Transcripts For CSPAN2 African 20240704

Fletcher from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park with her tonight. Before we get started a couple of things plays a member to mute your self. In our program site will be recorded. You will be able to find that online within the next couple of days. Also at the end of our program tonight we will have time for questions. Esif you have a question, please send that in the chat and will ask those at the end of the question. Sinso again thank you guys for joining us tonight. Help me in welcoming Ranger Fletcher to our program. Thank you very much. Thank you everyone tonight for joining. Again my name is ranger antjuan fletcher put in the science communicator for Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the appalachian center. Ten nights, on behalf of the National Park service i just want to welcome you all to your africanamerican experience in the smokies. This is so important. Or getting information out to the masses said tonight were going to learn about several different stories in several different africanamericans that impact not only the smokies but the appalachian region. A little bit about myself before get started. I get started. Ive been a park ranger for about 16 years. I have worked in a lot of different parks and click the smokies, lyndon b. Johnson, Waco National Monument fort sumner and russell kyiv. I have had quite the experience in the National Park service. So, as we said earlier in a kind of questions at the end of us i will make sure we get to them and answer them. So lets get started. So Great Smoky Mountains National Park it is such a beautiful park and establish a 1934. We have about 800 square miles of park in east tennessee in north and western carolina. We are known for our beauty, our biodiversity, also known for our human and vestiges. We have about 9000 years of Human History with early white settlers, native americans and African Americans. If youve never been in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park you have to see it. You may see me there. But lets move on to the main story. I want you to look at the screen think about the history as i talked about human. Think about when you come to the smokies what will you think about . What comes to mind when you are drivingg the scenic views or looking over the overlook . On the left ear you will see the conservation Corps Members preet circuit 1930s here. The civilian conservation corps really helped this part get establish and maintain trails and built things and everything else. On the right youll see the job Conservation Court members in that circuit 1960s. They did the same job as the ccc. We look at these pictures the reason iof put this up here is because a lot of times and people come to the smokies they only think about the history such as the civilian conservation corps. Ki you dont think about africanamericans in the smokies are working in the smokies. That is something we are trying to change. Even with these two pictures you can see from the 1930s to the 1960s and 30 short years the park didnt start to change that. Now we are just pushing it forward. But, to let everyone know early white settler history, africanAmerican History mates this park a whole. What we are here to do tonight is to tell the entire picture of the smokies. So, how do we start this project . This 1 project it dates back prr to 2018. Always been friends of the smoky, great Smoky Mountain association. Our agency, our park, our park rangers. How can we tell more stories about africanamericans in the region . 2018 we really put that effort forth. We really started looking at the lives of African Americans. And just to give you a 30,000 foot view, we go to the 15th for a solid to the present. What do we are doing is looking at the artifacts, policies, oral histories, photos, histories that really helps us conveyed the story to you, the public. We are going to do a little bit of that tonight. But we have to back way. We have to back up to how enslaved africans got to the region. A lot of people think about slavery they think about slavery in these places like South Carolina or the lowcountry. They think about slavery in memphis or any major port such as new orleans. However enslaved africans actually made the journey from the west africa a small place on the african coast all the way here in 1540. And so we know fernando de soto in his tribe brought slaves around 1542. We also know they were transported from beginning to the carolina colony in the 1600s as well. We can date when they came and also where they cameve from. You have to think about the journey here. Put yourself in the minds of those enslaved africans that were taken from their home and sent to a place they had never been comment to the smokies a region that is colder than they theyre probably used to, mountainous. A lot more walking in things ons such as that nature. It was a treacherous time to get here. However we have to tell the whole story. And from that we know in appalachia we have to think what those plantations look like when they got here. The mountainous terrain really change a plantations look like. A lotun of people think about te big white homes with several hundred enslaved people and things of that nature youd see in charleston. But not so much here. Because of the mountainous terrain what we had here were the small plantations with about five 12 enslaved people. This is because again it was hard to transport enslaved people and also they would have the slavery would have been more into livestock pigs, cattle, things such as that nature. Growing apples. We know in the winter months when they could not necessarily feed all of their enslaved they would have them out to places like asheville, North Carolina, knoxville tennessee two hotels. We know the enslaved people had mining cruise. Anything you can think of at the time. So,st how do we investigate this history in the mountains . The thing about the smokies