On two
different and complementary narratives of hope in one of America’s darkest
times.
For us
American Studiers who are interested in the question of how hope can be found
and kept in our darkest moments, it’s a good idea to examine closely the
histories of particular such moments, and to consider specifically narratives
of hope in them. I did that in part—if somewhat implicitly—in the
series on bad American memories and how we engage with them, since most
such engagements try to find the possibility of meaning and hope in the face of
those dark histories. Those memories were generally tied to particular
communities, though (if, as I argued, still broadly and nationally relevant),
and so it’s worth examining as well our most collectively shared dark moments.
And certainly at the top of that list, to my mind competing only with the Civil
War in its breadth of impact, would have to be the economic, social, and communal
nadir that was the Great
Depression.
From
literally the first moment of his presidency, Franklin Delano Roosevelt
responded to the Depression by creating a narrative of a hope in an original
and striking way. In the opening paragraph of his 1932 inaugural address,
Roosevelt “first of all … assert[ed his] firm belief that the only thing
we have to fear is fear itself.” The line, like the tone of the whole speech,
was as somber and serious as the moment demanded; but it’s an argument for hope
nonetheless, one that suggests quite explicitly that the absence of hope (the
opposite of it, even) represents a far worse threat than any economic or social
realities could. Nearly a decade later, Roosevelt extended and amplified that idea,
making “freedom from fear” one of his
core “Four Freedoms” to which all Americans and all citizens of the world
are entitled. Roosevelt’s emphasis on fear, on the dark and negative side of
the emotional spectrum, connects directly to the central point of my current
book: that we can’t find genuine hope until we admit and engage with the
darkest realities and histories, and the emotions that they engender.
Obviously
I believe in the value of that engagement—but I also recognize the need, at our
darkest moments in particular, for feel-good stories, for histories that can
inspire hope because they represent the best of what we can be and do. The
depths of the Depression produced many such stories in America, and none was
more famous nor more inspiring than that of Irish American boxer James J. Braddock,
whose epic comeback tale was recently portrayed in the film Cinderella Man (2005).
Braddock’s story offered Americans hope for at least two key reasons: he and
his family had experienced the same desperate situation and poverty of so many
of their peers, making him a truly representative everyman; and yet he had
literally fought his way out of those conditions, becoming heavyweight champion
from 1935 to 1937 and embodying the sense that the future was not determined
nor circumscribed by the worst of the past and present. What Braddock seemed to
exemplify, that is, was what Americans and America could achieve once they had
faced down their worst fears and found their way through them to the
hard-earned freedom for which Roosevelt argued.
Next in
the series tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Texts, takes, thoughts on hope in America?
9/19
Memory Day nominee: Sarah
Louise “Sadie” Delany, the legendary
educator and Civil
Rights pioneer, whose book Having Our Say (1993), co-authored with her sister
Bessie, is one of America’s most unique and
important autobiographies.
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