title: Jefferson's Pillow:  The Founding Fathers and the Dilemma of Black Patriotism
author: Roger Wilkins
description: This astonishing book by the 1980s antiapartheid leader Wilkins (a professor of history at George Mason University and Pulitzer Prize-winner) provides a brief, but tremendously incisive demythologizing of four Virginian founders Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Mason (whose stature Wilkins justly elevates) and their conflicted attitudes toward race, in the process humanizing them and deepening our appreciation of the internal struggles involved in achieving their greatness, however flawed or incomplete. (There's nothing forced in this evaluation, as Wilkins acknowledges their enormous contribution to activists such as himself today.) Where others routinely excuse past figures or judge them by present standards, Wilkins exemplifies a subtler, sounder approach. Reaching back to England and Virginia in the 1600s, he briskly illuminates the historical, ideological and socioeconomic contexts that made a burning concern for freedom not just compatible with slavery, but materially and psychologically dependent on it. Surprising connections prove particularly revealing, as when Wilkins describes two English-educated second-generation Virginia aristocrats as suffering "something akin to the problems encountered by the bright barrio or ghetto youngster who is selected and groomed and sent to Harvard and then tries to return to his or her roots." He gets inside the "addictive" naturalness of privilege that slaveowners enjoyed via his own draft-deferred student experience during the Korean War, but without forgetting his ancestors' suffering as slaves. Indeed, reflections on his family history ground Wilkinsand allow him to develop enormous sympathy for and insight into his subjects without losing balance or excusing the inexcusable. His insight recalls James Baldwin, arguably the best we've ever had for appreciating the humanity of even the most flawed among us without yielding an inch of moral principle. </P><P>Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.</P>
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  ##### www.blackmask.com
  
  
  # Cross of Gold
  
  
  ### William Jennings Bryan
  
  
  This page copyright © 2002 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com  
    
    
  
  
  July 9, 1896, at the Democratic National Convention, Chicago
  
  
  Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention: I would be
  
  
  presumptuous, indeed, to present myself against the distinguished
  
  
  gentlemen to whom you have listened if this were a mere measuring of
  
  
  abilities; but this is not a contest between persons. The humblest
  
  
  citizen in all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause,
  
  
  is stronger than all the hosts of error. I come to speak to you in
  
  
  defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty—the cause of
  
  
  humanity. ....
  
  
  Never before in the history of this country has there been
  
  
  witnessed such a contest as that through which we have just passed.
  
  
  Never before in the history of American politics has a great issue been
  
  
  fought out as this issue has been, by the voters of a gr