Developing Empathy through Primary Sources — 7/10/17

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

— To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

We’ve discussed many issues, ideas, events (historical and current) during this reading group. Quite often, we explore these topics at top-down level in order to digest their big ideas more easily. But through this approach we can gloss over the personal experiences of those who endured or instigated these events.

Therefore, I’d like to do something a little different for this reading group. I’d like each person to pick a significant event or movement in history. Then, find a couple primary sources that shed light on the personal experience of an individual who lived through the event. Feel free to pick a topic that you are very knowledgeable about (so that you are aware of the historical context) or know nothing about (so that your impression of the experience isn’t tampered by previous bias). If you’d like, you can focus on current events, as long as the personal experience you investigate is far removed from our own as 21st century progressive millennials.

For example, I’ve picked the Jim Crow era/Civil Rights Movement. Below, I’ve listed a few primary sources that give a better idea of what a black person felt during segregation and the movement created to deconstruct it. If you can’t think of an event, here are some options:

• A soldier’s experience on the Western Front during WWI.
• A Jewish person’s experience in a concentration camp during the Holocaust.
• An Eastern European’s experience under the influence of the USSR.
• A poor American’s experience during the Great Depression.

When we meet next week during the reading group, each person will share what event they picked and talk a little bit about what they learned from their primary sources. We’ll discuss to what degree we think it’s important to empathize with people when discussing social issues, and to what degree primary sources (historical or current) can develop our empathy.

At the same time, we need to be aware of biases or lack of information present in the primary sources that stage these personal experiences. Today, primary sources are created every day — in particular, the news — which shape the perception of our own personal experiences. It’s already hard enough to discern an objective view of current events — how will people 50 years from now do it? What will they make of our own personal experiences?

Primary Sources on Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement

(1) My Dungeon Shook: A Letter to My Nephew, James Baldwin. James Baldwin was a writer who crafted several essays (some novel length) on race relations in America.

(2) Here (first, second, third, fourth) are some clips from the recent documentary I Am Not Your Negro. In these clips, Baldwin marvelously explores the deeply problematic attitudes toward black Americans in the Jim Crow era.

(3) Emmett Till was a black teenager who was lynched by two white men in 1955 (Till was accused of flirting with one of their wives, but she would later admit she fabricated her testimony). The men were tried but found not guilty. This picture, which galvanized the Civil Rights Movement, depicts the deceased Till at his (open casket) funeral. This document details the account of a black journalist at the trial for Till’s murder, specifically during the witness testimony of Till’s great uncle.

(4) Elizabeth Eckford was one of the Little Rock Nine, the first black students to attend integrated schools in Little Rock, Arkansas after Brown vs. Board of Education. This document offers her account of attempting to make her way to the integrated school.