Author Archives: gail chumbley

Connecting the Dots

Political polls have waned in recent years as reliable measures of public sentiment. The complex world of cyber communications has rendered accurate assessments nearly impossible to measure. Apart from the unexpected twists and turns of daily events, the American public seems to have decided their choices well before election day. The 2024 choice for chief executive began in the fall of 2016 with the release of the Hollywood Access clip between host, Billy Bush and guest, Donald Trump.

The vulgar misogyny revealed in that tape offended every thinking woman across the country. Following Trump’s surprise victory outrage spilled over as women from every point across the nation protested that an unfit and unacceptable man had reached the highest office in the land. Two months later approximately 500,000 women traveled to Washington DC to protest Trump’s ascendence to office, while sister marches gathered across all 50 states, with more around the world, numbering somewhere around 4 million women.

Not long after this historic march the “Me Too” movement gathered momentum. From prominent celebrities such as Mira Sorvino and Ashley Judd, to everyday women, all shared their #MeToo story across the internet. Clearly sexism and predatory male behavior had touched all of our lives, at one point or another, and women were through with bad behavior.

A flurry of political activity followed the March as well. According to Time Magazine women seeking elected office jumped to a 350% increase from 2016, with many winning seats in state legislatures, governorships, and federal offices. Vice President Harris was not the first woman to seek the vice presidency, but she is the first elected to office. Other women came forward with stories directly linked to Trump. E. Jean Carrol, and Stephanie Clifford, among others, spoke out to expose the neanderthal behavior of the 45th president. From their courage Mr. Trump has been convicted of sexual assault and financial fraud.

Not long after his election Trump packed the Supreme Court with inexperienced and disingenuous judges who overturned hard-won medical protections for American women. In 2022’s Dobbs V Jackson Women’s Health Organization fifty years of reproductive rights were gone almost at once. Roe V Wade died, along with an increased number of women and girls, especially in those states with new draconian medical restrictions. The viability of fetuses, life threatening complications for the mother, and victims of incest and rape found no physician willing to risk medical assistance.

More than Trump’s kissing up to tyrants like Putin, more than the January 6th coup attempt, more than inflation or immigration, or his serious legal problems, none have impacted more Americans than predatory male offenses and the right for a woman to direct her own life.

No poll can measure the deep-seated outrage women collectively feel at this moment, two days before the 2024 presidential election. To examine each episode separately from 2016 to now doesn’t fit a pollster’s brief questionnaire—but linking them together over a period of time does, much like connecting the dots on paper reveals a persuasive picture. 

Outside of some fluke or other Trump antics, Kamala Harris will prevail on Tuesday.

Postscript, 11/9/24. Little did we realize the number of women suffering from Stockholm syndrome across America.

Gail Chumbley is a history educator and writer.

A Good Deal

A painting by Valeriy Franchuk, “Harvest of famine” (2000)

A Reblog.

NBC news recently ran a piece on Trump meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelenskyy. In a video clip Mr. Trump announced that he had spoken with Zelenskyy about opening talks with Vladimir Putin to end the conflict between the two countries. Trump stated to the cameras that Russian President Vladimir Putin would give Ukraine a “good deal.”

Mr. Trump does not know nor does he care about Ukrainian history. If he did, the president would understand that negotiating with the Russian leader is unthinkable, a non-starter. To understand why is to look not only into Ukraine’s recent past but back into the 1930’s.

Putin’s first attempted assassination targeted Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko. In 2004 Yushchenko narrowly escaped death after surviving dioxin poisoning, a combination of toxic chemicals which left him weakened and permanently disfigured.

Putin, as a former KGB operative is a master of murder, and why the International Criminal Court has an arrest warrant for him.

An impulsive hustler by nature Trump shows little interest in the crimes of Vladimir Putin. After the recent meeting in Alaska, Trump again called on Zelenskyy to make a deal with Putin. That the Russian has targeted Zelenskyy in numerous assassination attempts on multiple occasions, including three failed hits in one week is of no consequence.

However this narrative reaches back further to the early Twentieth Century, when another strongman, Josef Stalin rose to power.

Following the 1924 death of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, Stalin coldly and efficiently murdered his own rivals consolidating his power as an absolute despot.

Launching his Five Year Plan, Stalin’s vision for economic prosperity, he ordered collectivization of Ukrainian farms, seizing land and harvests for Russia’s consumption. Calling farmers Kulaks, a pejorative name, Stalin justified his actions by fabricating enemies, complete with mass arrests, show trials, executions, and deporting thousands to Siberia. In that period alone thousands of Ukrainians perished in freezing rail cars, or worked to death in frigid Siberian work camps.

