Leon Litwack, 91, Dies; Changed How Scholars Portray Black History

Leon Litwack, a leather-jacket-wearing, blues-loving historiographer whose pioneering books connected slavery and its aftermath demonstrated however Black radical thought astir and shaped their ain liberation, adjacent arsenic they were constrained by racism successful American society, died connected Aug. 5 astatine his location successful Berkeley, Calif. He was 91.

His wife, Rhoda Litwack, said the origin was bladder cancer.

Professor Litwack, a lad of left-wing immigrants from Russia, brought an ethos of patriotic dissent to some his teaching and his assistance astatine the University of California, Berkeley, insisting that the historian’s occupation is to springiness dependable to the marginalized and to marque the well-off uncomfortable. He sought to thatch students, helium said successful a 2001 interview, to “feel the past successful ways that whitethorn beryllium genuinely disturbing.”

Beginning successful the aboriginal 1960s, a clip erstwhile galore historians inactive treated enslaved and freed Black radical arsenic passive actors successful their ain narratives, helium chopped a antithetic path, immersing himself successful the archives to observe Black voices and their stories and amusement however they thought about, and struggled against, oppression.

One notable effect of that effort was “Been successful the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery” (1979), which won some the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

Just arsenic important, helium showed however oppression against Black radical was not unsocial to the South. In his publication “North of Slavery: The Negro successful the Free States, 1790-1860” (1961), Professor Litwack illustrated however racism had structured institutions and relations successful which Black and achromatic radical were supposedly equal, astatine slightest successful fashionable memory.

“He understood however profoundly racism and achromatic supremacy chopped done the country, and helium did it earlier a batch of different historians did,” said Jason Sokol, a historiographer astatine the University of New Hampshire who studied with him astatine Berkeley.

As a teacher Professor Litwack advised scores of doctoral students and taught an estimated 40,000 undergraduates successful his immense survey courses, wherever helium often showed up successful a leather overgarment and a Grateful Dead tie. He loved blues and rock, and utilized movie and euphony clips to illuminate American past since the Civil War; successful 1 people helium included the “The Complete Recordings” of Robert Johnson arsenic a required text.

“There’s a stereotype that celebrated academics don’t thatch the intro course,” James Grossman, the enforcement manager of the American Historical Association and a erstwhile pupil of Professor Litwack’s, said successful an interview. “Leon thought the opposite. For Leon, teaching that intro people was an obligation, but besides an accidental to person an interaction connected students nary substance what their large was.”

Leon Frank Litwack was calved connected Dec. 2, 1929, successful Santa Barbara, Calif. His parents, Julius and Minnie (Nitkin) Litwack, met aft arriving separately successful California arsenic Jewish immigrants. There they each gravitated toward left-wing governmental circles.

They were some moving people — Julius was a gardener, Millie a seamstress — and they raised Leon, their lone child, successful an ethnically diverse, pro-labor enclave successful Santa Barbara. He work voraciously, and portion helium loved the societal realism of Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo, helium felt particularly drawn to John Steinbeck, who successful “The Grapes of Wrath” and different books recorded the struggles of California workers similar his family.

He besides encountered the enactment of the Black historiographer W.E.B. Du Bois, whose 1935 book, “Black Reconstruction successful America,” told a overmuch different, and overmuch much positive, communicative astir the play aft the Civil War than the 1 successful his precocious schoolhouse past textbook.

One time helium asked his teacher if helium could connection a effect to the textbook; receiving permission, helium delivered a withering assault. When helium was done, his teacher gave him a scornful look and said, “Now, students, you indispensable retrieve that Leon is bitterly pro-labor.”

He took his committedness to societal justness with him to Berkeley, wherever helium campaigned for Henry Wallace, the 1948 Progressive campaigner for president, and protested the state’s request that nationalist employees, including assemblage faculty, motion an oath of loyalty to the United States.

During the summers, portion his better-off classmates went connected vacation, helium worked arsenic a messiness lad connected freighters shipping retired of San Francisco Bay, becoming progressive successful the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union, 1 of the country’s much left-wing labour organizations.

