Gene Owens' Commentary

The legacy of an ex-slave named Lizzie Harris

By Gene Owens

Basset Day never achieved the status of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, or even of the watered-down President's Day.

Perhaps that's because James Lutzweiler, my friend from Jamestown, N. C., was unable to find another sponsor to pick up the tab for the annual lunch, though you'd think Duke University, Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition or Al Sharpton's National Action Network might pitch in a pittance to keep alive a legacy spawned by an ex-slave's advice to a laboring white man.

In the wake of the Caucasian-bashing fulminations of Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's former pastor, Lutz and I thought it would be a good idea to bring Lizzie Harris to the forefront in the hope that it would create some interracial good will. The story comes courtesy of Richard Bassett, 90, son of Duke historian John Spencer Bassett, the central figure in what has been called Duke's finest hour.

John Spencer Bassett was not always a scholar. There was a time when he made his living by splitting cedar shakes and posts.

One day, as Bassett was following his sweaty pursuit, Lizzie Harris, who had been reared as a slave, approached him with words to this effect: "You've got a good mind. You ought to be working with it instead of with those splintered hands."

As Richard Bassett told Lutz: "My father looked down at his blood-red hands as the blood-red sun was sinking in the sky, and he decided that Lizzie was right."

But Lizzie wasn't finished. She gave Bassett a book, "Great Thoughts from Greek Authors." Inside the cover she wrote, in beautiful handwriting, "J. S. Bassett, from his friend, Lizzie Harris." She added a quotation: "Know how to wait and the kingdom will come to thee, not by violence, not by rapine, but by the hand of God."

Bassett subsequently enrolled at Johns Hopkins University,where he and some guy named Woodrow Wilson were among the first to receive the newly established American degree of doctor of philosophy.

Lizzie Harris' advice and generosity apparently left a liberalizing mark on Bassett. He joined the staff of Trinity College, as Duke University was then called.

In 1903, Bassett uttered an opinion that, in the eyes of many, amounted to blasphemy. He opined that the two greatest men born in the South during the preceding 100 years were Robert E. Lee and Booker T. Washington.

Never mind that he put the great general ahead of the great educator. To utter both names in the same breath was deemed cause for demanding Bassett's head on a platter.

Josephus Daniels, renowned editor of the Raleigh News & Observer, labeled Bassett an ass. Demands went forth for his discharge from the Duke faculty. The board of trustees met to consider the matter. The trustees voted to go against the tide of public opinion and to retain Bassett.

Lutz has watched many a Duke team bounce its way to glory across the basketball court and the television screen. But he considers this the university's finest hour.

In 1983, on the 80th anniversary of the Bassett Affair, former Gov. and U.S. senator Terry Sanford, then president of Duke University, delivered a speech to his faculty on the topic, "Doing the Right Thing." He recounted the Bassett story. Lutzweiler was intrigued, and soon made Sanford's acquaintance.

"He bought my lunch at least three times," Lutz said. And Duke commissioned him to go to Massachusetts to do a videotaped oral history with Richard Bassett. It was during this interview that Richard told Lutz the story of Lizzie Harris.

"I think it is easily one of the best stories in the history of Duke University -- and in American history, for that matter," said Lutz, who is archivist and rare-book collector at Southeastern Baptist Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. "I once offered to tell it to a black historian I met at a conference celebrating the Bassett Affair, if only he would buy me a steak. I am still waiting for his call. So I am passing it on to you in hopes that you will buy me a steak."

IOU one steak, Lutz.

Lutzweiler cites the Lizzie Harris story as illustrative of "the critical role some otherwise obscure black women have played in American history. They ought to be remembered not just in February, but forever."

It's March now, Lutz; I'm a procrastinator. But if you believe in academic freedom, pause a moment to thank Lizzie Harris.

(Readers may write Gene Owens at 317 Braeburn Drive, Anderson SC 29621 or e-mail him at WadesDixieco@aol.com