By Pero G. Dagbovie
November 2015
I first met Dr. Bailey in the spring quarter of 1992 when I was an undergraduate student enrolled in his History 201 course. In this required seminar for history majors, Dr. Bailey decided to have us learn about the historian’s craft by reading the historical scholarship of Lawrence Levine—beginning with his classic Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom (1978) to his what seemed to me at that time ungraspable Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America (1988). Dr. Bailey clearly admired this skilled historian who he worked with during his days as a PhD student at the University of California at Berkeley. I was simply happy to be fulfilling a requirement and to be reading at least one book about African American history in a non-black history centered course, something that I had not yet encountered. I would soon discover that Bailey was fascinated with African American history and culture and was well read in the field, especially the dynamic revisionist “community-and-culture” scholarship on slavery. This, I would later discover, was not surprising, given his research interests and relationship with the longtime renowned University of California at Berkeley slavery historian Kenneth M. Stampp. (It is also worth noting that Bailey’s last major publication was fittingly in the field of African American history, an illuminating essay on sociologist Horace Cayton in which he convincingly untangled this “forgotten” black intellectual’s mind and tragic life). Using Levine’s scholarship as a point of reference and case study for History 201, Bailey challenged us to grapple with what it meant to be historians and how historians could frame their historical arguments. He allowed us to write our final research paper on any historian, charging us with identifying his/her style, argumentative techniques, approach to the past, use of archival sources, and influence on his/her field. I did my paper on Walter Rodney and Bailey pushed me to analyze the intimate connections between politics and the writing of history. Bailey was among those professors who encouraged me to go to graduate school in the field of history, stressing to me that I could contribute to and diversify the U.S. historical profession. He conveyed to me that historians had the responsibility to help reform higher education. He made me feel that I could succeed. He made me feel that I was smart. His motivation was truly empowering. After this class, I knew that Dr. Bailey would continue to play an important role in my intellectual development.
As a MA student during the fall 1994 semester, I took History 803 (Seminar in Methodology of Historical Research) with Dr. Bailey. The class was intimidating, yet very stimulating, creatively designed, and rewarding. I remember that it was a large and diverse class (about fifteen students from various historical subspecialties and disciplines) and that we read books like the Lynd’s Middletown: A Study in Modern American Culture (1929), Thomas S. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), E. P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class (1963), Foucault’s The Archeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language (1982), Carol F. Karlsen’s The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England (1987), Appleby, Hunt, and Jacob’s Telling the Truth About History (1994), and Winthrop D. Jordan’s Tumult and Silence at Second Creek: An Inquiry into a Civil War Slave Conspiracy (1993) among others. In addition to Kuhn’s opus, my favorite book assigned for the class was The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales (1985) by Oliver Sacks. Before reading the book, I wondered why we were reading a collection of essays by a British neurologist in a history methods class. While reading the book, I better understood Bailey’s genius. Simply put, with this book, Bailey demonstrated the importance of psycho-history, the value of historicism, and the necessity of considering the human condition in history. In essence, he highlighted the truism that who people are can essentially be traced back to their early years, their past tragic experiences, and their mental and psychological conditions. He also required us to interview a member of the Department who we did not know. While he allowed us some leeway in formulating our own questions, he insisted that we all ask our interviewees one question underlying question: “What is history?” In a class period, we shared our findings with each other and Bailey proved his point. There was/is no one interpretation of history, the study of the past, and/or the historian’s craft. For the final paper, he surprised us all. He required us to research some component of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, a topic that no one in the class had any knowledge of. In fact, Bailey himself confessed that he himself knew very little about this important event in world history. (He was a voracious reader and was unafraid to read widely outside of his field). Before the class, he had identified a collection of primary documents on this event in the MSU library that he urged us to explore. With his blessings, I did my paper on Indian authored histories of the rebellion. I learned a lot about how history was constructed by historians and how certain interpretations had been marginalized.