that a lot of people do not understand is the smokies is very vast. The smokies is out there if you have never been. He think about the mounting culture is that in the smokies people did not write stuff down. There people that were illiterate could not spell could not right and things like that. You have times of telling the stories especially comes to enslaved africans or African Americans. A lot of their stories were told by the slaver. And so we started to do is investigate the history through bright documents. What you are looking at here on your left as a slaves schedule from the 1850s. So back in this time in the 1840s you have the census records. You can look through census records you know when people. Comyou know how old they were. In the 1850s the one cup of the chattel so they made up slave. This is a slave schedule from haywood county. We are able to see how many slaves per county there was at the time. And so a lot of times people may say there is not slaver in the mountains and things such as that nature which is not true. We know some of the larger counties such as haywood, which is where asheville, North Carolina is. Knoxville, tennessee is, the average they could easily have 1200 enslaved petro people. May only have had 80 enslaved people in that county. Theus thing to remember to is there were free people of color as wellin the mountains. That is been documented in places like or severe county. Lets move onto the next slide. We talk about bringing visibility to the invisible. Im slavery is not going to write a lot of information about being enslaved. Theyre not gonna write about birthdays or events they have with their children they did not know their birthdate their last name theres a lot of things are not correct are on point theyre able to use different documents. The reason im showing you all this document is the civil war really brings visibility to enslaved people. The slave schedule became the name, the first name of enslaved, maybe not. Again that last name of the end slaver. The hair color, the occupation of farmer or Something Like that. But because of the civil war you had on the left these androids were African Americans are and rolling and telling a little bit more about themselves. We noted a lot of africanamericans enrolled in places like knoxville, tennessee. Andu now if you look on the let here you are able to see the age. You are able to see a little bit more. But also the death certificate as well. On your right use the is the apn for a headstone. So now we also see this soldier when he died. We can see a little bit about where hes going to be buried in everything else. And then to further add to that if we are able to find it, we can see these rencher records utwhere not enslaved but civil r soldiers had to go in frontnt oa judge and tell where they lived. If they had children played the name of the children, their wives names all of these Different Things in order to get their pensions. And so this is how we build the erstory. Te now another thing we are doing is using technology to define the facts. In the smokies something that is really important or a really important tangible aspect is 150 cemeteries we have registered. They are African Americans. We have several cemeteries in North Carolina we also have cemeteries. Cemeteries can tell us a lot. Butif you look to your right he, but we can do is be able to kind of build a little bit more of a picture what some of the primary documents that we have it. So on your right you are going to see little snippets of one of the historians from the 1940s that he wrote about a negra graveyard. How many people they think is buried there and so on. But also if you look under that you will be able to see sometimes what we run into, we run into things such as we are looking at the slave schedules the in slaver looks like its built ocher. You see those changes in the records. The enumerator went right down what they heard when there taken the census of slaves. They think the name is oee i think the enslavers ao or what it may be. What happens is that gets written down. That gets written down in history. We have to make sure we are correct on that. But if we go a little deeper well talk about how her using this technology. What we are doing is wrong with western carolina university. Were bringing in men to Ground Penetrating radar. The great thing about this and not only partner with our fellow universities we also bringing asheville city green works. Which is a program that brings teenagers out to get experience service with park an internship. The students in this university actually go out they do a Ground Penetrating radar survey. That bounces waves off of whatever iss underground two, four, 6 feet according to where it is. What bounces back as an image you will see onhe the right wili will explain in just a minute. We are able to do a less intrusive or invasive way of figuring out if the facts are right in the primary documents. What you are at look atnf here n the left is the slave cemetery. We will talk about and a second, and the area which is in the North Carolina side of thek, parka. The gateway of cherokee. And what you are looking at is the gravesite. Lets talk about the characteristics of what youre gravesite. The a lotrl of times both in the enslaved people in early white settlers were buried differently. Some things they were. As far as the area where they were buried on some of the techniques they were definitely the same. If you come to the smokies you will see open areas as you see on the left or the cleared out greenery. The enslaved people early white settlers were buried. Thee reason they did that in the mountains is because theres a lot in this critters the smokies snakes and things like that. They want to make sure no one we bitten by a snake or anything like that. Something us youre probably going to notice our head and foot stones. If you look closely at the photo it was the head and foot stones that left and right. Other