Stamp of Approval?

Word on the street has it that the person who told us that hindsight is 20/20 vision was blind in one eye his damn self. And that explains why in 2004 it's increasingly difficult to recognize the difference between this country's history and its alibis.

Here history is a mass market of collectible heroes who are bereft of moral conflict and flaws, the dead equivalent of pop stars: American idol, 1776. Time was when there was restricted access to this kind of embalmed celebrity, but in recent years we've become way more democratic with our half-truths. Case in point: on Public Enemy's 1989 incendiary "Fight the Power," the rage prophet Chuck D rhymed:

"I'm black and I'm proud, I'm ready, I'm hype 'cause I'm amped Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps."

But since that song first hit the airwaves, W.E.B. Du Bois, Carter G. Woodson, Langston Hughes, Malcolm X and, most recently, Paul Robeson have appeared as part of the Post Office's Black History stamp series (Robeson's is the 27th issue in the series to date). On one level, this belated recognition of African American history is an indicator of how hard black people have fought to force the United States to recognize our centrality to the national storyline -- and how successful we've been. After centuries of whitelisting, black American historical figures have finally begun to emerge in the public consciousness.

Viewed from another angle, though, issuance of postage stamps is curiously ironic, given the relationship the US government has had with black dissenters and the current assault on civil liberties under the guise of fighting terrorism. It is no coincidence that so many black leaders in the 20th century have, at one point or another, found themselves behind bars. Fannie Lou Hamer and Martin Luther King were arrested -- and Hamer beaten viciously -- for having the audacity to demand that the United States obey its own Constitution. Marcus Garvey was arrested for mail fraud and deported after his Universal Negro Improvement Association began demanding an end to colonialism in Africa.

The list of those harassed or placed under federal surveillance is even longer: James Baldwin, Medgar Evers, Bayard Rustin, Adam Clayton Powell and Roy Wilkins, among many others. Langston Hughes was not arrested, but was hauled before Senator Joe McCarthy's House Un-American Activities Committee and coerced into admitting that his early poems were unpatriotic and should be censored. Mary McLeod Bethune was accused of being a communist sympathizer for advocating equal rights. W.E.B. Du Bois was placed on trial at age 83 for allegedly violating the McCarran Act -- a piece of McCarthy-era legislation that made it illegal to work on behalf of a foreign government without registering with the State Department. (Du Bois' advocacy of peace amid growing threats of nuclear conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union had been construed as near treason.) The accumulated weight of this history raises a question of whether belated recognition marks progress or an attempt to gloss over the undemocratic history of the Unites States -- to provide a racial alibi for America at large.

That Paul Robeson is being honored with a stamp in the current era of repression and political paranoia is the height of historical irony. The catalogue of Robeson's achievements is incredible, but his demise, amid allegations of being a communist in the 1950s, is almost a metaphor for the experience of black heroes who have been enstamped by the US Postal Service. Robeson was born in 1898 to parents who were both former slaves. His mother died in a fire when he was six years old. His father served as minister at a number of churches in New Jersey (being pushed out of at least one post due to racial factors) and settled in as the pastor of St. Luke A.M.E.-Zion church in Westfield. Paul Robeson entered Rutgers College in 1915 as only the third black student to be accepted by the school. He went on to earn 15 letters in sports during his time there, joined in the debate team and graduated as valedictorian of the class of 1919. He went on to Columbia University Law School, graduated in 1922 and practiced law briefly before becoming disillusioned with the racism practiced by New York law firms. He decided to embark upon a career as an actor and vocalist.