During my graduate career, I took several other classes taught by Bailey, such as his History 811 seminar on 19th century U.S. history that focused on reform movements. We read many “old school” classics like David Brion Davis’ The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (1966) and The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823 (1975), Bernard Bailyn’s The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967), Winthrop D. Jordan’s White Over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550-1812 (1968), Eugene Genovese’s Roll Jordan Roll: The World the Slaves Made (1972), and Ronald G. Walters’ American Reformers, 1815-1860 (1978). Every week, he challenged us to think about what motivated reformers to do what they did and, in many cases, make monumental sacrifices for others. I remember feeling frustrated when he would respond to my and others’ comments by retorting, “Okay, but why?” as he poured himself another cup of tea from his green, durable and weathered working-class Stanley thermos. Though he was not entirely dismissive, he never did seem totally satisfied with our often pretentious observations. Looking back, I appreciate what he was doing, as I find myself mimicking him in my graduate seminars. At the same time, he was patient with us. He listened attentively to our attempts to make sense of the past, routinely pushing us to make sense of the unknown. He seemed to enjoy witnessing our learning processes.
Dr. Bailey was a member of my MA and PhD guidance committees. He always encouraged me to—pardon the cliché—think “outside of the box.” My graduate work focused on African American reformers during the nadir and era of Jim Crow segregation. Whether I was unpacking the thought of Booker T. Washington or Carter G. Woodson, he consistently challenged me to probe deeply into what was going on in their minds based upon what they wrote, said, and did. This approach was reflected in one of the comprehensive examination questions that he posed to me. “Reform is in many ways the key to understanding democracy in America. Define reform . . . Consider some of the following issues: why did each reform movement develop; who were the reformers and what were their motivations; what limits and constraints were there on the reform impulse (race, gender, religion, region); why did the reform movements end?,” Bailey asked. He was a hardcore intellectual historian who never seemed satisfied with the rational or conventional analysis. He thought long and hard about people, events, and ideas and expected his students to do the same. He also helped me with my writing mechanics. Bailey “officially” signed off on my dissertation as adviser because my adviser was out of town when I needed to submit the final copy to The Graduate School. In December 1999, he came over to my house for about three hours and with John Coltrane playing in the background he closely read my introduction and conclusion (line-by-line), marking it up, and making it sound much better. At different intervals in an attempt to decipher his assessment of my work, I peeked in at him as he read at my kitchen table. In particular, he challenged me to revise how I framed my study as a dual biography and to more deeply contemplate the genealogy of the black scholar-activist that I had construed.
I feel blessed to have had Dave as a colleague. In Morrill Hall, my first office, a cozy broom closet, was next to his. I always loved his office, especially the custom bookshelf that he built along the wall to the right as you entered his office, a space that was decorated with a maze of books that, as John Waller points out, were surprisingly organized into distinct categories. When I was told that tenure-stream faculty must have offices with windows (my office did not have a window in 2003), I told the then chair that I would wait until Dave moved out of his office and then move into 345 Morrill Hall. (Dave had told me that he planned to move to a smaller office in Morrill because he was going to get another one in the Honors College). I was excited to move into his office, hoping that the knowledge accumulated over the years was still in the air and would transfer to me. I also hoped that he would leave behind a few of his books, which he did. I vowed to fill the meticulously constructed shelves that Dave built. I will cherish and continue to reflect upon the countless conversations that we had over the years in his office, between faculty meetings, after DAC meetings, speaker series events, and job talks, in route to his class, and in the halls of, and outside of, Morrill Hall and Old Horticulture. He was a master storyteller, epitomized by his going to class without notes or prewritten, rehearsed lectures. He was a straight-shooter and iconoclast with a savvy sense of humor.
Dave was the ultimate citizen of the Department of History at Michigan State University. He attended nearly every event that the Department sponsored, even the pedagogy sessions for potential hires. He is among the very few members of the Department who routinely taught on the dreaded Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule. His students appreciated him and his willingness—often through the medium of music—to connect with them. He had an open-door policy that students and faculty alike took advantage of. Though I know that I interrupted him when he was engaged in deep thought at his desk in front of his computer on more than a few occasions, he always listened to me go off on rants, critique recent publications, and think out loud about historical concepts that I was working through. He was an advocate for junior faculty in the Department and took the lead on putting more than a few packages together for our recipients of The Teacher Scholar Award. He advised many graduate students and served on numerous guidance committees. He loved the Department and Michigan State University.