Archive for December 3rd, 2004

2004.12.03

The December Challenge

A trend has started. This month’s challenge was issued by Uncle Roger, to express gratitude to those that have made a difference in your life. I like the idea. None of us got to where we are being who we are entirely on our own.

If you are wondering why I’m saying thank you to a few people, now you know…

2004.12.03

Thank You: J. Franklin Henderson

Professor J. Franklin HendersonOhio University, my Alma Mater, has a program where students vote for who was the best professor that year. These professors are then given leave to create a class they really want to teach, as opposed to a classes the have to teach. It’s called the University Professor Program. As a student, getting into these classes was quite competitive.

In the 1990-91 school year I was fortunate enough to get into one of these classes. The title was Heroes and Devils and it was taught by J. Franklin Henderson of the Political Science Department. Professor Henderson had led an interesting life, starting with being one of the first black graduates from Little Rock’s Central High School, the location of one of many serious civil right’s efforts.

The name of the class, as I said, was Heroes and Devils. Why he decided to teach the class I don’t recall, but I think he was disappointed that so many modern Americans were making social, political and economic issues grey. No longer were people able to see the world in terms of black and white, right and wrong, but only as shades of vile grey which mired opinions and prevented passion for the things a person might really care about to bloom. This was, along with wretched Political Correctness, one of the big problems with university education when I was in school.

I’m sure he was not so blinded as to not be aware of the great pitfalls of viewing the world in such absolute and delineated forms, but I’m just as certain he knew the benefit of individuals knowing how to judge an issue or another person in clear terms.

In class he would present us with historical personalities and we would talk about them, thier works and their legacies. The class ended with each student declaring -clearly and definitively- whether the person was a Hero or a Devil. For our final papers he assigned each of us a person -mine was Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes- and we had to had to declare him or her a Hero or a Devil.

The class was an great experience for me. I’d never been called upon to sit in judgement of another person, even if the people are now merely a part of history. Counter intuitively, I learned that it is easy to villify a person for his evil aspects when perhaps they did more good than anyone knows, and to glamorize others when they are corrupt, irresponsible, and dangerous. Forcing myself to make absolute judgements taught me more about myself and my opinions than any other experience in college, and it’s the single class I still talk about.

Professor Henderson, along with my other political science professor Ron Hunt, gave me an interest in politics that I might never have had otherwise. Professor Henderson’s interest in civil rights and his brilliant Heroes and Devils class helped form many of the opinions I have today. I can still hear his voice egging us on, coaxing our opinions out of the grey.

I was very saddened to learn the Professor Henderson died recently. Thank you, Frank, for one of the greatest experiences in my lifelong education. I declare, in no uncertain tems, that you are a Hero.

I found this by Leigh Householder, which give another perspective on Frank’s life and influence on some individuals.