Standing Up by Sitting Down: Join the Student Sit-Ins at the Smithsonian

Continuing my review and discussion that I started last week of the NMAH's historical theater programs, this week, I want to talk about the other program I attended on my most recent visit down to the mall: the Join the Student Sit-Ins program. Long story short, Join the Student Sit-Ins is another great interpretive offering from the Smithsonian Museum of American History. The program thrives on visitor involvement and reflection. It's engaging, historically deep, emotional, and probing for answers, ultimately asking more questions than finding answers. 

The basis for the program is a training session being held in the wake of the initial Greensboro Student Sit-In that occurred on February 1, 1960. Visitors are thrust into the role of students who have volunteered to help carry on torch, spreading non-violent sit-ins to lunch counters around the city and throughout the rest of North Carolina. During the program, visitors and the interpreter, portraying a student activist who is leading the training session, engage in a number of different activities. Together the interpreter and visitors discuss what non-violence means and what it represents. They practice non-violent techniques including a demonstration where visitors silently crowd and stare at several audience members chosen to sit on stools, the objective being to try and make those who are sitting uncomfortable by the confrontation. And lastly, the group sings. They sing protest songs used during the sit-ins and other civil rights demonstrations. They sing, using the power of music to unite themselves, to show their strength, pride, and resolve in helping to change America just as the students did in 1960. You can watch the entire program online below. It's well worth the twenty minutes of your time.

 

As you can see, Join the Student Sit-Ins is a very experiential program with deep emotional and intellectual connections. And its all achieved in a short 25-30 minute program held in the lobby of one of wings of the museum. The program is held in the same lobby which houses the original Greensboro lunch counter, on display for everyone to see. The counter serves a backdrop to the program, a tangible reminder of the events not so long ago that inspired the program. Along with the Time Trial of John Brown, the Join the Student Sit-Ins program is on my imaginary "greatest hits" record of interpretation. I really can't say enough.

Where it all started / CC by Mark Pellegrini

But, what makes these two historical theater programs work so well? To me, the reasons they succeed come down to two simple things evident in both of the programs. One is both programs are about people. And two, the goal of the programs are not the instruction or education of visitors on historical events, but the provocation of feeling and meaning over those historical events. Let me explain.

Both the Time Trial of John Brown and Join the Student Sit-ins programs are about people. More than anything, they agree with John's definition of what history is all about (remember?...ideas put into action by people on a landscape) Both programs eschew getting caught up in the wide breadth of the overall events and movements the people are part of, instead just focusing on one man or a group of student's actions responding to the ideas of that particular movement. Instead of starting from a top down approach, by seeing the big picture and then focusing in on the details, these programs go from the bottom up - grassroots history of individual actors who play a leading role on the stage of American history.

Second, both programs focus on meaning and feeling. They ask provoking questions such as, "How do you  feel we should remember John Brown?" and "What would you have done if you were at the Student Sit-Ins? Would you be able to be non-violent? Could you restrain yourself while everyone else around you bullied and terrorized you?" Instead of sending you away with a nice take home message or thesis such as, "John Brown should be remembered as..." or, "The Greensboro Sit-Ins were instrumental in..." The programs leave you asking questions for which only you can give the right answer - ultimately, what you think and how you feel about that particular moment in history.

"That all men are created equal...": Universal Relevance and the Civil War

"Time circuits on...
Flux Capacitor... fluxing" /
CC by Anthony Catalano

One of my favorite movies is Back to the Future III. I know that is a terrible choice in some folks' eyes. The response I usually get is an, "ugh!" and a snarl of the lip. Still, I think there is so much going on in that film, from the struggle between fatalism and free will to the themes of love and sacrifice, heartache and heartbreak.

The reason Back to the Future III comes up in my mind today, though, is because of a dialogue within the public history world that appears to be heating up, thanks in part to both Kevin Levin and Ed Ayers (via James Loewen). The "Next Interpretive Challenge," of making the Civil War matter to an increasingly disconnected and diverse audience is crucial to the survival of the War's legacy, chiefly the emancipation ethic.

Levin, Ayers and Loewen see the great divide forming between how we service the traditional American audience (i.e. whiter, Anglo-centric audiences who have either a geographic or genealogical affinity for the war) and the new American audience (i.e. more diverse, recent immigrant populations whose ancestors lived thousands of miles from this country during the war). Their answer seems relatively clear: geography and a global view of the war.

This answer made me think of an exchange between Marty McFly and Doctor Emmett L. Brown on the rim of Clayton Shonash Ravine:

Doc - "You're just not thinking fourth dimensionally."
Marty - "Right, right. I have a real problem with that."

I'm not quite sure that Levin and the rest are thinking fourth dimensionally. They are running under an assumption that the sole barrier standing in the way of relevance for an audience of Pakistani visitors is a matter of geography. They assume that these visitors will instantly find relevance in the Civil War through any connection made between the war and Pakistan. But this forgets the simple fact that 150 years separate the Pakistanis of today from the denizens of the British Indian Empire of the 1860s. The assumption that these visitors (or any visitors) will care about any event or person of the past simply because of it's geographic location is dangerous.

