Transcripts For CSPAN3 Commemorating The Reconstruction Era 20180107

Forward to taking questions and comments from the audience. As you know, we are here because a year ago, almost exactly a year ago today, president obama created the First Ever National park site devoted to reconstruction. As we all know, the United States has dozens of sites , buted to the civil war until january 2017, we had none devoted to reconstruction. Fittingly, the site that was designated was in beaufort, South Carolina. We set up this roundtable to bring together some of the people who played crucial roles in making that happen. Chanceed to give them a to tell us what we should be learning from it, and how historians can be helpful and interesting partners in those processes of improving Public Memorials and other places across the country, and to hear some amazing tales of how it came to be. I am breakdowns, university greg downs, university of california. Quickly do a sound test for this video, so bear with me for one second. Array, we are in good shape. I am from northwestern university, and i will be introducing the panelists now. We decided that every single extorton this panel is narrowly accomplished, there are 150 things we could say about each of them. To cut right to the chase, we will be very short introductions. I want to add that unfortunately, mike allen was today. E to be here in case you are going from your written program, molly ross is here, and we have done a lot of work for the Parks Service. She said nobody could take michaels place in this, but she will speak a little bit about the perspective of someone who worked within the park service on this project. Could not or foner make it, but he will come in through a video he made specifically for this event. We will first hear from secretary bruce babbitt, who served as governor of arizona from 19781987, and was the United States secretary of the interior from 19932000 one. He is acting as counselor to Governor Brown of california, working on issues of water reform. A professor at Columbia University and the author of many acclaimed books. 1988, andlished in his book was a major reinterpretation of the period that set the agenda for future work in scholarship and public history. Spent over 35 years in leadership in the National Parks service before retiring last year, trained as an attorney, she helps president obama established 15 National Monuments, including the Reconstruction National monument. And billy kaiser ling keys mayor of beaufort. He also served in the South Carolina state legislature. Without further a do, we will ask the first question for secretary babbitt. As secretary of the interior in the clinton administration, how did you become involved in an interested in the effort to create a National Park site devoted to reconstruction, and why did it seem important to you . Bbitt it all began when i left law school. I spent a few years as a civil rights worker in the south. And during those days, in the spring of 1965 in selma and other places around the south. I always wondered we were in the middle of that. The historic antecedents of the revival of the civil rights on american agendas. After such a promising beginning, right after the civil war, it disappeared from the agenda. Some years later, i am the secretary of interior, thanks to bill clinton. We are in the monument business. I got acquainted with a remarkable academic named eric foner, who, in my judgment, more , broughtother person reconstruction back into its rightful place in American History. I got acquainted with him, and he said we ought to go down and i will show you around. He had identified beaufort, port royal, the penn center. This area in South Carolina, the best kind of living example of all of this reconstruction history. To southd off carolina. Eric was my guide. I met all of the usual suspects. The irrepressible mayor billy and mike allen from the Parks Service, and got a nice view of what this was all about. There seems to be a unanimous agreement that this was the right place to memorialize reconstruction. That was really a terrific beginning, and it all went downhill from there. [laughter] byrd rule i cant sec. Babbitt i came back to washington, looked at the clock, in the last i was few months of my administration, and there was not a chance of getting this on the agenda in the last 60 days in the administration. Econstruction had no meaning most of the people i talked to thought reconstruction must refer to highways and bridges and ports. For the bushn administration. I occasionally came back to check around and call of eric foner, got acquainted with the kate and greg, but there was not much going on. Allenrks service, mike down in South Carolina, his people were really jazzed by this. I have to tell you, if you talk with the park service in washington, no one had ever heard about all of these issues. So the years ticked by. And then comes the Obama Administration. Really 10 years have gone by, and i thought well, we are back in business. This will be a slamdunk. Well, it was not. The obama people in charge of these issues were on to other things, and it did not seem to have much urgency. They had never heard of eric foner. He was still kind of buried in the past. And there were interesting objections. We have to have a specific place on by the federal government in order to legally ground the proclamation of a National Monument. So i am calling billy up again, and saying billy, what is down there . What is owned by the federal government . Not a popular idea in South Carolina. [laughter] the second obstacle was the Obama Administration, rightfully, was saying before we use the Antiquities Act, we want legislation sponsored locally to provide a platform of public discussion. Wonderut the atlas and whose Congressional District . Bad news. The Congressional District, the representative was mike sanford. [laughter] mr. Babbitt a nice enough guy, but he was not going to connect with this. This on somering real momentum, we are talking with all of these folks, and i have to think outofthebox of it. Maybe the sponsor does not have to be a congressman from the district. Who else is down there in south we are looking down, and we see the obvious. His name is james clymer. A wonderful, wellknown congressman. Leader,ted democratic and in my time, he had been a champion of appropriations for historic preservations, specifically for historic black colleges who helped us out. The clock is ticking. It is now 2016. We are past the end of clinton, bush one, bush two, obama on e. I called eric foner and h said, what is going on . He said bruce, you have to find a hail mary pass. You are running out of time again. I