The total number of transportation deaths remains unknown.

However transport was not the worst weapon employed by Stalin. Ukrainian Communist party workers not only stole seasonal harvests but also the seed for future planting.

A genocide followed.

From 1930 through 1933 millions of Ukrainians starved to death or resorted to cannibalism due to Stalin’s disastrous Five Year Plan. Production dropped under the forced collective effort, and the Communist leader had to find scapegoats for the disaster, so he pinned blame on the farmers. Kulaks were dying in massive numbers on purpose to undermine the Kremin’s economic plan.

Stalin insisted he was the victim of treachery.

Called the Holodomor, (death by hunger) as it is remembered, cost the lives of somewhere between 3.5 to 5 million Ukrainians. Adding that number to those deported to Siberian gulags it is safe to say that the Ukrainian people suffered a monstrous horror.

Ukrainian memories and justifiable outrage remain vivid.

As for that ‘good deal’ with Vladimir Putin, President Zelenskyy is not interested. The Ukrainian President has no faith in Russian promises, and is not impressed by Mr. Trump and his previous effort to shake Zelenskyy down for corrupt political ends.

Today thousands more Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have lost their lives fighting this Putin-engineered war, but with national memory to guide them Ukrainians will not back down. Ever.

Independence from Russian oppression is relatively new and very fragile, and that nation will never surrender on Trump’s assurances of a ‘good deal.’ The people of that battered nation know better.

So should we.

This is the web site of the Ukrainian Embassy in DC if you’d like to make a contribution.

https://www.ukrainehouse.us/

Gail Chumbley is a history educator and writer.

Beyond The Symbols

Patriotic symbols, music, and the Pledge of Allegiance recited at a solemn ceremony can be deeply moving. A simple presentation of the flag at a formal function can be awe-inspiring. The lone, austere notes of Taps played at a military funeral elevates a moment into sacred reverence.

The sounds and symbols of American devotion are powerful.

Still, as commanding as recitations, patriotic colors, and America the Beautiful can feel, deeper symbols in our shared history can reveal so much more.

In his book, Washington’s Crossing, historian David Hackett Fischer introduces his volume with a discussion of Emmanuel Leutze’s famous painting of the same name. Fischer guides the reader through elements in the painting, noting passengers figure by figure as they frantically navigate the frozen Delaware River on that long ago Christmas night. 

Why is this particular work especially moving? Because at that juncture, December 25, 1776, the Revolutionary War looked to be flaming out after barely a start. Defeat had dogged Washington’s Continentals after being chased off of Long Island, and driven out of New York City the previous summer. As Washington planned his surprise Christmas attack, victorious Redcoats had settled into winter camp in New York City.

Humiliated, Washington knew he had to strike hard and he had to win.

Viewing his situation with the “clarity of desperation” the General ordered an assault on Hessian (German mercenary) held Trenton, New Jersey. The Continental army would have to use the element of surprise fighting against a better armed and better fed opponent. Risky to the extreme, Washington knew we, meaning America, for all time, was dependent upon his actions that night.

As for the painting, the artist depicts freezing soldiers huddled in a boat with more watercraft in the backdrop. From the starboard side, (to the right of General Washington) sits an oars-man, distinctly Black, putting his back into his strokes, ploughing through dangerous ice floes. Behind him, facing forward at the bow, is another swarthy figure, perhaps a Native American. He is desperately kicking ice with his left boot while handling a sharpened pole to break open a passage through the impossible crust. To the foreground an immigrant (a Scot by the look of his hat) studies the river’s surface closely as he pulls forward to port, while another behind him, in fisherman gear, studies the treacherous water. Others are made up of rustics, one at the tiller, along with a wounded passenger.

General Washington centers the painting as he is the central figure of the drama. Behind the General is Major James Monroe, and another rugged frontiersman by the looks of his garb. Both men are grasping a 13-star (Betsy Ross) flag, in a grip that elicits an attitude of determination and desperation, with perhaps a bit of warmth. Below both flag bearers sits a WOMAN, yes, a woman pulling her oar with an analytic eye upon the clotting water.

Black, Native, white, immigrant, the highborn, the humble, men and women, yesterday, today, and the future: all of our American lives balanced on the gamble played that night in 1776.

