America the Beautiful

A commentary

I wonder how many of us have seen all the words to America the Beautiful, or know much about the song itself. The saddest to me is the last line of it. Photo is of a Black college in 1913.

Katharine Lee Bates wrote the original version in 1893. She wrote the 2nd version in 1904. Her final version was written in 1913. Here is a note from Katharine Lee Bates:

“One day some of the other teachers and I decided to go on a trip to 14,000-foot Pikes Peak. We hired a prairie wagon. Near the top we had to leave the wagon and go the rest of the way on mules. I was very tired. But when I saw the view, I felt great joy. All the wonder of America seemed displayed there, with the sea-like expanse.” 

America the Beautiful – 1913

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved In liberating strife.
Who more than self the country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine!

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for halcyon skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the enameled plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till souls wax fair as earth and air
And music-hearted sea!

O beautiful for pilgrims feet,
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America ! America !
God shed his grace on thee
Till paths be wrought through
wilds of thought
By pilgrim foot and knee!

O beautiful for glory-tale
Of liberating strife
When once and twice,
for man’s avail
Men lavished precious life !
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free!

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till nobler men keep once again
Thy whiter jubilee!

Now let’s try to figure out what, in 1913, she meant by that last line. “Thy whiter jubilee.” I took a look online and found a few versions of the song being sung, but not with that last stanza. Of course, the whole process today is to hide all the ugliness of our history … wait, that’s been the goal of this country’s public schools all along. To make us good citizens — that’s why public schools were formed. So now we rally against charter schools which have a more religious bent, but religious schools were actually the first to teach children … to be religious, first. It’s moving education in the wrong direction.

Now we’ve got people who are ‘woke,” who believe we have to whitewash (pardon the expression) our history so that we are not exposing children to the way we really were at any time in the past. Yes, I got to read Mark Twain as a kid, and we used slanderous words like that back then. (Remember what we called Brazil nuts?) But you can teach out of Mark Twain today by also teaching why we don’t use those words today.

It seems today everyone is afraid of talking about our history. Certainly there’s a rebellion against the 1619 project. As a member of the AHA, I read a review of someone who says this needs to be taught as the founding of our nation. Well, no, it needs to be taught as PART of the founding of our nation. There’s a danger in correcting too far in the other direction.

Now, back to this song. Why was that last line inserted, or left in, in 1913? This was a good two years before the silent movie Birth of a Nation was released, which led to the re-emergence of the new KKK. This was also the 50^th anniversary year of the Emancipation Proclamation. Here’s one comment about that year that I found:

“1913 marked the 50th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, and celebrations were held across the nation to herald the event. Philadelphia hosted a special Proclamation exhibition, and Meta Warrick-Fuller sculpted an emancipation monument that still stands in Harriet Tubman Park in Boston. In addition to revelry was soul-searching. Was the promise of the Proclamation alive and well? What had one done to foster equality, tolerance, and economic opportunity? James Weldon Johnson wrote the poem “Fifty Years,” published in the New York Times on January 1, 1913, in which he championed hope despite the nation’s failure to honor its black citizens as equals. Later in the year, Booker T. Washington delivered an address in Virginia applauding its black organizations and white supporters on the “Negro progress” they had achieved in the more mundane yet critical aspects of living free (and poor) in the South. 1913 also marked the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson, whose seemingly progressive views on race encouraged black Americans, at least for a while.”

http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai2/forward/text1/text1read.htm 

We see there was hope for Black Americans in that year, but there was still that feeling that they were far from treated as equal. Jim Crow laws still had a firm control on the country.

But why won’t 1619 Project help? We’ve already seen a firm pushback on the idea that this needs to be taught in lieu of white history. But if we can instead say that we need to incorporate ALL of history in our classrooms, without putting any labels on them in this way, I think we’ll have more success.

Objective history is not an ideal. It’s a very reasonable approach because it does not take sides. You get the information so that you can analyze what happened and why. Now this is different than the way I was taught in school, just to be clear. I was taught facts, places, names, years. I had to memorize American history, and it was my worst subject. Then I got to college and understood that history was about people doing stuff.

As an actress I never had problem learning lines. But memorizing dates? Forget it. So teach history in a way that kids can remember. By involving them in historical lives, much the way an actress is involved in the life of her character. Show them how and why things happened as they did. Don’t downplay how Black Americans could free themselves by becoming educated. Show it, and explain that as the importance of education. We have a lot to learn from our history. But it has to be taught the right way. Show that our country was still divided in 1876 and that’s why Grant forced a war that he couldn’t win, in order to take the Black Hills.

If I have one thing in my life to do, this would be it. I just wish I knew how to go about doing it. I have two books that aptly demonstrate this objective approach, but I can’t find a way to promote them. If you agree with me, check out “Civil War & Bloody Peace: Following Orders.” If you’re on a school board, pay attention to what kind of history they’re teaching. If you’re a teacher, find an author to invite in to talk about real history. We might be a grass roots movement, but we need those steps, because nothing else seems to be working.

America is beautiful. But we’re going about it all wrong.