Our theme for the month of June is “Celebrities and Me.” Writers were asked to select and write about a celebrity with whom they feel some connection.
It was partly his dour expression, posed stiffly in the three-piece suit for his most famous photo. It was partly his ridiculous double-barrelled name: “Rutherford Birchard,” impossible to imagine cooing at a baby or whispering to a lover. It was partly the fact that he topped no lists of famous presidents, just one more black-and-white post-Lincoln president over a century ago. There was certainly no historical reason I latched on to former President Rutherford B. Hayes in high school, but my affinity for the president became a running joke between me and my friends.
Growing up, I wasn’t very interested in presidents or the stream of wars and treaties my history books presented. I liked American Girl and Dear America, books about ordinary girls my age living through historical times. So it wasn’t particularly in character for me to screen print Rutherford’s face on a t-shirt and wear it to government class or choose him as the topic of my informational speech in speech and debate.
Rutherford Hayes became a sort of meme for my friends and I before any of us knew what a meme was. There was no reason for us to focus on this long-dead president with his glower and unkempt flop of hair, but that’s what made it funny to me.
I didn’t know this at the time, but Rutherford’s 1876 election was one of the most contentious in U.S. history. With the country still deep in the aftermath of the Civil War, southern states practiced voter suppression and threw out thousands of votes they deemed to be illegitimate. Though Rutherford’s opponent Samuel Tilden led both the popular and the electoral vote, three southern swing states sent competing electorates to Congress, requiring the Compromise of 1877 to resolve the election and the passage of new legislation to govern elections. If all of this sounds familiar, journalists have already drawn a line between the 1876 and the 2020 elections.
The “compromise” gave Union general Hayes the presidency in exchange for an end to Reconstruction and its efforts to address the inequities of slavery. Union troops would withdraw from the South, allowing the states greater latitude to govern themselves. This resulted in systematic racial segregation, political disenfranchisement of Black voters, and unchecked violence against Black people and communities. From the Tulsa massacre, the 100th anniversary of which was recognized this week, to ongoing inequity in Black communities, it’s hard not to draw a connection to this compromise, or think about whose interests prevailed.
When I gave my two-minute speech on Rutherford B. Hayes for my classmates, I listed the date of his birth and his dates in office. I listed accomplishments I gleaned from Wikipedia, and named that he ended Reconstruction in the South without knowing what that meant or the consequences of that or any of his other actions. Separated from his historical context, I saw him more as a punchline than either a hero or a villain.
My Rutherford Hayes stage is long over, but I think about it sometimes with the rise of “fandom politics:” fanbases that project hopes or mythologies on political actors sometimes in contrast to those actors’ actual policies or beliefs. It’s easy to put a face on a t-shirt. It’s harder to follow the thread of history and know that person’s place in it, to see beyond the black and white to the culture that shapes people and the ways they shape culture. History matters, even (especially) when it can’t be reduced to a smolder and an impressive beard.
Katerina Parsons lives in Washington, D.C. where she works on international humanitarian assistance (views not of her employer). A graduate of Calvin University (2015) and American University (2022), she lived in Honduras for four years before moving back to the U.S. to work on policy and advocacy. She enjoys reading, dancing, and experimenting in her community garden plot.
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The seemingly innocuous things we attach ourselves are curious. Sometimes we don’t have the most legitimate reasons. But things always have a place, always have a strange effect on the things around them. We need to become aware of that, as you have.
I loved this!