The Flag of South Carolina

In 1776 General Charles Moultrie was given the charge of building a fort in the Charleston Harbor to protect Charleston from the British Navy.  Lacking the building materials to build a stone or brick fort, he built one out of palmetto trees.  When his superiors arrived they had doubts about the redoubtability of the fort but they allowed it to be defended due to the impending British attacks on the harbor.  On June 28, 1776 a British ship commanded by Commodore Peter Parker entered the harbor and began to fire on Fort Moultrie.  Whereas brick or stone would have repelled cannon fire the spongy palmetto trees absorbed the shots, standing up to the barrage in a way that astonished the commanders of the Charleston faction of the ragtag American army.  The palmetto became the symbol of protection against tyranny and was placed on a blue background, the color of the uniforms the soldiers wore.  The crescent is not a moon contrary to its position on the flag and traditional waning gibbous shape.  In the Revolutionary War the soldiers in the South wore this symbol on their lapels and hats, the significance of which no one can seem to agree upon.  When the War Between the States exploded, the flag was altered to include this symbol as an indication of southern pride and resistance to a foreign power intent upon maintaining control over a nation wanting to be free.  A prevailing feeling in the South was that the Union was trying to accomplish with the Confederacy what the British were trying to accomplish with Colonial America.  To this day the flag remains just as much a symbol of southern legacy as the Confederate Flag but because of its subliminal nature cannot be called racist by those who have no clue what a racist is.

The Greensboro Four

In 1960 four black students at North Carolina A&T decided they wanted to contribute to the growing Civil Rights Movement.  On February 1st they woke up, dressed in their nicest clothes and went down to Woolworths store which was a restaurant/goods store.  They bought a notebook and then sat down at the counter.  The waitress came over and told them they had to go and when they said they would like to be served she got the manager.  When he insisted they leave and they refused, he went to get a police officer.  The policeman walked around them as they sat at the counter and thumped his nightstick into his hand.  After awhile he decided that he really had no idea what to do and so he sat back to watch.  An old white woman walked up to the counter and put her hand on one of the student's arms and told him that she was proud of what he was doing and surprised it took them this long.  The store closed early that day.  The next day the boys were back, accompanied by several classmates and protesters.  Day after day the crowd grew, the manager got more uneasy and the media began to cover this phenomenon.  Several days into the sit-in a few white girls came in and sat at the end of their counter that was now solidly occupied by many black people.  When the waitress asked what they would like to order they replied that there were people here before them.  The waitress walked away realizing that they weren't there for the food.  After sitting there until closing time the white girls stood up to the jeers of spectators and protesters.  The black men that had been sitting at the counter formed a wordless circle around the white girls as they left the building.  This act was a key cog in the Civil Rights Movement as it demonstrated the beginning of a breakdown.

Etymology of the Word Salary

So I just learned that Roman Soldiers were paid in part in lumps of salt because salt was so expensive in the middle ages.  The Latin root word for salt, sal, and the distribution of it as part of the soldiers pay gives us the word "salary."  If a man wasn't adequate in battle then the Romans would say that he "wasn't worth his salt."  Margaret Visser wrote a book called Much Depends on Dinner that has proved a bottomless pit for cool info like that.

Where Did Monks Come From?

So what is a Monk?  Many religions have a faction of men and women who seem to enjoy, or at least tolerate, an aloof existence with lots of fasting and itchy clothing.  We'll start with the Catholic Monks.  The word "monk" comes from the latin root word "monos" meaning alone or "monachos" meaning solitary.  After Jesus died, Paul toured around southern Europe preaching to the saints and writing epistles on how the church that Jesus had set up should be run.  Many of his epistles were written from prisons and describe brutal torture, as Paul rejoiced that he had secured his place in heaven.  When he died, his followers looked at his example as a way to salvation and since the Jews found Jesus' teachings heretical and the Romans feared their growing power, there was plenty of persecution to be had.  In 54 C.E Nero became Emperor and was generally despised by the Romans.  In 64 C.E his house caught fire, for which he was blamed, adding to a growing rumor that he was insane.  Nero blamed the Christians and the rout was on.  Theater, partying and the military were a huge part of Roman culture and the Christians had abstained from these practices which had already caused suspicion from the Romans.  Domitian succeeded Nero and put laws in place against Christianity, punishing many for not paying the tribute he required.  Ignatius of Antioch became famous for resisting an attempt to save him from prison by asking to die for his religion and others were held in high esteem for paying the ultimate price.  In 313 Constantine issued his Edict of Toleration and Christianity stopped being the punching bag of the Roman Empire.  People began to flood into the Christian ranks now that they were less persecuted and the gate to Heaven became wider than ever.  Something needed to be done to ensure the entry of those who suffered for Christ.  Anthony is widely considered the father of the modern monastic movement as he forsook a moderately wealthy inheritance to wander the desert.  He wrestled with demons that sometimes left him sore for days and eventually gathered such a large following that he withdrew further and further into the desert.  The idea of the "desert monk" exploded all over Europe as others began to follow this model of self persecution.   A monk named Pachomius later decided to organize these loose groups and created a "monastery" wherein monks could live and study together.  The Christian faction of the church (the precursor to the Catholic Church) was concurrently growing and there began to be strife between the monks and the other members of the church about which way to Heaven was correct.  In C.E 826 the Church began to use the monks as an appendage for missionary work and in 1215 Pope Innocent III decided that monasticism was too unwieldy on its own and would need to come under the full umbrella of the Catholic Church or be eradicated.  Monks became a part of the Catholic Church from there on.  Today monks are at the bottom of the Catholic hierarchy and live in much the same way as the early ascetics did with much study, fasting and prayer.