The point I believe Leutze is trying to convey is that we all don’t have to be the same. No one has to agree on the details of our beliefs to ride on that boat. The truth is Americans all have and had different realities and ambitions: differing views of liberty. Still, all onboard had to carefully respect each other’s space and not overturn that fragile vessel, Liberty, for we must stay afloat and row in the same direction. It is in all our interests to do so.

And that metaphor of America, that boat, tested our resolve on one of the nation’s most critical nights. Inspiration doesn’t come any better than from Leutze’s allegorical Washington’s Crossing.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, River of January, and River of January: Figure Eight. Chumbley has also penned two stage plays, Clay, and Wolf By The Ears, concerning the life of Senator Henry Clay, and an in-depth examination of the beginnings of American slavery. Gail is currently working on another piece, Peer Review, best described as Dickens A Christmas Carol meets presidential history.

An Open Letter To NBC

NBC News is my media outlet of choice. Integrity and journalistic excellence has made for my confidence in the network. Adding Rona McDaniel as a consultant runs counter to the very qualities that built the network.

By allowing a documented source of misinformation (lies) as a consultant, NBC legitimizes that position as valid. 

It is not.

Lincoln would not treat with the Confederates, nor FDR with Hitler. Do not permit Ms McDaniel a seat of legitimacy in a world dependent on facts.

I would encourage your anchor line-up to a work stoppage, and  I will change the channel.

Post script-This goes for DJT as well. During the campaign you covered him easily 3:1 over the VicePresident. Give us all a rest. Don’t sell out our democracy for ratings.

Gail Chumbley, Idaho

A Rendezvous

One central  philosophy guided my years of American history instruction. The story had to feel personal to each student, after all it is their country. For the unit on World War Two, I aimed to act as a bridge between my grandparents generation to the kids seated before me. While growing up, my grandparents played a large part in shaping my world view, as the old folks often shared their life experiences. Each had a unique tale on how they committed to fight totalitarianism abroad in the 1940’s, and defend democracy at home. 

All the following accounts involved inconvenience, sacrifice, and interruptions to family life. At that singular moment all they knew was to serve their country, and defeat foreign tyranny. 

A new dark age lay in America’s defeat.

This is Ray Turner, born in 1905 in Hammond, Illinois. This young man migrated west, joining family members in Northern Idaho. Ray soon found his way to Spokane, Washington, where he found work as a postal carrier. Stopping for lunch along his mail route he met a waitress in a downtown cafe, Ailene Peterson, a single mother of one, and after a while they fell in love. Marrying in the fall of 1941, the newly weds, while on a Sunday drive caught a breaking news bulletin on the car radio that the Japanese had attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Ray turned his automobile around, motored back to Spokane, and joined the Coast Guard the next morning. Stationed out of Willapa Bay in Tokeland, Washington, Ray and the crew of the USS Manzanita patrolled the extensive, rugged Pacific coastline of Washington and Oregon monitoring for Japanese vessels. And it was aboard the Manzanita that Ray remained until August,1945 when he mustered out of the service and returned to Spokane. After a life of grandkids, holidays, and fun on his lake property, he retired from the US Postal Service, passing away in 1974.

Kurtz Olson hailed from Wing River, Minnesota, born on a frigid day in January, 1905. Kurtz, as the youngest of seven children took up welding as a young man, and made a fair living during the difficult Depression years. This photo, take in the 1930’s, (Kurtz on the left) indicates that Hitler was considered harmless and laughable. That certainly changed in 1939, and after the Pearl Harbor attack brought America into the war, Kurtz packed up his wife and family and traveled west to Tacoma, Washington in search of war work. Kurtz spent his days dismantling scrap metal in a welding yard preparing the steel for conversion to ships, planes, tanks, and other war materiel. After the war Kurtz moved his family to Spokane, where he welded, owned a series of mutts, cut firewood with his son, and grandson’s. Kurtz passed on in 1989. 

IMG_0791

This GI is Joe Tucker, this snapshot taken somewhere in France around 1944. Born in Craig County, Oklahoma in 1907, Joe found himself back in uniform at the ripe old age of 37, much older than the 18 and 19 year-olds in his outfit. Joe had actually been in the army until 1939, receiving his first discharge before the war. Making his way to the Pacific Northwest he too, settled in Spokane where he met and married a widow with three children. His daughter from his first marriage lived in the city, as well, and he wanted to remain near her. Working for the Northern Pacific Railroad, with his new, larger family, Joe joined the Washington National Guard for the extra pay guard duty brought in. After Pearl Harbor the US Government nationalized the Washington Guard, and off he went to war. After training stateside, then stationed in the south of England, Joe found himself on Normandy Beach on June 7, 1944, D+1. Surviving those first days he and his fellow Guardsmen suffered through the Battle of the Bulge, finally winding their way to Germany. On one particular night, Joe stood guard duty somewhere in Germany. He heard his sergeant grouse was the soldier on duty asleep? The reply was no, it’s Tucker, and he’s awake alright. (Joe liked telling that story). Eventually Joe shipped home to reunite with his family in 1945.