Would telling a group of Pakistani tourists about Syed Ameer Ali and the Central National Muhammadan Association quest in the years after the American Civil War to win independence and freedom from oppressive British rule, and the similarities the quest had with the Abolition movement, instantly make a Civil War landscape matter to them? I'm not so sure. And furthermore, can any interpreter actually be prepared to offer that kind of relevance to any visitor of any nationality who wanders into their site at the drop of a hat? Does the inclusion of a shared geography instantly create relevance? Or is there another dimension (the fourth / time) which complicates this problem?

I'm not sure that pure geography is the right route to relevance. Too many things separate any of us, especially those without a blood connection, from the American Civil War. There seems to be a more unified solution to both the third dimensional and fourth dimensional distance which is far simpler: human universals.

No matter who walks into a Civil War site, be they a twelfth generation American or a new immigrant, we are all human. We all have wants and needs. We all have hated. We all have been proud. We all have been disappointed. We all have lost those we love and we all have found new love in others. We all have dreamed. These human universals are far more effective in helping any audience to access a site's meanings. It is my firm belief that through the lens of the human universal, we can help people see why these places might matter to them.

Why is the Civil War relevant? Certainly it is not simply because it is an American story (or a Chinese story, or a Canadian story or a Pakistani story). No. The Civil War is relevant because it is a human story.

CC by Jay Bonvouloir

That, as Marty McFly would say, is "heavy."

Thinking about how to bridge both the third dimensional gap and the fourth dimensional gap through human universal relevance, rather than trying in vain to make increasingly tenuous connections to each and every geographic locale, seems a far more fruitful endeavour.

I'll have more musings on the universal power of the human story next week, drifting back into that place where so much of our discussion of this War leads: race.

30 Minutes with John Brown at the Smithsonian

Last week, my folks were in town from Ohio visiting me and doing the 'tourist thing' in our nation's capitol. On one of their days in town, I met them after work at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History(NMAH). We saw the Great Garrison Flag and the gunboat Philadelphia. My mom saw the First Ladies' dresses while my father and I went to the military exhibit instead (we're not much for fancy dresses). And although they were tired, and by this time had had their fill of history, I convinced them to let me drag them along to see two of the Smithsonian's interpretive programs.

Before then, I'd never seen one of the Smithsonian's historical theater programs, although I'd heard alot about them - the NMAH's blog talks about them all the time, and word on the street from anyone I talked to was that the Smithsonian's programs were top notch. So, tired and aging parents aside, when I got down to NMAH, I was going to see some of their historical theater programs. (In the end, my parents were happy they saw them too, for they did not disappoint!)

The program I want to focus on for this week's post is the "Time Trial of John Brown." Held in a small confined theater that sits about 25-30 people, the program introduces the audience to the story of John Brown, and then it goes a step further - by asking visitors to consider how they feel we should deal with John Brown's memory today. A historical interpreter or actor portrays John Brown, assisted by a museum docent or facilitator. The program starts with the program facilitator introducing the program and its interactive nature, making visitors feel at ease and building a rapport, and when the time comes, introducing John Brown and a little bit of his background. John Brown is then permitted to speak a few words about his actions. The actor portraying John Brown relates a story of John Brown's youth, a story in which he met a young negro boy who was his equal in all aspects of human life except for his skin color. That distinction meant all the difference, as John Brown was treated with respect, while the negro boy was beaten and abused. That was the turning point for John Brown - the fact that he didn't stand up to defend the boy, that he allowed that injustice to happen.

I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land...

After a few other remarks, the facilitator then shifts the onus of the program on the visitors, asking them to consider the questions that John Brown's story raises - questions of slavery, vigilant justice, treason, civil rights, human rights, and memory to name a few. Visitors are allowed to ask John Brown questions, and the facilitator helps in moving things along, and sometimes setting John Brown up for an easy fastball over the plate. Someone in the audience (might have been me trying to instigate things...I dunno) asked John Brown if there was any difference between freedom fighters and terrorists and what he thought about the differing distinctions. he replied first by asking the facilitator, what the word terrorist meant, as it seemed to him a modern term. (John Brown knew only the events 'he was told' after his death...) The facilitator rephrased the question, helping lead him in talking about treason, the rule of law, and fighting for freedom.

What amazed me the most was how much ground the program covered in a half an hour. John Brown and those of us in the audience covered topics ranging from whether Brown was a religious zealot, the definition of a martyr, the question of, "who will watch the watchmen?" to topics on his memory via the song John Brown's Body, how you can commit treason against a state you were never a citizen, does the end justify the means, and what does it mean to be a terrorist or freedom fighter - all of which are relevant historical and present-day issues that the case of John Brown represents.

