The men who transformed abolition from a fringe movement into a popular fervor were among the most interesting and heroic cultural changers in our history. Without their efforts at moral persuasion, there would not have been a President Lincoln, there would not have been enough public opinion to sustain the Civil War, and the Union would have been preserved at the height of American freedom. There probably wasn’t any.
I have just published a historical novel about three real-life brothers who spontaneously, without private or government coercion, persuaded millions of their fellow men to change their minds about human bondage. These persuaders were generous and brave, ruining personal fortunes and even risking their lives in defense of their principles.
Indeed, we should remember these people who deeply uplifted our society, especially at a time when positive examples of racial reconciliation and social cooperation across borders can be a national analgesic. I want to go there. right?
That wasn’t what I kept hearing from Manhattan publishers and Hollywood insiders as my story meandered toward publication and video streaming options. As we know, most of the Americans who campaigned for abolition in the mid-1800s were white.
Granted, not everyone was like that. Samuel Cornish, Frederick Douglass, Jermaine Rogen, Samuel Ward, David Ruggles, Harriet Tubman, the Edmonson sisters, and other free black people play important roles in my story. However, for obvious reasons, African Americans oppressed by slavery were less able to actively participate in organized movements to end that horrible institution. In other words, it was the white people who provided most of the impetus for the abolitionist movement.
Many of today’s cultural gatekeepers want nothing to do with the chronicle, characters, or events of white people helping black people. It’s a forbidden “white savior” story. That is colonialism. That’s cultural appropriation.
According to this view, stories with high stakes for black people, such as the abolition of slavery, must show black leaders leading white allies, never the other way around. And the story should only be told in black voices. The fact that it is out of sync with the prevailing fashion should be ignored. Even the biggest events can be sidelined or rewritten if they develop in ways that are unfavorable to current racial theorists.
And this is exactly why you have never heard of Arthur Tappan and Lewis Tappan.
In addition to being the patron saints of the abolitionist movement, they organized and financed many of the 19th century’s advances against illiteracy, addiction, sex trafficking, violence, and poverty. These brothers were among the most important civil society reformers in U.S. history. But they were also dead white, European, evangelical, wealthy Wall Street merchants.
Many modern tastemakers find this detail inconvenient. The trend rewrite machine wants a more acceptable paladin to lead the movement against slavery. To invent characters and to set aside these unpleasant events as if they never happened.
What’s interesting is that the Tappan brothers themselves were surprisingly colorblind. They were completely unaffected by their origins, wealth, power, or professional status. They always reached across racial lines. Arthur accidentally causes a riot when he brings a black friend to a church pew during the era of racial segregation. As Lewis assembled a mixed-race choir and a mixed-race audience for his speech, racial identity advocates shut down Manhattan in days of mass unrest.
Their brothers set a legal precedent by refusing to recognize race in the cases they decided as judges. All of these men regularly brought black professionals and artisans into key roles on their projects.
The Tappans believed that although people diverge and converge in many ways, race was not an essential determining factor. Their views were the same as those later expressed by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. When no one will shout “Black Power!” But everyone will talk about the power of God and the power of man. ”
The Tappans supported the now-fashionable argument that race establishes each person’s worldview and existence, that one should not stray from one’s racial lane when conducting social analysis, and that one’s racial identity is a trump card. What do they think about the claim that they are? They are constantly told such things by racists, including famous and influential people like their mortal enemy, John Calhoun. I have been suffering.
Senator and Vice President Calhoun promoted the idea that race is more important than class, nationality, religion, or personality, and is a profound attribute that cannot be ignored. Race matters, he argued, and therefore categorizing people based on racial criteria must be part of all laws, etiquette, and everyday decision-making.
Calhoun argued that racial neutrality was not only unattainable, but nefarious. He denigrated people who claimed to be colorblind.
The Tappan brothers were completely against it. Their view was that a person’s character, experience, and education were far more important than race, especially in forming a member of God’s family. They believed that across societies, the commonalities of human existence were deeper than differences in skin color.
As donors, Arthur and Lewis were major benefactors of a pioneering school called the Oneida Institute, the first in the nation to admit white, black, and Native American students without discrimination. At one point, Lewis asked Chancellor Berea Greene about the school’s enrollment in each racial category. Mr. Green said he had no idea and could only make rough guesses.
At first Lewis thought this was sloppy, but then he realized. The school wants students of all colors to have their rightful place in society, without respecting race or other arbitrary characteristics. So not organizing them was a good start.
After a newspaper attacked his colorblindness, my book records Lewis spouting, “I’m really tired of talk about race, brother.” We would all get along much better if we didn’t let color influence our decision-making. ”
It was a pragmatic judgment made many years ago by many of our nation’s most able and benevolent social reformers. Today, rediscovering the utility and justice of colorblindness is within our reach.
Karl Zinsmeister writes a new historical novel “The Brothers: The True Story of the Great Family That Freed America.”