Ground Penetrating radar or even the hills. Those were made out of soapstone. Anything that was in the area at the time. Thsandstone. You do not see granite as much thats what they have somewhat woodwork of those stones was some kind of hammer. They would have made the sounds we see today. Some thing else you will notice as people are oriented from east to the west. People were in culture when it comes to baptist or their religion that was an area. The gravesites are east to west for the Second Coming of christ. But as of the buried people. If you look closer you may see hills and troughs there. In the 1800s some of this was normal. In the smokies is pretty wet we get a lot of rain. What you have is graves would move and families would come back and put soil back over these graves as they moved. You have seen it quite a bit. One thing you wont see within enslaved cemetery are the inscriptions and things that you would see in the early white settlers cemeteries. When you look closely at the headstones what you wont see is this a person was loved or Something Like t that. Something telling us a little bit about the person. This shows you the people who were able to have those stones were higher in society in the smokies. The enslaved cemeteries or have enslaved burials in them we had not found any inscriptions of any kind. And so it really shows you the culture in where they were in the chain and socioeconomics and socially in the smokies. We are not able to read anything about these people but we are able to do if you look to the rates you are going to see a photo in blue. You are also going to see a little green, yellowish in that area. Now i took over the project in 2018 we knew their africanamerican burials here. We thought there were maybe five enslaved people buried here. However we discovered because of Ground Penetratingth radar is actually eight or more buried in this area. Those numbers show you the actual burials of the enslaved. Not the troughs or the hills you see on the left because his burials have moved over time. The other thing that we discovered through ground the gd penetrating radar are possible causes. And so in the smokies there made at a popular such as that nature, people did make office before they died. People learn how to make coffins. The thing about it is, if theres a couple of coffins here that means someone in this family, one of these enslaved people learned the woodworking trade. They may have made the coffin for their family or even for themselves. These graves and varied from a couple of years old all the way to about 50s. We know in the mountains in the 1800s most men lived longer than women and men live to be 50s if theyre lucky low 60s women 40s and 50s. We also can tell at times not in this sub symmetry but cemeteries over all if a woman died during childbirth. What we can see is to graves beside exhibits hard to tell that with enslaved because theres no inscriptions. With names and dates and so on. This is a great way we views Ground Penetrating radar in the own and we are going to continue to use that. Really do not disturb these people. If we had a closeup shot of one of these gravestones, what you would to see is the culture of west africa. West africans believed you have to pay a toll after eve died to move on. And even today people leave coins behind to show that respect. If you ever come to the smokies, you will see that. You probably ask why dont we see in the artifacts left behind like spoons, glasses, things of that nature . In certain cases you may have that. Hi wouldnt spoons were used by the enslaved at that was left behind it will be long gone by now. Another way we are looking into these artifacts are the cemeteries are cadaverog dogs. He probably ask yourself what in the world of the north cadaver dogs . They are important. We have teamed up with paul barton consulting. What he does is brings out these dogs they can smell human decomposition. They can smell human decomposition several hundred years old. We are able to actually go deeper into the mountains or steeper hills and check if we miss something to actually know if there are burials there. We are using any technique we have to learn more about African Americans. So, lets talk a little bit about the people, the stories. What brings things to life here in the smokies. Is the families are some of the first families that are in an area of western North Carolina close to cherokee. They put down roots in the late 1700s and theyia especially were there for quite some time. What you see on the right was rebuilt. This is one of three with doctor jon mingus. This family owned enslaved people as well. The park service came in 1960s and restarted. This bill wouldve been really important at the time people wouldve came and brought their grain in. They would also trade items and such. And so we hear a lot about the early white settlers story. However there is also a black side of the family as well. Too really. Get you to understad we are going to refer to these family members as Daniel Mingus was previously enslaved by the doctor jon mingus. Wellou talk a little bit about Charles Mingus senior and we are going to talk about junior. They think about it is we are going to talk about the story from a family of people that were enslaved all the way to famous jazz musicians of today. And so if we start with daniel, as we talked about was enslaved. If we look at the actual 1880s census record we will see daniel still works for the family. Doctor jon had a son named abraham. Hehe had a daughter. Around the 1870s. Daniel was actually helping doctor jon build a home. During that time a child was conceived. This child was conceived between daniel and clarinda. The thing about it is daniel was actually already married and in fact married to a white woman but the name of sarah and he had several kids. These kids would have been known onset of biracial after we dont use now. Its time for historical significance. So he had these kids and