pick up the phone and that is when i decided to go see congressman clyburn. He lit up, and said yes, what can i do . I will do anything. He knows all of these characters me, there, and he said to you have to do one thing for me. Go down to penn center and talk with dr. Lawrence. Spent a day down there, looked around, and came back to congressman clyburn and said ok. And then it happened. That is the end of my story. [laughter] mr. Babbitt there is a lot more, a lot more. And then i met greg and take, but that is kate, but that is where i will leave you. We had asked eric to speak to this effort that build and ended up not coming to fruition, but was crucial for it happening. Now we will cross our fingers that the magic of technology is on our side. [indiscernible] ok, you should never do that. Sorry, guys. I cannot remember anymore. [indiscernible] am happy to share my contribution to the Reconstruction National monument beaufort, South Carolina. I received a call from the secretary of the interior, bruce babbitt. He read my book on the reconstruction. I responded that i found this washington that a politician was reading a long, scholarlyme tome. But he pointed out that out of all of the National Monument site, none was devoted to reconstruction. I flew down, had dinner with him, and over the next couple of months, prepared a report on possible venues for such a site. Obviously, reconstruction took place in numeral places, but i concluded that beaufort was the spot to commemorate that pivotal era. Reconstruction, in a sense, began in beaufort and the surrounding area during the war, as numerous groups former slaves, northern teachers, groton goers cotton growers, tried to work out the new status of emancipated slaves. Every key issue related to rate construction reconstruction battles over access to land, black political power, the rise of black education, and many others were played out in microcosm in the beaufort area. Historians todays become a long reconstruction, and it lasted longer here than anywhere else. Smalls, the intrepid x slave who became the areas political leader after the war, was working up to 1913, when he was removed by president woodrow wilson. Because of the union navy occupying the sea islands early in the civil war, and the white population prudently led rather than putting up a fight, little instruction took place. Robert buildings like smalls house, plantations where land, struggle to acquire this all made the area the perfect spot to educate the public upon this vital yet misunderstood part of our history. In december 2000, secretary babbitt and i visited beaufort to discuss the idea and gather support for it. One thing i quickly learned was that if historians are going to get in processes like this, we need to learn to navigate the world of washington politics and assemble a broader way broad array of backers. I spoke to historians such as walter edgar and thomas brown at the columbia campus of usc, and service,National Parks the success of robert sutton, and local figures, especially hadformer oah official, who tried to establish the reconstruction partnership. Accomplishcannot anything with allies like this. Sometimesngress operate like a group of characters in the godfather. Every member has his or her home territory, and will be tied the woe whoa be tied followed the member that left their place. President obama during one of his state of the union addresses, they had no interest or real knowledge of reconstruction. When the sons of confederate veterans pressured them to a close oppose the project, they agreed to do so. Even james clyburn, a former history teacher and congressman from the charleston area, thesed to pursue without backing of the current member. Represents theho beaufort area, led the support, and wyvern did use his white house connections to promote the project under president obama. When the Bush Administration took office in 2001, bruce babbitts successor turned out nordin,yle who, while hailing from colorado, had expressed the sympathy of the confederacy and later in the Obama Administrations, a new generation of historians and new leadership at the park service, including Michael Allen, succeeded in bringing it to fruition. Of course, reconstruction is too big and too important a subject to be combined to a single site. Everyone in this audience knows that without some familiarity of reconstruction, it is impossible to understand issues central to our Society Today who should be a citizen . What rights should they enjoy . Who is responsible for enforcing those rights . Who protect americans from terrorism . Who should vote . Interestedally more in erecting new sites like this been debating the dismantling of monuments that already exist. The public presentation is decidedly onesided. It needs to be brought into and diverse of five to make it truly diversified torse make it truly reflect our history. We historians have an obligation to try and disseminate the fruits of uptodate scholarship in as many ways and as many venues as possible. Let me close by saying i particularly regret by not not being able to greet secretary babbitt again. The photo that was shown of the two of us in late 2000 on our visit to beaufort. On that trip, secretary babbitt delivered very inspirational, short speeches about the importance of this project. I compliment of his eloquence compliment it is compliment ed his eloquence and said, somewhat mischievously, that he should run for president. He said i tried, but i could not win with only the npr vote. [laughter] dr. Foner it is not too late, you are only three years older than bernie sanders. I say go for it, lets have a president who knows thing about American History. [laughter] [applause] i would like to make an announcement. From mollywill hear rob. En your inbound involvement in the establishment of National Monuments throughout your career, what did it take to get is not emit proclaimed by this monument proclaimed by president obama . As i am honored to be here, and i am a one of the one of historian. Abe some of the village leaders are here today to get this thing proclaimed. There are legal and policy requirements that must be met before the president can exercise authority under the Antiquities Act, as secretary babbitt referred to, but the National Monument also demonstrate how much more is usually needed to protect a place and tell its story. Lets focus for a minute on the long policy. In 1906, Congress Passed the Antiquities Act, in which the congress delegated some of its power under the property clause to the president. In brief today, the president is authorized to proclaim a National Monument, objects of historic or scientific interest located