John Spencer Bassett was an American historian. He was a professor at Duke University

Duke University

Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...

 (then Trinity College) best known today for initiating the Bassett Affair in 1903.

Biography

Bassett was born September 10, 1867 in Tarboro, North Carolina

Tarboro, North Carolina

Tarboro is a city located in Edgecombe County, North Carolina. It is part of the Rocky Mount, North Carolina Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of 2010, the town had a total population of 13,121. It is the county seat of Edgecombe County. Tarboro is located in North Carolina's Inner Banks region...

. He entered Trinity College (now Duke University) in 1886, as a junior, graduating with an A.B.

Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 in history

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

. In 1894 he earned a Ph.D in history from Johns Hopkins University

Johns Hopkins University

The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...

, under the direction of Herbert Baxter Adams

Herbert Baxter Adams

Herbert Baxter Adams was an American educator and historian.Adams was born to Nathaniel Dickinson Adams and Harriet Adams in Shutesbury, Massachusetts. On his mother's side, he was a descendant of Thomas Hastings who came from the East Anglia region of England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in...

. He became a professor at Smith College

Smith College

Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college located in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is the largest member of the Seven Sisters...

 in 1906. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...

 in 1921. Bassett died 27 Jan 1928 in Washington, DC.

John Spencer Bassett was the second of seven children of Richard Baxter Bassett (son of Richard and Caroline Spencer Bassett) who was born September 20, 1832 in Williamsburg, Virginia and died March 25, 1902 in Goldsboro, North Carolina; and Mary Jane Wilson (daughter of John Wilson and Susannah Dunn of Maine) born November 7, 1845 in Edgecombe County, North Carolina, and died September 1, 1903 in Durham, North Carolina. Both of his parents are buried in Willow Dale Cemetery in Goldsboro, Wayne County, North Carolina.

In Forsyth, North Carolina on August 10, 1892, John Spencer Bassett married Jessie Lewellin. She was born January 31, 1866 in Clarksville, Mecklenburg County, Virginia; died April 3, 1950 in Northampton, Massachusetts. John Spencer Bassett and Jessie Lewellin Bassett are buried in the Bridge Street Cemetery, Northampton, Massachusetts. They had two children Richard Horace Bassett and Margaret Byrd Bassett.

The Bassett Affair

While teaching at Trinity College, Bassett published an article in South Atlantic Quarterly entitled "Stirring Up the Fires of Race Antipathy" in October 1903. In the article, he spoke about improving race relations and gave praise to numerous African Americans. Near the end of the article, he wrote "...Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington

Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and political leader. He was the dominant figure in the African-American community in the United States from 1890 to 1915...

 [is] the greatest man, save General Lee

Robert E. Lee

Robert Edward Lee was a career military officer who is best known for having commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War....

, born in the South in a hundred years..." This led to an outpouring of anger from powerful Democratic Party

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

 leaders as well as the media and public. Many demanded that Bassett be fired and encouraged parents to take their children out of the university. Due to immense public pressure, Bassett offered his resignation if the Board of Trustees requested that he do so. The Board of Trustees then held a meeting to decide the fate of Bassett. In the end, they voted 18-7 not to accept the resignation citing academic freedom. In their decision, they wrote, "We are particularly unwilling to lend ourselves to any tendency to destroy or limit academic liberty, a tendency which has, within recent years, manifested itself in some conspicuous instances, and which has created a feeling of uneasiness for the welfare of American colleges [...] We cannot lend countenance to the degrading notion that professors in American colleges have not an equal liberty of thought and speech with all other Americans." In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...

 commended Trinity and Bassett's courageous stand for academic freedom while speaking to the university. He told the school, "You stand for Academic Freedom

Academic freedom

Academic freedom is the belief that the freedom of inquiry by students and faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy, and that scholars should have freedom to teach or communicate ideas or facts without being targeted for repression, job loss, or imprisonment.Academic freedom is a...

, for the right of private judgment, for a duty more incumbent upon the scholar than upon any other man, to tell the truth as he sees it, to claim for himself and to give to others the largest liberty in seeking after the truth."

External links

• Bassett's Duke page