Perhaps what was most telling to me was my parent's commentary after the fact, especially the comments coming from my dad, who by this time was tired, grumpy, and falling asleep when the program started (we were early and in a dim-lite room). He stayed awake throughout the whole thing, enthralled with Brown's story and the discussion that followed. Afterwards, my dad said, "You know, Jake, they should teach like that in school. History would be more interesting..."
I agreed, thinking to myself that what we saw wasn't teaching but interpretation - speaking to us as a whole.

If you are ever around when the Smithsonian presents this program, it is well worth your time - only  thirty minutes is all it takes for the trial of John Brown.

Check back next week to hear all about the second historical theater program...

Thanks to the NMAH's blog, O Say Can You See for the image of the program.

[EDIT: NMAH published another post on their blog, O Say Can You See, about John Brown this time with video! I'd be remiss if I didn't addend it on to this post. You can check it out here.]

A House Where People Lived: The Schriver House of Gettysburg

Recently a couple of my close friends and I were hanging out in downtown Gettysburg, looking for
trouble, err I mean, fun. We were trying to find something in town that we hadn't been to – something new to add to our Gettysburg experiences. When one of them suggested that we give the Shriver House a whirl, I admit, I was a little uneasy at first.

I mean I hate can’t stand house museums with a passion. They’re sooooo boring. Typically, a house museum is little more than a glorified furniture tour. It is the standard, “Look in this room. This is a parlor. Look at the furniture. See the horsehair couch?” If you are into historic furniture, then by all means, house museums are a must for you. But, if you’re not into mid-19th century furniture, once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. As we walked in to the Shriver House, though, I figured what the hell – if nothing else the house museum might make for a decent blog post.

When we came out about 50 minutes later, I was mind blown. The Shriver House was easily one of the best house museums I’ve ever visited. Reflecting on the tour, I kept asking myself, “What made the Shriver house so interesting and engaging? What made it work?” Well for one thing, the Shriver House pretty much follows John Rudy’s definition of history – namely that, “History is ideas put into action by people on a landscape.” Our tour guide, Kim, gave us a window by which to see a family, the Shrivers, survive during wartime at home in Gettysburg.

Our tour of the house started with Kim explaining that as we stepped into the house, we were actually traveling back into time to see the house as it was during the battle of Gettysburg. The house was like it was then, when its occupants abandon it for safer quarters outside of the town. We stepped into the dining room and Kim mentioned that we could see all the typical wares a middle class family would have had, but to make sure and notice that the table was only set for three. Hmmm…I looked at my companions as I got all excited. “This might be different,” I thought to myself.

Why was the table only set for three? Well, George Shriver, the man who built the house was not here, for he was off fighting in the war. Kim asked us to imagine what the dinner conversations must have been like with George before he left for war. It seems that as soon as he had finally gotten his own house in order and finished building it, the bigger house, the United States, was falling apart. What was the dinner table like now with Sadie and Molly asking mother when father will come home again? Right there, Kim invited us to be part of the story - to imagine ourselves in the house with the people who lived there. It was interpretive. It made the house come alive.

We walked through the rest of the house, Kim leading the way. She pointed out the kids’ toys that were left right where they had been playing with them before the family left. She invited us to empathize with the family, and what it must have been like to leave everything behind, to leave your home behind, not knowing if you will ever see it again and in what condition it will be in. She cautioned us not to miss the candy the kids had left – Necco wafers, “History you can eat,” she said.

Next up was the attic, just how the Confederates who used the house as a field hospital and sniper position had left it. Torn cartridge papers were lying all about, and you could peak through the bricks that were knocked out of the wall for sharpshooter positions. The Shriver family returned to their house after the battle. It was the same house and the same town that they had lived in their whole lives, but it wasn’t quite the same. The house and town had changed.

Our last stop was in the basement, not set up as it had been, but what might have been. It had been George’s dream to run a tavern out of his basement, and the owners of the house have it set up as George’s dream. It was never to be, though, for George died in a prisoner of war camp in August of 1864. While standing in the tavern, Kim motioned to the street level window that looked out on Baltimore Pike. She recalled the procession that marched by in November of 1863 up to the new Soldier’s National Cemetery. It was at that moment that I looked up and saw a car pass by. For some reason, it was then that it struck me, the scene that was once outside, and what was not to be inside. War has its price. The Shriver family was just one family whose lives were shattered by the Civil War. For them, their house tells their story. It is a home - not of furniture, but of people.

In talking with Kim our guide afterwards, I was amazed. I had enjoyed the tour immensely, and Kim, a stay-at-home mom, had made our day. Kim hadn’t given us just merely a tour of the house, she had given us an opportunity – to empathize, a chance to understand, and a chance to feel what war was like for families. She had helped us connect to the past, to history on a personal level. Kudos to Kim and the rest of the staff at the Shriver House for doing great historical interpretation. They get it. Next time you are in Gettysburg, I say check ‘em out and let me know in the comments what you thought!