on federally owned land. 16 president s, both republican and democrat, have used the act to create over 150 National Monuments. So what are the objects of historic or scientific interest in this National Monument . The the proclamation as objects are described in the narrative. They include the break baptist brick Baptist Church, and the historic landmark district on st. Helena island. Cam saxton, where the first africanamerican regiment trained in 1862, and the emancipation proclamation was red and celebrated on january 1, 1863, located on navy lands in the town of port royal. And the old beaufort firehouse, close to many other historic beauforts within the National Historic landmark district in the city of beaufort. Recall that the Antiquities Act says the object must be on land owned by the federal government. Of the objects that i just ontioned, only camp saxton the navy grounds belonged to the federal government just before the National Monument was claimed. Through the remarkable generosity of several, including penn center, the beaufort baptist and brick Baptist Churches, and the kaiser lang keyserling family, donations of land already and made to the federal government. All of these transactions has to be completed before the president could act. Beyond meeting the legal requirements of the Antiquities Act as, the administration wanted to know if there was public support for a National Monument. Thanks to the efforts of many, we were inundated with letters of support from public and private individuals and organizations, including influential historians with almost no dissents. Representatives clyburn and mark sanford introduced the bill to establish a reconstruction era unit in may of 2016. Local and National Newspapers carried compelling editorials by historians and others. On december 14, 2016, the new byk times a wonderful oped none other than kate and greg and eric foner. All of this effort culminated in a Public Meeting hosted by representative clyburn on december 15, 2016, at the brick Baptist Church. Here is how i described it. Approximately 200 people packed the historic church, and over 40 speakers, representing a broad and diverse spectrum of the local community, expressed strong support. Those in attendance says this is the story that must be told now, and offered their assistance in that effort. Ticktock, ticktock. Could we get everything done . Things had to be done. Interagency review was required, as well as very thorough review by officials up to and including the white house. The reconstruction era National Monument was the last National Monument created by president obama. It was proclaimed on january 12, 2017, and published in the federal register on january 19. That is where you can find any of these proclamations. Within the administration, we had not been sure we could complete all the work. But so many put heart, soul, and that itto this effort happened. President obama, secretary sally tool, and the Park Service Director john jarvis wanted to tell a fuller story of america. And yes, the National Park service, really wanted to tell this story. Michael allen has been working on this most of his career. The Parks Service contracted with greg and kate to work on the National Park Service Handbook on reconstruction, and the National Historic landmark theme study. Focusing on reconstruction was the necessary next step to the sesquicentennial remembrance of the civil war. Luckily, the basis of this action had been laid by ,ecretary babbitt, eric foner and others. Luckily, god created billy keyserling, including wonderful leaders at the church, the town of port royal. The National Parks service was able to work out an arrangement with the department of the navy to include camp sachsen, which is now part of the Naval Support facility beaufort. Luckily, jim clyburn worked long and hard from congress, and his colleague mark sanford joined the effort in that proposed bill. Thanks to everyone. [applause] last but not least, mayor keyserling. Everyone has talked about the centrality of local support, for all of the higherlevel work, the upper level administrative work and historical work that happened without support on the ground, it could not have happened. What did that look like . What did it take to bring together a local effort . What lessons do you think you and other people in beaufort learned from the efforts that , and what can historians learn from your experience of trying to pull together that local support . Mayor keyserling i think the first lesson i say this in is that sometimes you cannot rely on highlevel government officials and historians, because when they started this in 2008, they did not really understand that they had a big Pressure Cooker in terms of the local politics. In that Pressure Cooker, you do not take the top off. They entrusted congressman wilson to carry the ball in the house. Off, and the top everybody got burned. The put the top act on back on, and we waited, as the secretary has alluded. But 20 years 17 years at the time a lot changed in this country. The reality is the local politics was not so much our problem as a question about whether or not we could get something going and fast enough. The biggest obstacle was time. Obstacled part of that was, as you heard molly talk, with the antiquities was the antiquities process. We had to go to people and say, would you donate a building today, and we are hoping the president will sign it operation within the next week to use that building a proclamation within the next week to use that building . And the parks system with an awkward position, because under antiquities, they had to be quiet advocates. They could be facilitators, but they could not be out front. When you go to someone to give a building or an easement, or take a restrictive covenant out of a deed, everyone had to act in good faith from the Parks Service, which was really not allowed to say where we were going. They had to be very cautious, because they are not allowed to solicit. Someone has to offer. The Antiquities Act was difficult. But public support when i set out on this journey, which was really before secretary babbitt and jim clyburn called me i think he is in the room, but they introduced me to craig, who i think is in the room, worked for jim clyburn. He was fabulous at being the blue and washington in washington that held us together, and is holding us together now, because we have bigger and better ideas, so we will be calling on you. [laughter] mayor keyserling and then there is a group called the concentration Land Conservation land spotter foundation, which was Terry Babbitt secretary babbitt she was very involved in that. He was very involved in that. We