then he had a kid out of wedlock. What happened wasus clarinda actually moved to Sevier County and was remarried. I never took care of this child that they had. After the child was taken care of by doctor jon and abraham. You probably wonder what was his life like at the time we talk about this child. This child had an interesting life. What we are looking at here which is really difficult to read, we are looking 1880s census record. What i have is a couple highlighted. There is a gold star, a red star, a purple star you also have a blue star. You get to the story about charles senior. Daniel moves on, his mother clarinda moves on. He is raised by his grandparents and greatgrandparents. Now if you look at the census record he will see a yellow star by jon mingus you will see a red star by clarinda. You see an outline purple start by Charles Mingus senior we will talk about later you see an outline blue star by Daniel Mingus he took the last name of his and slaver. What you are noticing in the census record is little Charles Mingus senior would be indicated as a white and three years old at the time of the 1880 census record. No we have to ask, why was this important . And how is the labeled ad as white in why did this happen . We have to think about the culture back then. If a child was white passing a lot of times or even an adult the numerator would put them down as white. The funny case on this one is abraham mingus which was his grandfather was the numerator of enumeratorof the county. And so abraham put charles senior down as a white child. And you have to think about doctor jon mingus and mingus is been so wellknown in the community on the abraham mingus had the sun with the previously enslaved black man. Th now what that look like to them. But also you have to think about what did they think about when it came to charles life . What would it be like . What would it be like if they oput move a lot of down or blacked out on the census record, what would it look like if they put white on the census record there so many things in that nature we have to look at. It really showed us a lot. So lets talk a little bit about Charles Mingus senior life. But we do know is he left the area pretty young. He left front of 14 or 15 years old. He came back once but he was in the military. Have beautiful thing about that is he served in the spanishamerican war. He also served as a buffalo soldier. You probably know aal little bit about the Buffalo Soldiers that really help with the expansion of the american west. They fought indigenous groups out there. But they were also some of the National Park service pursed first park rangers. What we do know is he didnt return home at one time. And when he returned home he did not stay long. We have to think why is that . Is it because when he returned home because of his race that he have those problems of Race Relations with his family . We do know he never went back home pretty think about yourself, we have all seen this before where people leave home and they dont come back or they dont connect with her family. And this is what happened here. What we do know is Charles Mingus senior was married three times. With his second marriage he had a son named Charles Mingus junior will get to injustice Second Period but as you can see on the photo to the left ear, Charles Mingus senior was calm,s you goods biracial. Even though you would think for him that made life easier, tethroughout life people did say he talked about that quite a bit. Also made a lot about his life. One thing that did not change was his father being a black man from africa. So we move onward is that go . It was on sinex Charles Mingus cipher the typo up top. Charles mingus junior was born on a military base in 19202. He grew that love for jazz music. In california. Some people do not know who he is he was a pianist and a bandleader. He composed a beautiful works over 300 songs with some of the most important musicians you can think of. Louis armstrong, just to name a few people. Charles mingus junior went through the same thing. He never publishes a biography. He didnt talk about being biracial. He and his father had challenges with that. He was married three times as well and he had a son named eric mingus later on in life. Sadly he died at the age of 54. The next slide a little bit even in the 1960s it was traveling over too europe he think about the time during the Civil Rights Movement in things such as that. Going to try to play this lets make sure it works. If not i can re present this and hopefully the audio is on, okay . I just think that for me is a beautiful thing. To see the change in history and to see the family progress. It is so important to tell the whole history a lot of times we get the question of why African Americans recreate . Why are we not out in the parker . Why are we not doing these things . The biggest thing is, at least in our parks history in many parks history africanamericans have always been therehe. They have always recreated. I want to show this in the next couple of slides. We could back to the 1930s when the parkle started use the on te right will see a memo from superintendent. And to summarize the memos goint back and forth in the National Park service especially the one you see now just saying africanamericans dont really make up a High Percentage that go to the smokies but you just do not see you then. At the time in the 1930s and 1940s shenandoah National Park was the first National Park integrating National Parks. A lot of times you may seek comfort stations like the one built a while back. But a lot of times especially like superintendent just did not see the need because the numbers were not there. What i am going to show you all tonight is the numbers have always been there. Africanamericans they are doing this some time ago when the park was founded as well. And one way to do that and show you the picture of the job corps. The job corps was much different than integrated core with