When, around the turn of the 20th century, a reader scribbled “No” beside the title “Is the Negro a Beast?” — William G. Schell’s rebuttal to Chas Carroll’s “The Negro A Beast?” (1900) — the reader couldn’t have predicted that the note would figure into the annals of scholarly inquiry. But it has. That response, written in ink on a yellowed page, is included in the exhibition Confronting Hate: Antisemitism, Racism, and the Resistance at O’Hare Special Collections in Fordham University’s Walsh Library in the Bronx. The show spotlights centuries of hierarchical structures designed to dehumanize Black and Jewish people and question their right to be considered as equal citizens.
After deep discussions about the construct of hate, Magda Teter, Fordham’s Chair of Judaic Studies, and Westenley Alcenat, an assistant professor of history and African-American studies, led students to explore the apparatuses of racism and antisemitism to build this provocative show. The ephemera, culled from the school’s collection and outside sources, chronicles popular culture, scholarly writing, and art that built, transmitted, and refuted prejudicial influences on modern thought and behavior.
With the development of the printing press in the 1400s, the means to relentlessly disseminate anti-Jewish and anti-Black ideology flooded European society. “When there is a technological innovation it is often harnessed to disseminate hatred,” Teter told me in conversation. On view is Liber chronicarum (Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493), rife with derogatory stories about Jews. Teter’s new book, Christian Supremacy: Reckoning with the Roots of Antisemitism and Racism (Princeton), traces the legal basis and common struggle of antisemitism and Black racism to early ideologies of Christian theology and White domination.
“People from within the Black and Jewish communities stood up and tried to provide an alternative unburdened by these ideologies,” Alcenat noted. “There were also allies from other groups who pushed back on the prejudice.” Cabinet photo-cards from the late 1800s show Black Americans as middle-class citizens rather than enslaved people. Commissioned in 1948 to integrate industrial production plants, In Henry’s Backyard: The Races of Mankind by Ruth Benedict and Gene Weltfish, contains the line, “All people of the world have done their share to build civilization.” The rich exhibition catalogue reminds readers that the resistance served a crucial purpose: to encourage maligned peoples to believe in their worth.
One display, defending the legal and social status of Black Americans and Jewish people, includes The Negro Problem: A Series of Articles by Representative American Negroes of Today, which features essays by Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois (1903), among other scholars. Nearby is British writer Louis Golding’s The Jewish Problem (1938), arguing against Nazi Germany’s instigation of a “Jewish consciousness.” The red, white, and black cover of a 1960s issue of EBONY magazine, printed with the headline “The White Problem in America,” nearly glows beside them. Inside, James Baldwin, Martin Luther King Jr., and others voice resistance to oppression in the United States.
The vast collection of ephemera chronicles hate telegraphed through ancient blood libels, the Enlightenment’s scientific justifications for exclusion, and children’s books that both instill and confront stereotypes. Materials from the 1930s and 1940s show the Green Book, which listed hotels where Black travelers could stay safely and hotel postcards that welcomed or denied Jewish guests. As Alcenat mentioned, “What resounds throughout is how similar the Black and Jewish struggles against White supremacy have often been.”
Confronting Hate: Antisemitism, Racism, and the Resistance at O’Hare Special Collections (Walsh Family Library, Fordham University-Rose Hill, 441 East Fordham Road, Bronx) through June 24. The exhibition was curated by Magda Teter, Westenley Alcenat, and Lesley East.