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Pinhead--
I agree that the silence of many feminist groups is problematic.
Something to consider. For a century, Booker T. Washington has been castigated by elements in the African American community, political activists, and historians for that man's approach to civil rights. From their perspective, the Atlanta Compromise of 1895 represented a significant backwards step in America's long journey towards racial equality--a sojourn some argue, is still underway. A key question asked by these critics is What should have Washington done?*
However, more recent scholarship has focused on a different question: What could have Washington achieved? This line of inquiry allows readers to evaluate Washington within the specific historical circumstances that he encountered.**
While it remains to be seen if this more recent approach is sustainable from a historiographical stand point, it does provide food for thought when assessing the political, intellectual, social, and cultural activities of Americans who are operating from a different constellation of sensibilities. In the case of feminists, might they be more concerned with what they can "fix" today in Porn Valley than in Panjshir Valley?
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* W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of the Black Folk (1903); Louis R. Harlan, Booker T. Washington, 2 vols. (1975-1986).
** Robert J. Norrell, Up from History: The Life of Booker T. Washington (2009); Raymond W. Smock, Booker T. Washington: Black Leadership in the Age of Jim Crow (2009).
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