Donald M. Suggs, publisher and executive editor of The St. Louis American, was faced with a dilemma when the Missouri Historical Society offered him its 2017 Thomas Jefferson Award.
It’s the highest honor bestowed by the society that runs one of his favorite local institutions, the Missouri History Museum, and it recognizes those who “have played a crucial role in the betterment of our community,” which is certainly a role he strives to fulfill with this newspaper, the St. Louis American Foundation, and his extensive board commitments.
It’s also named after a white supremacist who owned slaves and sired children with a woman he owned, which would have to be understood as non-consensual sex that Jefferson initiated. Suggs agreed to accept the award, but began to fret about how to address this dilemma.
To compound the challenge, the award is given by the Thomas Jefferson Society at its annual dinner. This is the Missouri Historical Society’s leadership donor group, comprised of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the St. Louis region. Though mainly white, they are Suggs’ peers in many civic groups. Many of them also are decision-makers at institutions and companies that support his newspaper and foundation – including the Missouri History Museum itself, a longtime partner of the paper, on whose Board of Trustees Suggs served for years.
His solution was to praise Jefferson’s role as “the intellectual architect of the nation’s highest ideals,” as Suggs said in his acceptance speech on Thursday, November 9, yet allude to Jefferson’s white supremacy and domestic history of what would least charitably be called interracial rape.
“Harvard Law professor Noah Feldman has affirmed that while Jefferson, a founder of the U.S. Constitution, wrote that ‘all men are created equal,’ he believed Africans were inferior and fathered children with an enslaved woman. But his colleague and contemporary, Alexander Hamilton – himself a distinguished co-founder of the U.S. Constitution – genuinely rejected the idea of racial inferiority and insisted that enslaved Africans were entitled to a right to liberty.” Suggs read to a sold-out crowd of civic leaders in the Grand Hall of the Missouri History Museum.
“Yet even Hamilton felt he could not, at the time, afford to free his own slaves in his will. This contradiction resonates with our current situation. America, at its best, has repeatedly aspired to establish racial equality in the face of slavery and segregation. Yet, the need to accommodate the realities of economics, politics and the prejudice of others – which is to say, the difficulty even well-intentioned people can have in accepting the true cost of meaningful change – has continued to hold back racial equality.”
Looming behind him, with its backside to Suggs and the audience, was Karl Bitter’s colossal sculpture of Jefferson.
Suggs’ historical departure did more than register a black man’s grievances with Jefferson while accepting a ward named for him. Suggs argued in his conclusion that “the realities of economics, politics and the prejudice of others” continue to hold back racial equality, and those negative forces are being stoked by the man holding the nation’s highest office.
“Currently our segmented society is being torn even further apart. Race is being exploited by some duplicitous politicians as a leverage point to rouse a dissatisfied and disaffected working class,” Suggs said.
“Conservative columnist David Brooks warns that a new culture will have to be built, new values promulgated and a new social fabric will have to be woven, one that brings us into a better relationship with each other.’ That is work that sorely needs to be done to embrace a better vision for America.”
His speech was met with a standing ovation from some of the powerful people in the St. Louis region.
His peer publisher Ray Hartmann, founder of The Riverfront Times and current publisher of St. Louis Magazine, praised Suggs for couching his criticism and call to action in terms of respect that his distinguished audience could readily appreciate.
“He gave a black man’s perspective on Jefferson and race, but embraced Jeffersonian ideals,” Hartmann said. “I’d like to publish that piece.”
