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| Independence Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania en.wikipedia.org |
One of the great things about history, or any subject for that matter, is new scholarship. With the emergence of new theories comes a critical rethink of long-held precepts. Clement Alexander Price reports in his post, "When Historic Sites Reveal the New American Past: Reflections on History, Memory and the Unknown" for the Preservation Leadership Forum, "Never before have Americans been as receptive as we are now to historical narratives that challenge long-standing, mostly unfortunate, assumptions about our past." New scholarship is a good thing. It moves a subject forward, keeps it fresh and relevant. This is just as true in American history, which in he last generation, has changed in leaps and bounds. This has had a substantial influence on the national psyche, public history, historic sites, preservation, the film industry, the way history is taught in schools, public art, the internet, and in public conversations everywhere. What was once called New American History, i.e "a history that placed a cross-section of Americans on stages of the past," is now the past. It is considered dated and conventional. Mr. Price ponders why did happen and why did a more liberal/progressive interpretation of history take over. Let's find out.
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| March on Washington For Jobs and Freedom August 28, 1963 en.wikipedia.org |
Like Clement Alexander Price, I discovered historic preservation late in the academic game. I stumbled upon it while working on a thesis proposal for an art history graduate program. Whatever I know about the New American history or any new___history has been filtered through primary and auxiliary resources. I have to agree with Mr. Price's point that what was revealed to me through my own discovery have been text long hidden by superficial research, largely indifferent to people of color and different ethnicities. Mr. Price's specifically points to the indifference paid to what African Americans have long written and spoken about, now brought into the light of history. Over the course of time, the United States came to know a new constellation of heroes whose lives as slaves and freed persons dramatically redefined and/or expanded our country's concept of the making heroes.
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| The Daisy Bates House Little Rock, Arkansas nps.gov |
Clement Price observes, "the ascent of the African Americans and other Americans long on the margins of the society has enlivened interest in the acknowledgement and preservation of places where all sort of experiences were hammered out-in modest dwellings, churches, schools buildings, businesses, Indian communities, places that were safe haven, places that were battle grounds during the Modern Civil Rights Movement..." The future of this past has long been debated, yet it appears that we have broken free of the antiquated idea that our history is incoherent and without a unified narrative. Personally speaking, I never believed that American or anyone else's history was disjointed and unclear. Mr. Price recalls the "history wars" of the eighties and nineties which exacted a cost on the venerable Smithsonian Institution, raising the specter of revisionism and its backlash. Citing the late cultural historian Lawrence Levine who observed in 1989, "The great majority of those who have sought to expand our historical vision to new groups of people and new areas of expressive culture mean to do just that: expand our knowledge, to supplement our approaches, not to erect new fences and shut still more doors." Amen
As more historic sites are added to the list of landmarks it is, I as well as Mr. Price believe, an acknowledgement of the complicated, diverse, evolving, and thorough expansion of history and memory. This particularly true in Mr. Price's field of African American history as the list of sites that reflect the New Black History continues to grow since it came into the spotlight in the seventies and eighties. One example, was the discovery of an African American Burial Ground in Lower Manhattan in 1991 during the excavation for a new federal office building. Elected officials, historic preservationists, and civic activists new the previously anonymous colonial slavery had to be acknowledged, culminating in the site being designated an important landmark, managed by the National Park Service.
Of equal importance is the new scholarship on slavery and emancipation which complicates the traditional narrative of both, especially in the way freedom came about. Conventional history says that when the Emancipation Proclamation was promulgated, the formerly enslaved began to take matters into their own hands, in essence freeing themselves from the very thing that President Lincoln's great document ended and supposed primary objective of the Civil War. In the early days of the War, not long after the first shots were fired on Fort Sumter, three young African American men: Frank Baker, James Townsend, and Sheppard Mallory sought refuge in the Union Army Fort Madison in Hampton Roads, Virginia. Their successful escape and subsequent status as contraband marking the beginning of a chain of events that would come to fruition in 1863 and the end of the war-the Great Emancipation. The significance of this scholarship shed light on the large body of evidence that African Americans were taking a proactive stance as the opportunity to be free became reality.