did not understand the particular these peculiarities of the Antiquities Act, but they did and they could guide us. Hired someone, a grant us, and i think they happen to be here and well be doing a panel tomorrow on where we are going next. She said lets build a foundation. We got a National Endowment from the a row, but between those, the arts two years in a row, but between those, something happened. The community on the street, people were staying in peoples houses, eating in peoples restaurants, and we created a buzz. I literally got on the phone with Michael Allen he could not ask people to do things, but he could tell me the right people to ask. We got 167 historians from all over this country, who wrote letters of support. Where to the point secretary jules, deputy chief of staff, called me and said billy, enough with the letters. If i have to keep reading the letters, we will never get your work done. But we churned it. It was african americans, we even went to some of the confederate groups, heritage groups, and said this is a new world. There is a chapter in our history that has never been written, and it deserves a chance. I think the most telling moment, because two or three days after the declaration of the monument, i got a call from sally jewell and from molly, and they said as was fair to say this . [laughter] they both saidg we never thought you could get this done. The amount of work, on top of the work for the two other that the Parks Service was doing in a region that had never got a monument before, there was a huge learning curve for everybody. Sure id it out of drive, it is passion. The telling moment molly was there was when we had the public hearing. The public hearing is very important. The public is supposed to drive the antiquities process. Brick church, on st. Helena island across from penn center, to most people me, the churchpt was overflowing. To a lot of surprise, we had everything from School Children old people, young people, retired people, white people, black people, every kind of person you could imagine. The passion that emanated into that church i think shocked the director, that we were able to ,rystallize this sense of hope and it really was a sense of hope. Someone from the Parks Service in atlanta said you know, this is the first public hearing where we did not have people coming and talking about we need jobs or economic development. The central message from the 5060 50, 60, to the several hundred that spoke, was that it is time to hear the real story. It is time for the truth. That is all we want. When the elderly africanamerican woman stood up with a piece of wrinkled paper, covered in cellophane, she said see this . This is the deed to my greatgrandfathers property. , even read a history book today, you will read that my a slave, when he was freed, was given 40 acres and a mule. He paid a dollars and . 49 for it. Nothing was given 8. 49 for it. Nothing was given to him. That story got a false start. Colleagues on the council, caucasian, 32yearold businessman he came, and said you know, my great, great grandfather was in the artillery in the confederate army, and we have a picture of him in our living room. I have always thought of him as a hero, but you know, i still think of him as a hero, but he was on the wrong side. And it is time that the truth be told. And over and over and over not one person wrote a letter to the editor, wrote a letter to to the eventcame and spoke against this project. It was clearly one of the most heartwarming experiences of my life, to know that there is that ,uch love and that much honesty and that much integrity in a small little southern town that has this huge history, so much of which has either been missed or not told at all. Is that what you wanted . That was awesome, thank you. [applause] mayor keyserling obviously, everybody can tell i do not care about this. [laughter] let me throw a question to all three of you. What is next . If we want to build on this, and this is going to be a stepping stone not just to the creation of one institution, which is amazing, but to really be a stepping stone to transforming how the public understands reconstruction, what is next . Who wants to go first . Billy . Mayor keyserling i am on the ground, if you like. Us outside of this has been working on getting the story told. We have gotten some grants, we historians,umber of our leader of whom is dr. Foner, grege listed enlisted kate to work with us because we want to tell the modern story. We want to donate whatever we get to the Parks Service and incorporated into the development there. There is a further dream out there, that four sites out of how many did you all visit . How many are there all across the country . There are many more stories there. I will tell you a quick one. That is on the mayor of charleston called me on monday, and he said billy, i went to the 140th emancipation day parade in rleston, because in action the emancipation proclamation was right on the first. Read on the first. It . Aid do you know who read i think i played him in reenactments, but i cannot member his name. I looked it up and i told him, and he said do you know who he was . I said no. He said, he was a slave owner and South Carolina who decided that he was going to become an abolitionist. He did not think what he was doing was right, so he sold his slaves to his brotherinlaw and moved to ohio. He got to ohio and said wait a minute, i am supposed to be helping these people get free. I am an abolitionist. Hewitt back to South Carolina, purchased his slaves back he went back to South Carolina, to hised his slaves back brotherinlaw, paid a premium for all of them, and took them to ohio and freed them. And then he came back to South Carolina, where he worked aggressively. He was a baptist minister, and down to the line a White Baptist minister and down to the line, we have the Baptist Church of beaufort, which owned four churches occupied by africanamericans. They had transformed all that one of them in the 1970s. And then they transferred it to the brick Baptist Church. When molly and the lawyers were doing their research, just to get the facade easement at that time, they realized there was a cloud on the title or an exception in the deed that said should it no longer serve as a house of worship, it would have to be given back to the church. Well, you cannot put an easement on a property that has that condition. 