africanamericans pork, or white as well as native americans at the time. A lot of these African Americans, a lot of these African Americans learn when they are in the job conservatio corps. We did a lot of oral histories on this africanamericans that d in the job conservation corps and the jcc. They had a great experience building trails, trail blazings, building picnic tables. The overall camaraderie the skills they learn from that time. That is why just the experience of them being able to be a part of the park really shows you these men went on to recreate and go on long trips and explore National Parks until today. So it really starts again with the visibility. Our africanamericans getting a chance to be a part of that . It is really important. So job corps shows us that. Now a little bit more about the history of the park and African Americans is thinking about the overall town this is really special in the history of the smokies. I was settled in the early ow1800s. Hunters squatters and so on and really transformed because the little River Logging Company of the 1900s. K a lot of visitors coming to the park. Also came wealthy people from the knoxville area. They would go to the clubhouse is there such as the wonderland and appalachian clubhouse and spend the summers there. They also had homes there. Now the National Parkou service after the National Park Service Fully tooks over this area and the lands of the 1990s, were preserving to keep it as it was but also educate people. What you dont see is the history of africanamericans. Africanamericans would have been on those as well serving as butlers and caretakers serving food at the time. That history is quite lost. Some of history that is not lost what comes to the davis family. I enjoy the davis family we have been lucky enough to do an oral history with ron davis senior which we could back up and talk about the history of the davis family and elk mops. What you see hear from left to rice is william, mary, steve davis part of the davis family but william was really important to this. Works forro the family which waa prominent family from knoxville. They had one of these cabins on millionaires road as we call it. With that william and his family is to bed caretakers of this cabin. They would come out and get the cabinet ready for the spring print that set it down for couple of days. They would build memories there as well. If you look, lets go back here if you look at the last picture of steve to the rights that gives you of what the cabinet used to look like. The cabin is no longer on jakes creek today but the fireplace is. If you look back at William Davison you will see that was te front porch of thebu cabin. But lets talk a little bit about africanamericans recreate. Of ron davis senior last year. He makes stories of going to the cabin he remembers flyfishing. When the fireflies before it was a thing. He has pictures of bears but also an impact he went to college at haywood tech at the time. He went for a four street degree he worked for some time 20 plus years working for the Tennessee Valley authority at the time. What i love about ron davis is he tells stories about celebrating his dadsir birthda. But he really tells a good fish story. Tiim going to play a portion of the oral history for you all. It is ron davis were going to let him talk about flyfishing and the smokies and why it is so important to him. I will share this one story with you. My dad taught us how to fly fish with a fly rod. Ten, 11, 12yearold kids. When i would go camping i was an early teenager. He is probably at that point 13, 14, 15at. During that time. We would fish strings in close proximity to the campsite. There was a time i hooked a big ntrainbow trout to the point tht there were people standing around the bank watching me try to land that fish it was so big. It was probably it was huge. Crowds were gathering around it was near the campsite where we were camping and other people whether camping as well. Crowds are standing around watching me too see if i could get the fish in. My body that was with me all got almost all the weight in im putting a net on it. He got so excited that he wanted to try to grab the fish and knock the fish off the hook. And fish went swimming out too. This camping, fishing, and then in later years when i started going to Haywood Community college i was traveling back and forth across the mountain a lot. And going to school at western North Carolina in the mountains in the canton area. We would take field trips, the forster class or take field trips. So my exposure in the mountains increased a lot. And so you can see oral history is so important. So great we were able to capture his voice. Now, ron davis i talked in a couple weeks ago. He is still working with the National Park service. Haiti is a huge advocate for the National Park service. Actually one of the brothers is a wildlife photographer as well. It was you can see be introduced to the outdoor did really change ron davis and his family. And so we will go into one more story which is one of my favorite stories. Its about daniel white he is known as the black eye lash in. He is one of the few African Americans that hiked the trail. One of the quotes you told me during oral history last year i stumbled into ourll hiking is my rgcalling. I want to search for that history. And i want to goco back. I can feel the connection this hiking stuff is natural to me. This altitude is too easy its what i meant to do. Daniel is from asheville, North Carolina. Before he went on the appalachian trail he had never really hiked. When he went out there, fell in love with it. And during that time when youre hiking the appalachian trail a lot of time to get an trail for people you run into daniel white made its own trail known as the black election. Adeptly coincides which is one of the terms africanamericans use in the region of appalachia. Talk about hiking through the smokies. And so far on it started snowing just the