Mark Naison: Obama's Discipline, And McCain's Rage, Have Powerful Antecedents in US History
[Mark Naison is Professor of African American Studies and History, Fordham University.]
As I watched Barack Obama maintain his poise in last nights debate, in the face of insults and patronizing comments from Senator McCain, and watched McCain get angrier and angrier when Obama refused to respond in kind, I thought of other moments in American history where African Americans achieved important victories by maintaining almost superhuman discipline in the face of extreme provocation.
One important such moment came when Jackie Robinson integrated major league baseball. With the eyes of the whole world upon him, and with much of white America wanting him to fail, Jackie Robinson, for more than three years, did not allow himself the luxury of a single public outburst in response to insults and abuse from opposing teams, fans, and occasionally, his own teammates. As Roger Kahn, who covered the Dodgers in those years, tells us in his remarkable book "The Boys of Summer" Robinson was cursed, spit on and spiked, had pitches thrown at his head, bombarded with insulting, often sexual, references to his loved ones and family, and barred from restaurants and hotels his teammates were welcome in. Not once did he explode in rage and rarely did his performance on the field suffer.
Barack Obama's persona has resembled Jackie Robinson's throughout this campaign, but never more so than last night. At many points in last night's debate, while McCain kept lobbing insults in Obama's direction and Obama denied himself the luxury of even a grimace, I couldn't help but think that I was seeing a display of courage and self-discipline that resembled the finest moments of Jackie Robinson's odyssey. Not only did Obama resist the temptation to insult McCain or his running mate, even though both presented extremely tempting targets, he enhanced his own credibility by producing clear, detailed comments on issues ranging from energy, to education, to health care, to abortion. He not only won points with the
American public by addressing matters that were important to them, he rattled McCain so much that he became testy and petulant, raising question about McCain's fitness to lead during a time of grave economic hardship when Americans will be looking for reassurance as well as sound policy decisions.
Obama's disciplined performance, and McCain's enraged response, also recalled the different responses of the Black and white communities in Montgomery Alabama to the bus boycott that took place in that city during 1955 and 1956. When leaders of Montgomery's Black community, headed by Rev Martin Luther King Jr, decided to boycott that city's buses till the humiliating treatment of black passengers was ended, and use non violent methods to achieve that goal, Montgomery elected officials, and their supporters in the white community, thought they could crush the movement easily. They tried arresting the boycott's leaders, using economic coercion against its participants, and tying up the movement's assets in expensive lawsuits. When those methods failed, extreme elements in the white community began threatening the lives of movement leaders and bombed the home of Martin Luther King. But King, though fearful for the lives of his loved ones, refused to end the boycott and through the force of both his words and his personal example, kept his followers committed to non-violence, sustaining a movement that lasted over 350 days- without a single violent act by Black boycott supporters-until a federal court finally declared Montgomery bus segregation unconstitutional. This remarkable display of collective discipline by the Black community of an entire city changed the course of American History, setting the stage for the student sit ins, the freedom rides, the Birmingham protests of 1963, and other heroic examples of non-violent direct action which led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965
Last night, as he has done throughout his entire campaign, Barack Obama reclaimed that legacy of heroism and discipline, and made it applicable for our own time. By refusing to let insults and provocations distract him from talking about every important issue he will have to face as President, Obama powerfully enhanced his own claims to leadership while making his opponent seem too angry and small minded for the office he is seeking.
In doing so, he too is changing the course of American History.
As I watched Barack Obama maintain his poise in last nights debate, in the face of insults and patronizing comments from Senator McCain, and watched McCain get angrier and angrier when Obama refused to respond in kind, I thought of other moments in American history where African Americans achieved important victories by maintaining almost superhuman discipline in the face of extreme provocation.
One important such moment came when Jackie Robinson integrated major league baseball. With the eyes of the whole world upon him, and with much of white America wanting him to fail, Jackie Robinson, for more than three years, did not allow himself the luxury of a single public outburst in response to insults and abuse from opposing teams, fans, and occasionally, his own teammates. As Roger Kahn, who covered the Dodgers in those years, tells us in his remarkable book "The Boys of Summer" Robinson was cursed, spit on and spiked, had pitches thrown at his head, bombarded with insulting, often sexual, references to his loved ones and family, and barred from restaurants and hotels his teammates were welcome in. Not once did he explode in rage and rarely did his performance on the field suffer.
Barack Obama's persona has resembled Jackie Robinson's throughout this campaign, but never more so than last night. At many points in last night's debate, while McCain kept lobbing insults in Obama's direction and Obama denied himself the luxury of even a grimace, I couldn't help but think that I was seeing a display of courage and self-discipline that resembled the finest moments of Jackie Robinson's odyssey. Not only did Obama resist the temptation to insult McCain or his running mate, even though both presented extremely tempting targets, he enhanced his own credibility by producing clear, detailed comments on issues ranging from energy, to education, to health care, to abortion. He not only won points with the
American public by addressing matters that were important to them, he rattled McCain so much that he became testy and petulant, raising question about McCain's fitness to lead during a time of grave economic hardship when Americans will be looking for reassurance as well as sound policy decisions.
Obama's disciplined performance, and McCain's enraged response, also recalled the different responses of the Black and white communities in Montgomery Alabama to the bus boycott that took place in that city during 1955 and 1956. When leaders of Montgomery's Black community, headed by Rev Martin Luther King Jr, decided to boycott that city's buses till the humiliating treatment of black passengers was ended, and use non violent methods to achieve that goal, Montgomery elected officials, and their supporters in the white community, thought they could crush the movement easily. They tried arresting the boycott's leaders, using economic coercion against its participants, and tying up the movement's assets in expensive lawsuits. When those methods failed, extreme elements in the white community began threatening the lives of movement leaders and bombed the home of Martin Luther King. But King, though fearful for the lives of his loved ones, refused to end the boycott and through the force of both his words and his personal example, kept his followers committed to non-violence, sustaining a movement that lasted over 350 days- without a single violent act by Black boycott supporters-until a federal court finally declared Montgomery bus segregation unconstitutional. This remarkable display of collective discipline by the Black community of an entire city changed the course of American History, setting the stage for the student sit ins, the freedom rides, the Birmingham protests of 1963, and other heroic examples of non-violent direct action which led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965
Last night, as he has done throughout his entire campaign, Barack Obama reclaimed that legacy of heroism and discipline, and made it applicable for our own time. By refusing to let insults and provocations distract him from talking about every important issue he will have to face as President, Obama powerfully enhanced his own claims to leadership while making his opponent seem too angry and small minded for the office he is seeking.
In doing so, he too is changing the course of American History.