2016, 5 001, p. M. , the Baptist Church of beaufort voted unanimously to give up any rights they had to allow this to happen. So there are so many stories to be told that are way outside the of workcredible amount has been done, and it has not been packaged and nobody knew what to expect. I hate to keep going, but at brick Baptist Church, a doctrine of divinity, grew up in charleston, several miles away. It was not until about 10 or 15 years ago, when he moved to become the pastor at brick Baptist Church, that he even knew the penn center existed, or that brick church here is a learned guy, a man of god who is generally on the right side, lives 70 miles away and did not know it. This is a very exciting time for those who live in beaufort. I think the challenge going forward, especially for historians, is how we spread this message itionally, and integrate into the National American story , so that we are not just looking at another really compelling National Monument. Powerat monument has the to kind of backlight and inform our national experience. So how do we do that . I think i would start by suggesting to historians and so how do we do that . Politicians that we really need to broaden our narrative of the civil war, because that is an event which is really, deeply embedded in our National History. It tends to be kind of a war story rather than a story of conflict resolution and transformation. Of all of these very significant monuments all over the country, to that episode from many, many perspectives, they are war monuments. Is not need to do rewrite the story, but expanded. Of thatt in the context particular slice of American History, which we are already familiar with. It needs expansion. Dr. Masur i would just add to ng,t, because, mayor keyserli we are trying to look at the stories that beaufort can tell, advanced communications in storytelling, and secretary babbitt, who is talking about making this story national. In the proclamation, we called reconstruction, as the historians had instructed us, the second founding. And we related to the three very important amendments to the constitution, and how that changed, really, our foundation and was a potential for opening. P a brandnew freedom that is a story that needs to be told in lots of places and in lots of ways, and i guess that i challenge everyone here to think of how that story can be told,. Here it can be told the national, which was my career, and tell stories through places. That is one way to tell a story. It can be a very compelling way to tell a story. I have been reassured that the National Historic landmark theme study on reconstruction is now out, and that is typically how we look at where else can the story be told with places . What else can be done . And i very much believe in the park service and the role in telling american stories, so i love that, but more in this day ever, people need to know this history. You can all think of where this story needs to be told. Dr. Masur that is a perfect to segue into the question we want to ask the panel before we segue into audience questions. I know you want to ask questions and engage, and i want us to have plenty of time to do that. Because there are probably so many historians in the room right now who may be have not been involved in public history, per se, or work mainly in universities as professors were graduate students for graduate students or historians and other kind of places, specifically, in your his. In the work you have done, how do historians enter a conversation like this . If you would like to pick up what you were saying, molly, and go the next step, what would you invite the people who are interested in this room to do . Mayor keyserling i would say, get greg and kate, and their advice about writing editorials for the new york times. Example of moving out into public advocacy with the tools that you have at your command. Connections need to be made i can speak for the Parks Service connections need to be made between leaders and the Parks Service, historians in the Parks Service, and those outside. The Parks Service has a glorious history of historians, but there have been some close to it in more recent decades. Stilloping that it is attracting historians, and i encourage you to check that out if that is of interest to you. I know that i work with some wonderful people, but it is not as strong a discipline as it once was for the Parks Service. Supportakes the right from higher levels to make it so. Nevertheless, i will tell you i immediately turn to luanne jones in the Parks Service, who was wonderful in helping with this, and other historians we have had robert sutton, and others who have been wonderful supporters of these efforts. Serviceting the parks to your symposium, creating an interest as i said, i am a wannabe historian. So many people in the Parks Service love what they do and telling the story of america, both the history and natural resources. Whatever connections you can make with people, they can generate interest. That is what i had to add. See, keyserling i just every time i read or hear another story about reconstruction, i see its relevance its relevance to problems we are dealing with today. If we can somehow find a way to link them for example, i have young, africanamerican men, probably caucasians as well, with their pants falling off and no role models, who have grown up thinking they were victims, who do not know that their great, greatgrandfather was a survivor. This was an incredibly talented these freed people were incredibly talented. Robert smalls is probably one of the finest and most affected effective politicians there ever was. But there are so many in terms of getting these kids to have some hope and to see that they come from stock that was extremely successful. Not many people have said this, but during the reconstruction period, where you had former slaves as entrepreneurs and white entrepreneurs, and everyone was working together, that was the most financially prosperous my little town has ever been. And that is why we had the fusion party at the end that said we do not want to go backwards. We do not like this jim crow thing, and they held out for or five years four or five years. So my answer is find a problem that is relevant today, see what you learn, and i that you can tie together things that will help us with what we are going through. Things are not very nice right now. Thank you so much. We would like to invite questions from the audience. We have been asked by cspan, but if you could ask a question that the microphone in the center aisle. If people want to come forward, for you all to be able to ask questions of our panel. Lets get this started, raise your hand while somebody comes up. I think he is president ial material. [laughter] true leadership. [indiscernible] thinking about how reconstruction fits in the national story, how can we make what can we do [indiscernible] i think when we got involved with the National