investment bankers, the real estate moguls, and the advertising executives are the ones reaping the greatest rewards in our post-industrial economy, it is still New York's workers who keep the city moving, fix things when they break, and rescue us both individually and collectively when we find ourselves in trouble
From the time I was a child growing up in Brooklyn in the 1950's, images of courage and heroism were an integral part of my socialization as part of a working class family and neighborhood.. I grew up on tales of my grandparents coming from Russia unescorted when they were in their early teens, of my grandfather fighting scabs in the street of the garment district to help protect his union, of my mother selling clothes in Klein's Department store at age 12 to help support her family, of my uncle getting up at 4 AM each morning to dispatch trucks from a Mafia controlled depot. I was taught to defend myself whenever attacked, and prided myself on facing down neighborhood bullies as much as I did in getting high grades or hitting a ball harder and further than other kids my age
Never did I think of this upbringing as unusual. When I moved back to Brooklyn in the late 70's and started to coach sandlot baseball and CYO basketball, I met hundreds of people, whether Irish, Italian, Black, Jewish, Greek or Latino, who were brought up the same way, and had an unspoken understanding
of how people were supposed to act in crisis situations. I didn't necessarily like them ( nor they me!), especially not when we were on opposing sides in the heat of competition, but if someone were in danger, or needed help, I felt I could call on them in a heart beat to do what needed to be done, even if the action would have put their life at risk
I'll never forget the moment when that realization became most clear to me. It was during the Columbine seige and shootings, when the local police, with the whole nation watching, waited hours before storming the building. I started screaming at the television set "What are you waiting for" and telling my wife, "If Gary Neilsen were there, this would be over in five minutes" Gary Neilsen, a 6'4" firefighter and fellow coach, was the single craziest- and most generous- person I knew. He had gotten himself permanently kicked out of girls CYO softball in Brooklyn ( a remarkable feat considering how crazy the average coach was!) for fighting with umpires, parents and fellow coaches, but he had taken one of his son's friends in his house after his crack addicted mother burned down his house and there was NO DOUBT IN MY MIND that he would have stormed the school building and disarmed the student gunmen the second he knew what was going on, even if he died in the process
Then came September 11. When I watched the twin towers collapse from the window of our Departmental offices on the 6th Floor of Dealy Hall at Fordham, I was convinced the death toll would reach in the tens of thousands. That it was less than four thousand was a tribute to the heroism of thousands of New Yorkers, especially our firefighters, police officers, EMT's and transit workers, who got enormous numbers of people out of harms way at the cost of their own lives. Permanenly etched in my memory is the image of an army of firefighters running up the stairts of the towers with their 70 pound packs while others were running down and doing so without a moments hesitation because their job was to save lives. Three of those firefighters were people I coached against in Brooklyn CYO, two from St Pat's in Bay Ridge, and one from Holy Name in Windsor Terrace and while I cried when I heard of their deaths, I also smiled knowing they were "stand up" to the very end. Never was I prouder of being a New Yorker than in the days and weeks after this unimaginable tragedy. In the moment of our greatest trial, and our greatest testing, working class New York rose to the challenge and rolled up its sleeves and brought our city back.
So in honoring Wesley Autrey, let us remember that our city's most valuable and honorable traditions, are not strictly commercial, nor are normally rewarded in stock options and bonuses,but rest in the lived experience of millions of working class New Yorkers of every race and nationality who know that generosity to others is the true test of our common humanity. Maybe some day that realization will come to guide our political priorities and our way of allocating resources.
When Wesley Autrey threw himself on top of a young man who had fallen onto the tracks to save him from an oncoming train, he not only reminded us that heroism is something that manifests itself in daily life as well as war and times of emergency, he gave new life and meaning to a great New York tradition. In a city of immigrants, where almost every person is a descendent of someone who took extraordinary risks just to come here, courage, especially physical courage, is an important part of the cultural capital of our city's neighborhods. It is no accident that Wesley Autrey was a construction worker, but he could easily have been a transit worker, police officer, firefighter, sanitation worker, elevator repair person, EMT, or any one of the hundreds of thosands of people in our city whose work involves some level of danger. Though the investment bankers, the real estate moguls, and the advertising executives are the ones reaping the greatest rewards in our post-industrial economy, it is still New York's workers who keep the city moving, fix things when they break, and rescue us both individually and collectively when we find ourselves in trouble
From the time I was a child growing up in Brooklyn in the 1950's, images of courage and heroism were an integral part of my socialization as part of a working class family and neighborhood.. I grew up on tales of my grandparents coming from Russia unescorted when they were in their early teens, of my grandfather fighting scabs in the street of the garment district to help protect his union, of my mother selling clothes in Klein's Department store at age 12 to help support her family, of my uncle getting up at 4 AM each morning to dispatch trucks from a Mafia controlled depot. I was taught to defend myself whenever attacked, and prided myself on facing down neighborhood bullies as much as I did in getting high grades or hitting a ball harder and further than other kids my age
Never did I think of this upbringing as unusual. When I moved back to Brooklyn in the late 70's and started to coach sandlot baseball and CYO basketball, I met hundreds of people, whether Irish, Italian, Black, Jewish, Greek or Latino, who were brought up the same way, and had an unspoken understanding
of how people were supposed to act in crisis situations. I didn't necessarily like them ( nor they me!), especially not when we were on opposing sides in the heat of competition, but if someone were in danger, or needed help, I felt I could call on them in a heart beat to do what needed to be done, even if the action would have put their life at risk
I'll never forget the moment when that realization became most clear to me. It was during the Columbine seige and shootings, when the local police, with the whole nation watching, waited hours before storming the building. I started screaming at the television set "What are you waiting for" and telling my wife, "If Gary Neilsen were there, this would be over in five minutes" Gary Neilsen, a 6'4" firefighter and fellow coach, was the single craziest- and most generous- person I knew. He had gotten himself permanently kicked out of girls CYO softball in Brooklyn ( a remarkable feat considering how crazy the average coach was!) for fighting with umpires, parents and fellow coaches, but he had taken one of his son's friends in his house after his crack addicted mother burned down his house and there was NO DOUBT IN MY MIND that he would have stormed the school building and disarmed the student gunmen the second he knew what was going on, even if he died in the process
Then came September 11. When I watched the twin towers collapse from the window of our Departmental offices on the 6th Floor of Dealy Hall at Fordham, I was convinced the death toll would reach in the tens of thousands. That it was less than four thousand was a tribute to the heroism of thousands of New Yorkers, especially our firefighters, police officers, EMT's and transit workers, who got enormous numbers of people out of harms way at the cost of their own lives. Permanenly etched in my memory is the image of an army of firefighters running up the stairts of the towers with their 70 pound packs while others were running down and doing so without a moments hesitation because their job was to save lives. Three of those firefighters were people I coached against in Brooklyn CYO, two from St Pat's in Bay Ridge, and one from Holy Name in Windsor Terrace and while I cried when I heard of their deaths, I also smiled knowing they were "stand up" to the very end. Never was I prouder of being a New Yorker than in the days and weeks after this unimaginable tragedy. In the moment of our greatest trial, and our greatest testing, working class New York rose to the challenge and rolled up its sleeves and brought our city back.
So in honoring Wesley Autrey, let us remember that our city's most valuable and honorable traditions, are not strictly commercial, nor are normally rewarded in stock options and bonuses,but rest in the lived experience of millions of working class New Yorkers of every race and nationality who know that generosity to others is the true test of our common humanity. Maybe some day that realization will come to guide our political priorities and our way of allocating resources.