Safianow
|
Allen Safianow, professor of history at IU Kokomo, is the 12 annual recipient of the Emma Lou and Gayle Thornbrough Award for authorship of the best article published in 2004 in the Indiana Magazine of History.
IU Bloomington publishes the quarterly journal in cooperation with the Indiana Historical Society. Safianow was honored for the lead article in the June 2004 edition,
"'You Can't Burn History': Getting Right with the Klan in Noblesville, Indiana."
The article concerns the discovery of records revealing the names of hundreds of local Ku Klux Klan members from the 1920s. Working from those records, as well as from local histories, personal recollections and press accounts, Safianow recounted "the sensitive issue of how a community deals with the fact that its most respected citizens, its esteemed forefathers, embraced an organization which now is commonly regarded as an anathema, a gross antithesis of the fundamental ideals of this nation."
Safianow's article on the Klan artifacts "is at once a first-rate contribution to Indiana scholarship and a compelling story about events that have affected all of us," said Eric Sandweiss, editor of the magazine, who is also Carmony Associate Professor of history at IU Bloomington. "Safianow's carefully researched study sheds light on not one but two periods in Indiana: the 1920s and our own time. By unearthing the reactions of early Noblesville residents to the presence of the Ku Klux Klan in their community, he tells us a great deal about how racism incorporated itself into the lives of ordinary Americans. By listening carefully to the reactions of the town's citizens today, he demonstrates that coming to terms with the past is a job that engages all of us"not just historians in their archives and classrooms."
Related story: 'You can't burn history'
|
