海角大神

Last week, a friend gave me the book 鈥淎 Stronger Kinship鈥� by historian Anna-Lisa Cox. It tells of Covert, Michigan, a small town 30 miles from my friend鈥檚 childhood home.

His nearly all-white high school had played them in sports, yet only now was he learning that more than a century ago, Black and white residents in Covert had 鈥渓ived as equal citizens,鈥� as the book puts it.

As far back as the 1860s, they treated each other as neighbors regardless of race, farming side by side and educating their children together, despite laws that forbade it. Black men not only voted with white men but ran for office and won. And women helped one another in their domestic spheres.

But it wasn鈥檛 all about work. Black and white residents worshipped and socialized together too. Covert was even a safe place to love, with a handful of people marrying across the color line.

The town wasn鈥檛 founded by abolitionists or intended as a utopia. It wasn鈥檛 perfect either, yet it rejected both slavery鈥檚 grip on the North and the nation鈥檚 post-bellum oppression: Jim Crow laws, lynchings, court-sanctioned segregation.聽

Against all odds, it remained 鈥渁 community of radical equality鈥� where, on a daily basis, people followed the Golden Rule.聽聽

As Dr. Cox suggests, the correct question may not be 鈥淲hy did Covert happen?鈥� but 鈥淲hy not?鈥�

鈥淥ur puzzlement over Covert reveals a hidden assumption that racism is the norm,鈥� she writes.

That鈥檚 understandable given the nation鈥檚 history of race relations, but as she notes, 鈥淐overt reminds us that that terrible history was a choice 鈥� not a given.鈥