worst snowstorm ever. Tremember the impact so much of her so hiking today by the last time i talked to daniel he was in maine. He bought 10 acres of land and he started his own outdoor camp for kids of color. They can go there for free. Theav meals are free they can cp and hike and had the experiences that he did. I just want to close before we do a little bit of reflections. And as we talked about this is the africanamerican experience of the smokies. Making the invisible visible for a reason. That is because we had to bring visibility. It isro important. It is from east tennessee a very known point in the area. She says youve got to find a way to make people know you there. What we are doing in the smokies today is finding a way to let people know africanamericans were there but theyre still there in the smokies telling their stories. And as i said before this park special. We have here is special and unique. And it is important to tell all of the stories of the smokies the early white settlers, native americans and the africanamerican story. Thank you very much. Im getting my camera up. Sounds good. Thank you so much. Ii think the stories are really moving are really appreciated the audio or the oral histories and all other things you added that give us a sense of all the work you are doing. Thank you, thank you for bearing with me through the internet failure, thank you. [laughter] absolutely. It happens. If you have any questions send them end. I did come up with some questions to get the ball rolling. One of the things iom know is something this not calmly talked about often i Must Research has been done by the people in the feregion . And did it look different . And kaiser bring that up. In my career i actually worked as a native american consultant and work with the tribes quite a bit. I work with the cherokee a little bit. A lot of times people do not talk about cherokee having enslaved people. But they did as a matter of fact deerskin and duffels. Which is ane really good book. It talks on the few things that native americans or cherokee have to take with them on the trail of tears where they were enslaved. As far as the research involving in that region as far as the research, of cherokee having enslaved people in the park hadnt dove into that too much. The reason is we are building outwe when we are looking at ths project, we are looking at time periods. And say for instance the next day we really want to look at our research if the reconstruction area. Theres a lot of info know theres a lot of information of African Americans as weha talked about earlier that we are putting together. We have things such as archive video that we just found like two months ago but no one has seen but a handful of people. That is not the priority but it is an important story. We do know when it came to job conservation mckay will say with the job conservation corps was there in the 1960s that was not a place that they enjoyed goingno through. We havent got there. We know there are stories there. And for us we just want to tell the full story. If we had enough information on that point, within the park we will. The last part of that is did the sleep schedules look different for the cherokee . Weve only run across the census records of slave schedules made by the United States government. We are unaware of any particular cherokee for the schedule. And i have never seen records to it. Is there documents out there as far as some kind of documents the actual cherokee enslavers kept . Maybe so. We have not dug deep enough to look into it yet. That makes sense you are focusing more on the information and you have a large scope of time. Land again a lot of times peope at is hard to its almost like a degeneration or things change with children now. As a generation of parents who did not see children print what i mean by that is children talked or things like that they did not hear them out. I now parents do it differently. They hear children talk and they talk about what their into things like that. Going back to enslaved people especially in the mountains, if you are in sleepn you do not wt to tell people you can read and write anyway. And so a lot of those stories were just handed down. Im one thing in particular as a lot of people ask us to have you seen anything on the underground railroad . Theres got to be an underground railroad. I always tell people the underground railroad was a really secretive operation. If you puts on top of that i dont know for ever going to find. We know about quakers. What about quakers in east tennessee and east tennesseans being sympathizers. Or not believing in slavery. There are some stories we may never find out. Especially you said with the scope of work that we have. So. Morgan asked, what can we do today to help make sure that continues to happen so for black stories. Yeah i mean theres a couple of things i think, you know, philanthropic work is always good, but i think, i think, you know, education like is important to be able to just, you know, tell this story, you know, two different people is great making that connection. I think one thing is really important. I talked to the sierra club about this when we did a podcast last year. I think one thing is important in what were trying to do differently is that theres a lot of stark history when it comes to africanamericans. We also want to make sure that we are story out there while selling the dark history as well. And so i think, one of our my ways to really getting the story out. Well, thank you. We are glad to have you. I visited the area over the last few years and ive never heard history. Thats awesome. I know asheville. In the beginning stages, the city off asheville is working on an africanamerican trail, almost like a storytelling trail. We are not at theth point wheree can they are not ready to work with us t yet. They are t getting the funding n position, but we are definitely going to be doings for our communities, asheville, and so