Here I Stand: The Life and Legacy of John Beecher by Angela J. Smith

Abstract

Reviewed by: Here I Stand: The Life and Legacy of John Beecher by Angela J. Smith Lynn Moss Sanders Here I Stand: The Life and Legacy of John Beecher. By Angela J. Smith. Modern South. (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2017. Pp. xviii, 229. $49.95, ISBN 978-0-8173-1954-0.) Here I Stand: The Life and Legacy of John Beecher considers the life and work of poet, professor, and social worker John Beecher (1904–1980) in the context of his family history. Angela J. Smith argues that John Beecher, as the great-greatnephew of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher and great-grandson of their older brother Edward Beecher, was a "twentieth-century abolitionist who carrie[d] his forebears' moral sensibilities into a new era" (p. xi). Parts 1 and 2 of this biography discuss the legacy of the historical Beecher family and John Beecher's childhood in Birmingham, Alabama, where his father worked as an executive for the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company (a subsidy of U.S. Steel), and his mother, Isabel Garghill, was "'the highest paid and most popular dramatic reader of her time'" (p. 21). Beecher's unconventional childhood included a Catholic upbringing in the South, some years of homeschooling, early graduation from high school, and a close friendship with a young black worker who shared stories and blues songs. The Ku Klux Klan murder of the family priest was another formative childhood event. Part 3 covers Beecher's professional life in teaching and social work, from 1928 to 1955, including his training under Howard W. Odum at the University of North Carolina (Smith mistakenly identifies Odum's white colleague Guy Johnson as African American) and Beecher's substantial publication in Social [End Page 1032] Forces about a biracial labor union rebellion in Alabama. Beecher worked for a number of New Deal agencies, and then, after a wartime stint on a merchant marine ship, he moved to a career in college teaching. Beecher moved frequently, married four times, and often rebelled against the strictures of government jobs. His most famous rebellion was a refusal to sign the Levering Act loyalty oath as a faculty member at San Francisco State College. Smith writes that Beecher's subsequent legal battles were only resolved near the end of his life, when he was rehired to teach at the age of seventy-three. Smith relates Beecher's childhood reaction to hearing his grandmother read Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) aloud: "'My heart was greatly stirred and troubled by the picture of injustice which was unfolded in this book . . . . I resolved that when I grew up, I too would become a liberator of the Negroes like my ancestors'" (p. 5). During the civil rights movement in the 1960s, Beecher served as a southern reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle while also writing more radical pieces for the left-leaning publication Ramparts. While Smith does not attempt a literary critique of Beecher's poetry, she does include excerpts from some of Beecher's most well known poems in pertinent chapters, thus highlighting his view of himself as a poet first. Smith's research benefited from a personal relationship with Beecher's widow, Barbara Beecher, and access to her wealth of documents about her husband's life and works. Smith notes that, along with the archive of Beecher's papers at the University of Texas at Austin, one of his most useful contributions for historians is the wealth of material he preserved during his long life relating to many of the important events of the twentieth century. Here I Stand is readable and well organized. Although John Beecher is a somewhat minor figure in twentieth-century American history, his life touched on a number of important events, so this book will be a useful tool for students of both southern and American history. Smith is convincing in her portrayal of him as the intellectual and moral progeny of his famous ancestors. Lynn Moss Sanders Appalachian State University Copyright © 2018 The Southern Historical Association