His activism — and refusal to motion a loyalty oath — got him fired from a pupil occupation astatine the Berkeley field library, and successful 1953 helium was subpoenaed to look earlier the House Committee connected Un-American Activities. But it besides brought him successful interaction with his idols: He introduced Wallace erstwhile helium came to talk astatine Berkeley; met Harry Bridges, the extremist West Coast national leader; and talked with Du Bois astir however American universities were teaching post-Civil War history.

He met Rhoda Goldberg arsenic an undergraduate and they joined successful 1952. She worked arsenic a preschool teacher. Along with Ms. Litwack, helium is survived by their children, John and Ann, arsenic good arsenic 2 grandchildren.

Professor Litwack served successful the Army aft graduation, past returned to Berkeley for his doctorate, wherever helium studied with Kenneth Stampp, a groundbreaking historiographer of the Civil War. After helium received his Ph.D. successful 1958, helium began teaching astatine the University of Wisconsin, wherever helium turned his dissertation into his archetypal book, “North of Slavery.”

He returned to Berkeley successful 1964, conscionable arsenic the field was roiling with pupil activism. Unlike galore of his chap professors, Professor Litwack afloat supported the protesters — helium canceled his people the time aft the constabulary arrested 800 of them during a sit-in astatine Sproul Plaza.

He besides drank heavy from the emerging counterculture astir the Bay Area, particularly its euphony scene. In 1 lawsuit helium reconnected with a erstwhile pupil from Wisconsin, Tracy Nelson, a people vocalist who was starting a set called Mother Earth, and gave her astir $700 to get disconnected the ground. In instrumentality she included him and his lad John successful a photograph of the set connected the wrong of their archetypal album, “Living with Animals” (1968).

Professor Litwack’s astir well-known book, “Been successful the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery,” dispensed with telling a linear past astir the years pursuing emancipation and instead, drafting connected years of probe successful obscure archives, presented thematic stories focused connected the mode Black Americans experienced their state and shaped it.

The publication was revolutionary; galore historians had assumed that specified documents didn’t exist, leaving them to recount the play solely from the achromatic constituent of view.

“‘Been successful the Storm So Long’ was pivotal successful giving a elaborate Black dependable during Reconstruction,” said the historiographer Eric Foner, a prof of past astatine Columbia University and himself a starring adept connected the period. “He turned astir the lit to marque Blacks the cardinal actors successful that transformation.”

Professor Litwack had his critics, though, particularly aft the work of his 3rd and past large book, “Trouble successful Mind: Black Southerners successful the Age of Jim Crow” (1998). While it was well-received successful immoderate corners, galore chap historians complained that it placed unrelenting accent connected Black radical arsenic victims and failed to archer a much nuanced communicative astir resistance.

“Litwack implies that African-American institutions relation simply successful effect to achromatic oppression, arsenic though blacks had nary beingness beyond their transportation with whites — Black Southerners arsenic victims alternatively than Black Southerners arsenic people,” wrote the historiographer Nell Irvin Painter successful The Nation. “For each its picturesque appeal, ‘Trouble successful Mind’ is stale.”

Professor Litwack remained a fashionable fig astatine Berkeley. In 2005 helium took connected a insignificant relation successful an undergraduate accumulation of “The Cradle Will Rock,” Marc Blitzstein’s 1937 philharmonic astir corruption and greed — helium played a pacifist prof whose lines included “I don’t similar subject training/Military grooming of immoderate kind/I’m a Tolstoyan.”

He gave his last lecture successful May 2007. Thousands of students, existent and former, packed the hall, immoderate coming from arsenic acold distant arsenic New York. Though helium had suffered a changeable a fewer years before, helium walked onto the signifier bedecked successful his leather jacket, the Isley Brothers’ “Fight the Power” playing connected the dependable system.

His emotion of euphony wasn’t conscionable a hobby. He believed that genres similar people and the blues presented captious perspectives connected American past — and offered a imaginable flight from what helium believed was an different grim destiny for a state inactive beleaguered by achromatic supremacy.

Once, a pupil asked whether helium had immoderate anticipation for America’s future, and why. Professor Litwack paused, then exclaimed, “Rock ’n’ roll!”