Slavery and Justice Today

On last week's post, the user doubleshotcanister left a great comment:doubleshotcanister makes a great point about being ever mindful of our present connections to past historical atrocities, crimes against humanity, and the other not-so-shining moments of our country's history. I agree with him. Not only do we have to come clean about our nation's past history - equally laying out the bad and good to find a useable past, but also to be cognizant of our decisions and actions today. We need to take into account how our actions relate to history by asking ourselves, "Are we in fact repeating past mistakes?" I think good public history should connect historical events with controversial topics today, for we still struggle with the same basic problems our forefathers did (in the U.S. it's namely civil rights, federalism, and the ideas of freedom and liberty). While on one hand, public history is about finding meaning and relevance in the past, it is also using that knowledge of the past to engage with the present, and its similar situations related to historical events. When we discuss slavery at Civil War sites, the feeling that we as public historians sometimes impart is that the historical issues we are presenting are in the past - and that they have no relation to events that are occurring today.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. For example, this past fall, I had the opportunity to volunteer for Cuyahoga Valley National Park's annual Underground Railroad program they do every October. The program involved conductors (such as me) who took visitors on an approximate 2-mile hike around the park at night, where the visitors had to negotiate meeting 'historic' characters of the surrounding area on their quest for freedom. The visitors met these characters in a series of several vignettes that interpreted the struggle on the road to freedom. Visitors has to ask themselves, "Can this man be trusted?" and "Who should we ask for help?" In the end, the groups are ultimately captured by slave catchers, and boarded onto one of the park trains to be taken 'south' or in the case of the visitors, back to their cars. The train ride is pitch black with the only sound coming from several volunteers singing the freedom songs of the slaves. It is a very moving program that is classic NPS interpretation. It is full of suspense, tension, and fear - all based on sound historical research of the surrounding area.

When the visitors get off the train, the lead ranger running the program is there to met them and debrief with them around a roaring campfire. The interpreter leads the group in a discussion on what the folks just experienced, teasing out of the audience their feelings and thoughts about the journey. The interpreter wraps up and sends the visitors on their way, with a call to action from today. He/she relates the story of a young child who escaped from slavery in India not to long ago and came to America to tell his story. The child went on a national speaking tour raising awareness about slavery today. Unfortunately, on a trip back to his home country, that young child who had accomplished so much, was killed by slave catchers. The interpreter reminds the visitors as they walk back to their cars, the famous words of Margaret Mead, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

Thank you doubleshotcanister and Cuyahoga National Park for reminding us all, that public history should, that public history needs to help visitors connect with the past in the present, and use their understanding of that past to engage with modern and controversial issues their societies face today.

Slavery and Justice: What Brown University has taught me about Public History

John and I have often written posts for this blog describing what we feel to be good standards and examples of public history. I first questioned what public history meant in one of my first posts, and more recently, John added his thoughts about Sam Richard’s TED talk on empathy and how it relates to the field of public history.

In the post today, I want to add to that debate by discussing Brown University’s Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice. John recently turned me on to this, and while I still haven’t read the whole report (available in pdf), I’m really impressed by what I’ve read so far. For those of you who are not familiar with the report, I highly recommend it - it is very insightful. The Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice report documents Brown University’s public struggle with its historic foundations which, are tied inextricably to the economics of slavery and the slave trade. The committee’s report seeks to reconcile with Brown’s historic past and find where the present lives in the past.

The report seeks to answer the question:

How are we, as members of the Brown community, as Rhode Islanders, and as citizens and residents of the United States, to make sense of our complex history? How do we reconcile those elements of our past that are gracious and honorable with those that provoke grief and horror? What responsibilities, if any, rest upon us in the present as inheritors of this mixed legacy? The Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice represents one institution’s confrontation with these questions.

The Steering Committee is doing public history. It asks people to consider, “What does our history mean to us today?” and, “What should we do about the parts of the past that aren’t so honorable?” The goals of the committee were not only to present the, “University’s historic entanglement with slavery and the slaver trade and to report the findings openly and truthfully,” but also to, “reflect on the meaning of this history in the present, on the complex historical, political, legal, and moral questions posed by any present day confrontation with past injustice.” The committee’s goals were to acknowledge the past, and recognizing that it can’t be changed, ask and foster the debate today on what could be done going forward. The committee is actively engaging the community and the country with the past, and what it means to us today. It’s practicing public/civic engagement. As the president of the University stated, it was, “an effort designed to involve the campus community in a discovery of the meaning of our past…Understanding our history and suggesting how the full truth of that history can be incorporated into our common traditions will not be easy. But, then it doesn’t have to be.”

Why would an institution do this, you might ask? What does it accomplish? Why open chapters of the past that are controversial and painful? Brown University faced the same questions while undergoing this project. Their answer was simple – “Brown is a University.” Even today, the institution recognized that it was part of that past, it was a descendent of that past, and that it was forever connected to that past. Historically and morally, Brown is forever connected to its history and slavery.

Reading the first half of the report, I’ve loved every minute of it. It’s great public history. Along with fostering empathy, this is where public history needs to be headed. Brown University becomes human through the report. The institution, struggles with difficult problems, and they are the first to admit, that they don’t necessarily have all the answers – none of us do. Hopefully, by engaging the community and greater public, they can foster a discussion, that while it may never furnish the perfect answer, it might at least encourage debate and maybe a consensus.

Brown University image courtesy of Brown University Library via Wikipedia. "Am I not a man..." courtesy of LoC.