History

By Made by History / Produced by Olivia B. Waxman

The media conversation about the U.S. Open, which begins Thursday at venerable Pinehurst No. 2, is likely to focus on the players, legendary course architect Donald Ross, and the village of Pinehurst, N.C. But, as Craig Gill explains in Made by History, golf would benefit if the story also included Taylortown, a historically Black community near the course whose population has provided the backbone for the sport in the region.

Gill tells the story of Taylortown and its founder Demus Taylor, a former enslaved person who likely helped build Pinehurst Resort and was one the first caddies there. Taylor’s story reflects how, in the South in the first half of the 20th century, resorts and clubs like Pinehurst featured Black caddies who turned the job from menial labor into a highly skilled profession. They also used their jobs to become gifted players in their own right, with former caddies helping to integrate the PGA Tour. The rise of the golf cart and more upward mobility for African Americans in the South in the middle of the 20th century drove the number of Black caddies down, and golf never adequately developed another avenue for Black Americans to take up the sport. The return of the national championship to Pinehurst, with its rich tradition of Black caddies, should be an opportunity, Gill argues, to redouble efforts to make the game more accessible for all Americans.

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FROM THE TIME VAULT

This week in 1954: J. Robert Oppenheimer


Alan W. Richards
The June 14, 1954, cover of TIME

“To many of the 40 great names of American atomic science and education, who flocked from their farthest retreats to testify to J. Robert Oppenheimer’s character, it implied a special kind of suspicion aimed at one of their distinguished colleagues—and perhaps, they believed, at them as well…Is J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man who directed the creation of the world’s first atom bomb a decade ago, now to be denied access to classified information because he is a risk to the security of the U.S.?”

This week in 1996: Benjamin Netanyahu


ANDRE BRUTMANN
The June 10, 1996, cover of TIME

“Only a man with supreme confidence and a generous sense of entitlement could have wrested control of the Likud Party as a relative newcomer. And only a man with such qualities would, at 46, have sought to become Israel’s Prime Minister, a post to which no one under 60 had ever been elected. Aside from ambition, self-regard and a glossy finish, his critics have asked, what else is there to Netanyahu? Many Israelis have found him too smooth to be taken seriously. As Netanyahu himself observes, that has given him the advantage of being underestimated. Those who would work with him, or against him, will now need to reassess.”

This week in 2014: Laverne Cox


Photograph by Peter Hapak for TIME
The June 9, 2014, cover of TIME

“Almost one year after the Supreme Court ruled that Americans were free to marry the person they loved, no matter their sex, another civil rights movement is poised to challenge long-held cultural norms and beliefs…’We are in a place now,’ Cox tells TIME, ‘where more and more trans people want to come forward and say, ‘This is who I am.’ And more trans people are willing to tell their stories. More of us are living visibly and pursuing our dreams visibly, so people can say, ‘Oh yeah, I know someone who is trans.’ When people have points of reference that are humanizing, that demystifies difference.’”