Julian Carlton in Black and White

[Mark Hertzberg]

I have just posted to www.wrightinracine.com

I welcome your comments on the post, below the article so all can see them, rather than just here in this closed group.

Mark Hertzberg

[Linda]

Thanks for sharing! I will often read your new posts
cookie clicker

[Roderick Grant]

There is strong evidence that the murder of Mamah et al fixed in FLW's mind a broader stereotypical sense of the black population, with whom he had never had much prior contact, in a harshly negative way. Cornelia Brierly wrote in "Tales of Taliesin" (page 72) about a visit to T-West by Paul Robeson at a time when FLW was away on a lecture tour. When he returned and found out about the visit, he was infuriated that Olga had invited Robson in. Later, he rethought his position, and invited Robeson back for a second visit, and began accepting black students at Taliesin.

The story seems to have required some editing. In a pre-publication version that Cornelia sent me to print in JTF, the initial response was considerably more hostile. The published version also does not mention Robeson's return visit.

[Roderick Grant]

It is always good to keep history alive, available for new information and views to modify early, inaccurate reports, as the NYT example makes clear. However, rewriting history without substantial evidence is not a good thing. The passage of time always includes changes in thinking and judgment on a grand scale. (Consider abortion and gay rights, for example.)

I believe FLW's use of the saying "N..... in a wood pile" appears in An Autobiography of 1932. After meeting Robeson, he would probably have eschewed the term. Yet ironically, the meaning of the offensive saying that was so casually used in the past, relates to the current subject: "Some fact of considerable importance has not been disclosed."

[DavidC]

THE MASSACRE THAT HAPPENED AT FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT'S HOME IN 1914


David

[SDR]

I don't think that I can bear to read another account of that awful day. I will have to "depend on the kindness of strangers"---or friends---to review this new version.

S