Parks service, we were curious about this question. We convened a group of imminent to talk about the National Parks service, and people there said are you going to be willing to tell a story about the thousands of murders, topolitical violence, and their credit, over and over, mike allen on the ground, the southeastern superintendent, and now the chief historian bob sutton,. He said we have to do it that way. We have to tell it as a story of second revolution. We have to tell it as a story that involves both the extraordinary possibilities that it unleashes, and also the extraordinary violence it took to put it back. It does not mean there are not tensions, challenges, or limitations, and im super interested in hearing other , but i waske on that very optimistic that from the beginning, those people came in really primed to do it. I do not think everyone in the National Parks service was quite as primed as they were, and i think they sometimes had to be stubborn to defend these points, but that was my experience in those early times. The Parks Service people we worked with took great pride in the tradition of the Parks Service fallowing valuing the highest level of scholarship, and there were plenty of precedents for the park service Parks Service hiring academics write theme studies like the one we wrote. They are people that you would think they would be calling on, or people who have done this work for the National Parks service. Example, we wrote this theme study as sort of an overview of reconstruction, and the meeting greg talked about, we decided there would be six within thex themes theme study, and one of those was political violence. We drew heavily on the work of foner, andn, eric others. It is in there in an unedited way, the way we would have written it. I think that answers the it remains to be seen how that will in the monument itself. Ongoing process, it will continue avella kinds of interpretation and there. Here a lotael allers of the public history working thatone involves the idea interpreting history is a process and you are engaging in a dialogue. So you might be delivering information people find surprising and upsetting but the goal is to to hit them with it but to engage them in a conversation about what they are learning and what it means to know that. I imagine dealing with difficult that it will take that into part of the model. It is a most difficult aspect of American History and many people cannot expect to accept it with what they have always heard in the past being quite different. I think there is a gradual history going on here that is important. Remember president obama in to declaring the Reconstruction National monument went on to issue monument proclamations for the freedom riders in the south and for which i think is significant and there is not significant controversy or black backlash to them. Is her small indicators and we are starting to see an Opening Industry and we are starting to see a few portrayals in the era beginning to emerge. It will be a continuing process. In the Obama Administration, it was really geared to telling this story honestly and educating. As a secretary mentioned, there ,ere freedom writers created cesar chavez, Harriet Tubman was , charlesl monument young soldiers in ohio. The people i worked with in the park service and the leaders turn the Obama Administration and very excited about this wanted to have the highest scholarship. There are times in the park service where issues, for example was not until the early 2000s that the park service was able to fully discuss slavery as the basis for the civil war. And so that took a transition in the park service, the opening i think that the secretary has talked about. So theyre going to be these tensions. There is a time now that who knows what we can say at this point, but there will always be people that care deeply about this and the park service i am sure who will keep working to tell the full story. Next question please. Question [indiscernible] my question is relevant to the last point, is there any danger that the National Monument might be overturned or changed or rescinded, anything like that by the Current Administration or in the future . Thank you. Well, in this current political environment one hesitates to make any comprehensive pronouncements about this. I mean, it seems like anything is possible unfortunately. There has not been my sense been much directed at the cultural and Historical Monuments and the reason for that is that the utah monuments, like bears ears which has a significant cultural and historic component are about land, large areas of public land. That draws in all of the resistance to public land and all of the pushback from mining, the energy industry, oil and gas. Always spending heavily and aggressively to try to eliminate the offset of public land and protection of public land. As long as opposition is around, unfortunately to be part of it for the landbased National Monuments. The one thing i would add to that is even on those large landbased ones that are under some threat now and we saw what the president did two bears ears and Grand Staircase escalante, those issues will be litigated in the courts. There are folks ready for that. The better reading of the laws on the side of the folks who think this was an illegal action by the Current Administration, so that is really hopeful but i totally agree that the smaller ones, the historical ones, that were not on the list for review and i do not think they would be. Go ahead. Question good afternoon, thank you very much for the panel. My name is deborah. I work with the same education project. We are approaching our 10th anniversary. We have been focusing on teaching this year, teaching about reconstruction for all of the reasons everybody said here so i will not repeat those. We are finding teachers responding positively, getting excited. Students looking at it from a new lines. This year, our plan is to launch a campaign where young people around the country identify sites and their communities and design. Whether it be a plaque, a monument, load those on with digital technology. Create a collective map. And hopefully advocate to have a formal plaque and their city. We have a list of distinguished advisors and we will followup with everybody on the panel here. Mike question could be in front of everybody. Will you will say yes . The other question really is, any advice you have for young people as they are approaching this and particularly in other parts of the country that do not think of themselves as in the two to reconstruction, how to see those connections. If you are to think locally, while the gz that looking like . Any thoughts, we