What about the Gridiron?

The highlights of race relations in the South are succinctly as follows.

1869 -The end of the War Between the States. (You won't hear me call it a "Civil War" here because civil means that it was within one country and it was actually two countries fighting each other.)

1896 - Plessy vs. Ferguson divides the races into "seperate but equal" sections of the South.  It never was equal and it stunted the growth of the South because it was more expensive than integration.

1954 - Brown vs The Board of Education rules that seperate schools for Black and White children are unconstitutional and the educational breakdown begins.

1955 - Rosa Parks decides that she doesn't want to get in the back of the racially divided bus that was taking her home from work in Montgomery, AL.  She was a prominent member of several Civil Rights organizations including the NAACP, the WPC and her church.  She had also been kicked off a bus seven years earlier by the same driver that was drving that day for not paying the fare and then walking around to get in the back door of the bus so some historians have suggested that this was premeditated.  Whatever her motivations she rocked the racial world of the South that day.  The driver had her arrested which precipitated a flurry of bus boycotts that brought the economy of the bus system to a screeching halt.  Martin Luther King Jr. became a prominent figure during this time.

1962 - James Meredith becomes the first Black Man to attend the University of Mississippi through nothing short of a full on war.

1963 - MLK gives his famous "I Have a Dream Speech."

1964 - The Civil Rights Act strikes down segregation all together.

So if the impact of an action is directly proportional to its relevance to everyday living then where does college football fall in all of this?  The freedom rides that began in the early 1960s affected the transportation facet of peoples lives and Brown did the same for education as the South began to break down the walls, but just because it was legislated didn't mean it was accepted. 

The NFL had been integrated for decades as had professional baseball and basketball and yet the South remained seperate and unequal.  Football has been played in America since 1869 in the North and 1888 in the South but only in the South was it segregated.  In 1888 an African-American named William Henry Lewis played football at Harvard, one the earliest recorded instances of its kind.  Black athletes dotted the subsequent history as walk-ons and substitutes but widespread dependence on the Black Man for football did not begin until 1938.  That year UCLA had the most integrated football team in the country with a man playing on the team named Jackie Robinson.  Yep.  The same Jackie Robinson that would go on a few years later to break down the barrier of professional baseball.  The popularity of UCLA football with Black fans and athletes alike caused racial walls to break down all over the country.  Except the South.  There were still Black walk-ons and reserve players on teams in the South but none had actually been "recruited" to play at a univeristy.  In 1963 Tom Nugent, the head coach at Maryland University decided it was time.  Nugent sent his assistant, Lee Corso, to find an African-American athlete who would help to inegrate football in the south.  We now know Lee Corso as the obnoxious guy on College Gameday that puts the mascot heads on to show his prediction.  A few months after Martin Luther King Jr. offered his compelling speech, he found Daryll Hill to come play football at Maryland.  While the subsequent process wasn't easy with several schools threatening to forfeit against Maryland and several threats to Hill's life, it had at least begun.  There were a few holdouts, though, the most notable being Bear Bryant of Alabama.

In 1970 the USC Trojans came to town in one of the most anticipated games in Alabama history.  It was the first game of the season and Alabama harbored national championship hopes.  USC brought their runningback Sam Cunningham, an African-American from Alabama, who proceeded to tear apart the Crimson Tide defense.  After a 42-21 rout, wherein Cunningham ran for 135 yards on only 12 carries, Bear Bryant made his way to the visitor's locker room.  He shook hands with Cunningham and told him what an incredible game he had played and walked out.  The next year Bryant had two Black athletes on his team.  If football was religion then Bear Bryant was god, so when he said it was ok to integrate, the rest of the South complied.  This weekend as you watch football, think about how far we've come.  You'll see White and Black players slapping hands, coaches hugging players and fans sitting shoulder to shoulder.  Sure, race issues still exist but not to the magnitude of a past era.  Regarding race we actually live in a pretty good time.

What I Learned at Graduate School

So I pretty much hate technology.  I have, however, begun to see some merit in it and therefore, technology and I have formed a tenuous truce.  I am currently obtaining an M.A. degree at UNLV in history and am loving it.  After classes I inevitably have some modicum of fascinating information about this strange place we call Earth and I subsequently engage in needlessly long conversations with people who could not care any less about what I am studying.  Hence, the purpose of this blog.  I figured I would jot down my ideas here and anyone who would like to get an uplifting historical thought to chew on during the day is welcome.  Hopefully making history accessible like this this doesn't get me kicked out of school.  Thanks to everyone who eventually reads this, let me know what I can do to make it better in the future!  -Joseph