The historiography of the Civil Rights Movement has brought about new thinking regarding its origins. Let's consider Marion Anderson's Easter Sunday concert at the Lincoln Memorial on April 9, 1939 as the beginning. The concert was performed in front of an interracial audience with The Great Emancipator as the backdrop, highlighting America's inferior treatment of its African American citizens and other minorities. In the succeeding years, during and after the Second World War, civil rights activism was marking what historians have dubbed the Second Reconstruction. The most iconic battle ground of the Movement, the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama is currently a historic landmark and tourist attraction. More than that, its monumental presence is a testament to the cross-section of people bravely stood up to violent attacks upon themselves, an acknowledgement of the defiance and heroism, synthesizing contemporary scholarship on the Civil Rights Movement.
Another example of the expansion of historical knowledge of the Civil Rights Movement is the way the City of Newark, New Jersey incorporated the memory of the July 1967 civil unrest into its ethos. The civil unrest, at once tragic, accelerated the city's decline following World War II. Still, Newark, a recovering city with an array of urban assets, may be the first American to preserve a site that symbolized the beginning of a riot. The Old Fourth Precinct signifies the Newark's sheer will to survive as a post-industrial city with its complicated memory and dedication to justice, civility, and interracial harmony. Civic activists and historic preservationists are currently working to save the Old Fourth Precinct as a place and use that power of place as an interpretative center for the nation's long tortured history of urban unrest.
History, like any subject, needs to be constantly refreshed with new scholarship. New scholarship gives academics and students to understand familiar events in a new light and gain broader understanding of the historiography. I whole heartedly agree with Lawrence Levine's quote, especially the part about how history should not be used to erect fences or shut doors. I remember being a sixth grader in social studies, ignoring what the teacher was lecturing, spending class time reading about people and events that she wasn't discussing. I found this to be more enlightening then another boring lecture on the American Revolution. I still do like read histories of people and events not in the accepted textbooks. As a preservationist, that outside reading gives me a greater understanding of how to manage change in ethnic communities. It helps excavate the layers of history and bring to light new places that contributes to the greater understanding of who we are.
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| The B.B. King Museum Indianola, Mississippi bbkingmuseum.org |
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| The Verandah House Corinth, Mississippi civilwartraveler.com |
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| Marion Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial April 9, 1939 newyorker.com |
The historiography of the Civil Rights Movement has brought about new thinking regarding its origins. Let's consider Marion Anderson's Easter Sunday concert at the Lincoln Memorial on April 9, 1939 as the beginning. The concert was performed in front of an interracial audience with The Great Emancipator as the backdrop, highlighting America's inferior treatment of its African American citizens and other minorities. In the succeeding years, during and after the Second World War, civil rights activism was marking what historians have dubbed the Second Reconstruction. The most iconic battle ground of the Movement, the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama is currently a historic landmark and tourist attraction. More than that, its monumental presence is a testament to the cross-section of people bravely stood up to violent attacks upon themselves, an acknowledgement of the defiance and heroism, synthesizing contemporary scholarship on the Civil Rights Movement.
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| Edmund Pettus Selma, Alabama redroom.com |
History, like any subject, needs to be constantly refreshed with new scholarship. New scholarship gives academics and students to understand familiar events in a new light and gain broader understanding of the historiography. I whole heartedly agree with Lawrence Levine's quote, especially the part about how history should not be used to erect fences or shut doors. I remember being a sixth grader in social studies, ignoring what the teacher was lecturing, spending class time reading about people and events that she wasn't discussing. I found this to be more enlightening then another boring lecture on the American Revolution. I still do like read histories of people and events not in the accepted textbooks. As a preservationist, that outside reading gives me a greater understanding of how to manage change in ethnic communities. It helps excavate the layers of history and bring to light new places that contributes to the greater understanding of who we are.
Like me on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/lenorelowen
Follow me on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/glamavon and on Pinterest http://www.pinterest.com/glamtroy
Instagram- find me at hpblogger
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