would love to get your feedback. A quick note of encouragement, some to 5000 teachers from across the country from every state, small towns, large cities, have signed up to access lessons so i think we are at a point in this political time when people are looking for truthtelling. Billy, this is for you. See the woman right there . She is going to talk a little bit about that tomorrow. She is specifically honed in on what you described almost. The engagement, the taking and sitespecific is getting the kids to the center to realize what it means. Getting them to church, getting them to the sites. Taking them to the tree where the immense patient was red. Explaining when the emancipation was red, it was said and believed my many of the slaves, tens of thousands that if they did not get to the tree at the time it was going to be red, they would not be free. The absolute, we are going to work on a plan to do this by water see get a sense of how far they had come to be there at that new years celebration. I think it is just what youre doing. It is engaging the kids and learning history that they are otherwise not taught and then asking them to begin to go to their social studies or history teachers and begin to fill in those blank pages. Those blank pages that just need to be filled in, they can be part of educating the next generation and in the way that the generation that preceded us was afraid to. Can i add something . I will add one thing. Last winter about this time, i got any mail from the person. Many of us get emails from people working on National History projects but this was different. It was, i am soandso, i go to such and such high school in massachusetts. You got some of these, too. So did eric. It was an oped. Then i got another from another student, and another. Finally i was like, is this an assignment . Did your teacher tell you to do this . And i found out this teacher in massachusetts had designed in assignment that students either had to write to one of the three of us that wrote the oped, or right to the president about the monument or there was something else. The students had to reach out to somebody and Say Something about what they had learned and what was next. I later it ended up emailing with that teacher. I said tell your teacher high from me. And in the boston area, basically, he was very interested in reconstruction and the history of africanamericans in boston and he had designed an assignment that was about figuring out what the precivil war of africanamericans in that area looked like. They made a simple website. It had a local, local component of learning something about your community that you might not already known file also thinking about this time. When we had the meeting way back when, we pretty quickly decided that although historians often talk about a greater reconstruction or reconstruction happens everywhere. There was a northern reconstruction, i reconstruction in the west. We focused on the exconfederacy. That was for reasons at the time you could not possibly do it all. There are so many stories from the postcivil war time about things that were in dramatic flux in the United States, in the north, in the west. That has not really been a focus of the things we have done or the National Park service has done but there was 1. 1 we compiled a really big list of existing park Service Sites with potential relevance and dad included homestead sites. The Buffalo Soldiers site. Various indian war sites, right . You could incorporate gilded age labor dispute sites. If you construe things broadly like that, you are talking about a lot of sites. There is always a reference to the oped in the new york times. Theres also one in the washington post. The purpose of those coming out when they did was we felt that your office was so overwhelmed that if the white house read this and sought moving along they would give you more support. [laughter] i want to reveal a fact and that is that billy is really from brooklyn. This side of brooklyn. [laughter] thank you all of you for appearing on the panel today and for your incredible work making this monument reality. We are in a moment where it seems like discourse is broken. Reactionary at nonationalism is on the rise. Inconvenient, unwanted information is simply dismissed as fake news. I come here today and i hear the story about beaufort, which sounds at this time is much like fiction as if a decade ago someone were to tell me donald trump was president. Someone were to tell me donald i am a historian. I believe in absolute specificity of events. That you cannot expect the same outcome regardless of plays and time. But i have to ask, what works in beaufort which is not working and so many places around this country . How did this happen . There is only one guy that can answer that question. Well, first of all i think that the reconstruction experience and the presence of the military make it a typical. And that black and white people, though segregated in my childhood, were no strangers to each other. Said there was not the same kind of fear. So when i went and sat down with the leadership to create this partnership, we trusted each other because we knew each other. We may not of been as friends, we may not of gone to school together, but we were familiar with each other and we trusted each other. But the answer that you ask for is the answer that this country is asking for and that is for people to sit down around the table and have some conversations. To quit twittering, quite fingerpointing, quite namecalling and sit down and have some honest conversations about what we are creating and leaving for the next generation. And to beaufort, being a diverse little southern city, we have had the ability to do that on a very regular basis. We changed the agenda title for our city council meeting, but that is the way we run our government. That is the way we try to run a civil city. The country is desperately in need of that. The book the secretary is going to write over my name is to choose to belong. How city decisionmaking can save america. I would add the mayor was always committed to the idea that people had to speak to each other. Even people who might not be comfortable in his position at fort sumter as the sort of secessionball process started on the 150th anniversary. Then there became the increasingly strident backandforth in newspapers and charleston. He called in some groups historians are not always happy to talk about and said i want you to say what ever you are going to say and print to each other and if you want say to each other i dont want you to say it and print. It does not have to take this kind of tone. I think that was coming from, South Carolina