From her waitressing job, Ailene Peterson, turned Ailene Turner followed her new husband Ray to the Washington coast. Traveling with her young daughter Ailene looked for war work as well. Born in 1914, in Clinton, Minnesota, Ailene had married quite young, desperate to leave her father’s stump farm in North Dakota. Husband #1, Joe Tucker had failed her, and with her young daughter in tow, sought refuge with family members in Spokane. It was in Bremerton, Washington that she found employment wiring mine sweepers for America’s Russian allies, (she said they were very rude). In later life, Ailene proudly mentioned that her work never had to be redone. She always wired it right the first time. In an operators cab of a crane, Ailene noticed the girls below waving their arms and jumping about. Shutting down the motor she heard them yell that the Japanese had surrendered, and the war was over. Ailene scrambled down from her seat, and joined the victory celebration. She, too, along with Ray returned to Spokane until her death in 1990.

Besides being my grandparent’s, and generously sharing their remarkable stories with me, what else did these people share in common? They put aside their personal lives to step up in defiance of fascism and authoritarianism. They knew that service to America, to our democracy, was their first duty.

Retelling my grandparent’s war-time sacrifices to my history students added a vividness to the coursework that encouraged the kids to do the same with their elders. That, once again is how I bridged the war years to now, making it personal for students. 

President Roosevelt had characterized that moment as America’s “Rendezvous with Destiny,” and those people rose masterfully to the challenge. And despite all the hostility to democracy today, we cannot surrender to those forces, and betray our forebears who stood up to defend our way of life.

Perhaps now is our “Rendezvous with Destiny,” and this time all we have to do is vote for the Democrat over the wannabe dictator.

Once again, a new dark age lay in America’s defeat. 

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both are available on Kindle. Chumbley has also penned two history stage plays, “Clay,” and “Wolf By The Ears.” She is the co-author of “Dancing On Air,” and feature length screenplay, and is working on “Peer Review,” for the stage, a series of short plays where DJT meets real presidents from the past.

gailchumbley@gmail.com

Symmetry

This reactionary-looking gent is Marylander Roger Brooks Taney, an Andrew Jackson appointee to the Supreme Court. History remembers Justice Taney as the author of the Court’s most infamous ruling in Scott V Sandford (1857).  

Before his rise to the Court, Taney had made no secret of his opinion on slavery and citizenship, insisting that blacks in the country had no rights white men were bound to respect. A free black had requested documents for overseas travel that Roger Taney, as then US Attorney General, rejected. Taney declared his view that blacks were not citizens, and never would be. Travel documents for this man of color were denied.

Another important element in this story concerns the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Settled eight years prior to the election of Andrew Jackson, this legislation directed that, with the exception of the new state itself, slavery would be forbidden westward along Missouri’s southern border. Most Americans hoped that this Compromise Line would endure forever, clearly delineating for posterity new slave states from free.

By the time the Scott case wound its way to the highest court, violence and bloodshed had erupted on those very western lands, on the Kansas prairie. Emigrants raced from both northern and southern states, dead set to vote upon the status of slavery in the new state’s pending constitution. A volatile mix of invading, pro-slave Missouri Ruffians assaulted Free-State Jayhawkers near Lawrence, sparking deadly violence across the region. Unrepentant slaveholders demanded their 5th Amendment property rights (meaning slaves) be allowed any place slaveholders settled. At the same time, equally fervent opponents contended the “peculiar institution” would remain only where it existed, never to pollute new territories, or America’s future.

Justice Taney, as Chief Justice, took umbrage at these incessant attacks, and at those Northern rabble rousers who would not obey the law. When the Dred Scott case entered deliberations it appears Taney intended to settle the question for all time, silencing forever those interfering, and self-righteous Yankees. When the Court finally issued its ruling in 1857, Justice Taney’s opinion rang out with certainty, and finality.

Taney wrote

I Despite Dred Scott once residing in free territory with his master, he was still a slave.

II As a slave, Dred Scott was not a citizen and had no standing in court.