on. And also we just finished the educational panel. We two into the park, you see all of this information about mountains. We just finished phase one of africanamerican trails. Something else we are going to be i think to, they are really working, we are going too have hopefully this year africanamerican concert. Things like that, its happening. Since 2018 we have been doing a lot of research but now you will see it within the Education Programs more and have we have great education doing that and we are i think to a lot of social media around it as well. Were that would be a fun experience. Okay. So one of the questions that i have because i have friends. Are there any black hiking clubs in the area that are, you know, that meet up regularly because . I know that there are some people are out there sometimes. Itin is. You know, that is scary experience just comes from, you know, connected histories, africanamericans, some of them felt safer, would use the park to drive through. They felt safer that way but also if they went fishing or hiking sometimes they took people. So they wait in groups. This gave back to ku kluz klan and things such as that nature. There are groups such as outdoor astro. They had chapters, they had one in charleston and they should have one pretty close. So outdoor afro is a big one and i have been out on hikes with them before. Thats great. I think thats something that benefit from. Theres a lot of outdoor groups of people of coming together and different interest groups. I think thats very helpful. If someone would like to to research on certain families where they can they search first. [laughter] well, yeah. Iac want to two back where i started two years ago. I think just thinking about the research, i will say look at the schedules and the census records, its just people that met in theve area, however, youu know, pieces about what enslaved peoples lives were and it kinds of piques my interest, they were working and they were doing i think theres a story here. Whoever is doing the research you to do that but for me as we arerc researching this project, the most important thing of checking the research, and may take some of the stories that i share with you all today two years to research and create. And so it takes a while but its fun, its fun in the same way to be able when i two out to those cemeteries and i look at those grave story, im going to tell the story. Its a moving process. I think maybe a little comment before our final question. Whenever youre i think to research on histories that can be overlooked or theres not a lot of information, theres so much to find out more and also just, what was your life. What canwh i learn. Thats why yeah, yeah, there is a drive. We had more stories that we are working on. Here is the thing, theres so much history there. The history overlaps and we also to a podcast as well called smoking signal and the reason i bring that up is because in that podcast we interviewed people from the cherokee tribe and they talked about using green, they would and then, you know, a gentleman from canton or North Carolina outside the park telling the story about we are take grains and overlap. Theres not history that i havent tone or conversation that i havent had with descendants of white settlers or native americans where they are not talk about days on the farm, people died young, moonshining, all of these different talking about the same thingle and thats whats beautiful this project because really its just its just breaking more equality to this side of the story. Absolutely. So this is the final question, is there an email i can find out to stay up at a timed on what the organizations are i think to with the subject or yall were working onto get more updates on everything that youve been doing . Sure, yeah, you can. You can two to great smoking Mountain Page which isou www. Mps. Gop and you cannt look up great smoking mountains. You two to history and culture, youll two into the africanamerican experiences project and you can email on the main page. We have a wonderful information ecspecialist and media team. We are working to do anin update to the page. So the page should we should do an update in the next couple of weeks. We are putting up all of the stories. I think my i think my favorite thing thats going to happen soon which may take a couple of months is, one, ive been working with our center, when it comes to videos and things like that to take all of that oral history where people can listen to them and website in pod last format and we are going to to this in National Parkma called story mapping and what that is, you have this mapping digital map that you can look up and you can look at these points these gps points and you can two to the history. And so hopefully, you know, next year we will have that up where people can say, i want to two check out the slaves and learn about brown and story and they can follow those points and, you know, if a ranger is not there, they can learn. The other great thing is that we just found out, we just got a National Park foundation grant, a couple hundred thousand dollars and we are going to use that to make a video for the africanamerican experience. So that website is going to have tons of new stuff in the next year, year and a half. So just two to that and keep checking back. Well, thats exciting. I look forward to seeing that. To you want to close us up . I will, indeed, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Antoine, thank you so much. If youre in the area, we hope that you stop by the museum. You can tie that into tonights talk. But its a pleasure. I hope everyone wishes have a good night and thank you, guys, again. Weekends on cspan2 are intellectual feast, every saturday American History tv documents a story and on sunday book tv brings the latest of nonfiction books, funding for cspan2 comes from Television Companies and more including media com. 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