California Bans ‘Redskins.’ So What About Confederate Heroes?

Last month, Governor Jerry Brown signed a law making California the first state in the nation to ban public schools from using the term ‘redskins” as a team name or school mascot. As a result of this law, 4 high schools in California will have to change the names of their teams. They will have a year to come up with new names. All 4 of the schools are in poor communities in the Central Valley. The principals of all 4 schools said that the only reason they hadn’t already changed the names of their teams was because of the cost. They say they don’t have the money to buy new uniforms. This new law raises a question in my mind: “What, if anything, is California going to do now about the many public buildings, monuments, parks, etc. in this state that are named after Confederate heroes?” (I teach Civil War history at Orinda Intermediate School.)

 
John & Joseph LeConte. California was always a free state, and it was a Union state in the Civil War, but nevertheless, there are monuments to Confederate heroes all over California, including right here in Berkeley. The biggest building on the U.C. Berkeley campus is LeConte Hall, named after the brothers John and Joseph LeConte. John LeConte was an early president of the University of California, and Joseph LeConte headed the university’s physics and natural history departments. The LeConte brothers grew up in Georgia on their father’s plantation, where the family owned over 200 slaves. During the Civil War, the LeConte brothers volunteered their services to the Confederacy. The Confederate government gave the LeConte brothers the job of solving their most urgent chemical problem – making gunpowder. When the Civil War began, there was very little gunpowder in the South, and they had no way to make it. All of the gunpowder and chemical factories in the United States were in the North. The Confederacy also couldn’t import gunpowder because the Union navy was blockading southern ports. The leaders of the Confederate government knew that unless they found some way to make large quantities of gunpowder, the South would quickly lose the war.

Gunpowder is a mixture of 3 ingredients: sulphur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate, which is also known as niter or saltpeter. The South had plenty of sulphur, and it is easy to make charcoal. However, the South didn’t have much potassium nitrate. Potassium nitrate is a basic ingredient in gunpowder, and there is no substitute. You can’t make gunpowder without it. The LeConte brothers conducted experiments trying to find a practical way of producing potassium nitrate from materials commonly available in the South. Their experiments were successful, and as a result, they wrote pamphlets which were distributed to Southern farmers explaining how they could extract potassium nitrate from the urine of farm animals. Because of the LeConte brothers, the Confederacy never ran out of gunpowder during the Civil War.

Both of the LeConte brothers were committed to the principles of the Confederacy and were openly racist. Joseph LeConte wrote extensively on the subject of race. He wrote that “the enfranchisement of the negro was the greatest political crime ever perpetuated.” He found Reconstruction intolerable. In order to avoid teaching black students at the University of South Carolina, Joseph LeConte gave up his professorship and moved to Berkeley, where his brother John was already running the university. The LeContes are honored all over the city of Berkeley. LeConte Hall is gigantic. It is the largest academic building on any public university campus anywhere in the United States. In addition, there is a LeConte Avenue in Berkeley, a LeConte Elementary School, LeConte Apartments, and a LeConte Park.  According to AirBnB’s website, I live in Berkeley’s ‘LeConte District.’ Plus, there are statues, busts, and plaques of the LeConte brothers scattered all over campus.

Now What? O.K. California has banned ‘redskins’. So what should we do now about the heroes of the Confederacy? My own opinion is that, at the very minimum, we shouldn’t name anything else for the LeContes. They have more than enough stuff named for them scattered around town already. Admittedly, the LeConte brothers held obnoxious racial views, but their views were common among wealthy white men in America 150 years ago, both in the North and the South. If we rename everything in Berkeley that is now named for the LeConte brothers, then what do we do about all the other stuff in town that is named for other slave owners and racists. For example, Berkeley has both a Washington and a Jefferson elementary school. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were both major slave owners.

Jack London. And what should the city of Oakland do about all the stuff there that is named for Jack London? Jack London was very racist. His 1904 essay ‘The Yellow Peril’ is full of ugly anti-Chinese stereotypes. Even worse is Jack London’s ‘The Unparalleled Invasion’, a science fiction novel in which the author gives his approval to a plan to exterminate of the bulk of the population of China by biological warfare as the “only possible solution to the Chinese problem” and then resettling the country with Westerners. Renaming everything in Oakland that is currently named for Jack London would cost a ton of money. There is a lot of stuff in Oakland named for Jack London. So what do you think Berkeley and Oakland should do?