With those two main points established, Taney could have ended his decree, but the Chief Justice had some personal venom to add.

III Congress had exceeded its authority in legislating the Missouri Compromise in 1820, and the 1820 law was unconstitutional. 

IV Movable property, (slaves) could not be restricted by boundary lines or by popular vote. Property was protected by law.

Believing he had settled the dispute, Justice Taney had, in fact, only stoked a more massive inferno.

Indeed the Civil War exploded within four years of Taney’s ruling, and blazed for four bloody years. In the aftermath, an interesting turn of symmetry, the Fourteenth Amendment was submitted for adoption, flipping all of Taney’s arguments, provision by provision. 

I By virtue of birth in the United States, one was a citizen. 

II As a citizen a person was due all rights and immunities, with equal protection under the law. 

This amendment reads as if the Scott Decision acted as a template for reversal.

Fast forward to 2008. 

President-Elect, Barack Obama, in a conscious effort to mirror the sequence of fellow Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural, deliberately followed the 1861 Lincoln festivities. The Obamas rode the same train route as had the Lincoln’s, breakfasted on the same meal inauguration day, and when the moment came for the swearing in, President Obama chose the same Bible as touched by Abraham Lincoln’s right hand in 1861.

In this last twist of symmetry that Bible belonged to Justice Roger B Taney, the man who decreed blacks were not citizens and never would be. A very satisfying turn, indeed.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both are available on Kindle. Chumbley has also penned three stage plays, “Clay,” “Wolf By The Ears,” and “Peer Review.” She has cowritten “Dancing On Air,” a film script.

gailchumbley@ymail.com

Meet The Beatles

It was the night of February 9, 1964, a Sunday, when my older brother and I had to make a crucial little kid decision. The situation we faced left us over stimulated, careening off the living room walls. Our dilemma concerned whether or not to watch “Davy Crockett at the Alamo” on Disney, or the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. Adding even more adrenaline to the mix, our shared birthday was the next day, Monday, the 10th.

Agony.

In 1964 there were no video players, no DVD players, no home computers, or dvr’s. Our television stood inside a wood frame measuring about the size of Volkswagen Bug and beamed three network channels in glorious, flickering, black and white. This night’s decision was a one-off with no do-overs. Period.

Dale and I liked Davy Crockett an awful lot. We had watched all the previous episodes, and Davy biting the dust in San Antonio was the much anticipated grand finale. But, oh, the Beatles! “Please Please Me” had infiltrated AM radio, and the fever on the airwaves was palpable. 

This was a single decision, and a weighty conundrum for an almost 10, and almost 9 year-old. We had to choose.

In the end we tuned into Ed Sullivan and our world permanently shifted on its axis. George’s opening chords launched into John and Paul’s vocals. “Oh, yeah I’ll tell you something, I think you’ll understand.” The look, the sound, the energy knocked us both for a loop. And the band seemed so delighted with performing, visibly getting a kick out of the reaction of the screaming studio audience, and by extension, all of America. And then that deep bow at the end of the song! Wow.

In fan magazines we learned more about each individual: who was quiet, cute, endearing, and the leader, but those were minor details. That moment, on February 9th all we sensed was joyful wonder. John Sebastian said it best later, singing “how the magic is the music and the music’s in me,” and magic struck on that winter’s night.

The introduction of the Beatles to America reset the course of music world wide, not a small thing. Over the following years the joint efforts of Lennon/McCartney clearly demonstrated genius in both songwriting and brilliant recordings. After their breakup the four musicians pursued other projects: The Plastic Ono Band, Wings, Wilburys, and Ringo’s All Star Band. Each married, had children, remarried, then John was tragically murdered, and George died of cancer.

Now Paul and Ringo attend public commemorations of Beatle music, while their children pop up frequently on social media, each pursuing some latest venture or other. But those facts are details, and rather unimportant details compared to that singular moment on February 9, 1964.

For years I called my brother on our birthday, blasting “Birthday” from the White Album because “it’s my birthday too, yeah.” 

Now a lifetime has passed, and my birthday twin and partner in Beatlemania sadly died. But I remember, I’ll always remember. The gift of that moment survives, when we were both very much alive breathing in the unbounded optimism, energy, and magic when Dale and I first met the Beatles.

Oh, by the way, I’ve never seen “Davy Crockett at the Alamo.”

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Chumbley has also authored the stage play, “Clay” and “Wolf By The Ears.” In addition, Gail co-authored the screenplay, “Dancing on Air” based on her books.