coming from there is he does, you know, he always conveyed that kind of credibility. He did not agree with everything everybody said but he did create spaces where people, including people with very antagonistic views could speak and i think other organizations did the same. I went to see the sons of the confederacy and i remember the trouble you got into. I said, were going to do it. Our goal is not to erase history because history will be told in many ways over time. Our role is to include history stories that have meaning. I do not want to take a thing away from you but i want to add to it and it is only fair that you give us this opportunity. The biggest component, they sat on their hands. Which was the best they could have done. Michael had a unique ability to sit down, i do not know if it is been said, michael is african american. He had some issues and the africanamerican community. One of his biggest dishes was trust around the subject of the land. Those who have studied the reconstruction understand. The one person who almost stood up was the one person at the Baptist Church. He was not opposed to the monument but he felt if they put an easement on the church, they could lose the church. Why did he think that . Because his brother owned a piece of property and someone asked for an easement to build a road, it was granted and they blocked access to this mans road and he ended up losing property. So going back to the 40 acres and a mule and the ownership of land and the land that was clearly stolen and abused by surveyors who would go in and survey 10 acres but only come out with eight or two that were needed for the survey. So land was a tough issue and michael had to have some very serious talks because that is the huge piece of the culture there which i think is very unique to beaufort. Weve had large numbers of freed slaves and africanamericans who do own land. I will lead one little story to that. I learned so much on this. The importance of land to people in the area was one of those things. When we first started talking to penn center and penn center is a wonderful place that has a history beyond reconstruction as well, it is tied to the Civil Rights Movement and many other things. Martin luther king retreated there. Blacks and whites could meet there. It was a very important place. The board loves penn center. We sat down with them in june, just six months or seven months before final action was taken by obama in january 2017. June 2016, we are talking and this idea of a Reconstruction National monument is a great idea. Massacre of koufax 1873 and native american struggles in the late 19th century after the civil war, is there a way to include that . Not be this administration but maybe future administrations try to expand the story of reconstruction telling the perspectives and failures of reconstruction, and that can be implemented in all of American History. It is a really interesting question. Im thinking of many questions of ultimate reconstruction sites. I cannot a glimpse of it and it involves extraordinary sites in the louisiana, which i had not appreciated, and in other states across the south, i guess i itnot answer except to say is a great question. Expand terms should we the recognition and participation of Park Services of some of these remarkable sites . Tell us how. This learned a lot about in our travel travels. One way i would talk about it is here we were talking about the National Monument reconstruction and that was an incredibly complicated process involving a huge amount of people and bureaucracy. Of ways to do a commemoration of things that are not remembered and commemorated and not as complicated. In might become invisible eventually or have that level thein a way, it has been part of what the monument could accomplish would be drawing more attention to the history of reconstruction in the can to the discussion of it in public and therefore, more activity locally around the history. One example is what a bunch of people did in memphis with the massacre of 1886 where there was a park Service Person named tim in missouri, who got involved with Susan Odonovan in the university of memphis, and there were a lot of people involved, it stemmed practically a years worth of commemorative work in a messenger massacre that have not been recognized publicly in the city of memphis. There were Public Libraries in created for teachers and students, and culminated book basedrking on a on that now. To your point, this is all talking about the impact of it violence racist suppressed in the history of the city itself. Book based on that now. I think it is a wonderful and successful example of the kind is ng that can happen involving property transfers here. A couple of things i would add to the comments, there are embedding that have not been taken advantage of. Because they are either enacting legislation really didnt talk about reconstruction is that you cannot talk about it without talking about reconstruction. So it is there on the site. Its their for the goals of the superintendent. Some of it is about getting work for the mps. Ive done stuff for a video in the Golden Gate National center. Theres also the reconstruction connection. And they look at how they can embed that in places like you 70. That is one. The second is finding places. There are places that have existed with historical structures. There are other places that have structures that really could reveal more and more of the story. All you have to do is find a place secretary babbitt, npsers like michael and others. Third, there is the idea that the National Park service have explored places like the underground railroad, building a network apart that altogether are telling a combined story that leave you from place to place and pull you outward. Its not as if this is the only place you learn this. Our group has a vision to follow the network route. I dont think we have an expectation that the park service and part of the federal government that may not even have a budget in 15 days but i think what we are finding is local governments are taking up this. Think we are getting to understand from a point of history, we have assets. If i called the mayor of bluffton, South Carolina and said, such and such a house was used by so and so during reconstruction do you have somebody who can write that story . And even though it might not be part of the monument or part of a park, maybe not even open to the public on a daily basis, we can develop a story digitally and have it as part of this. And i think you will find historically, in small towns, we have waited for someone else to do this, but i think like other things, its catching on. People want a piece of it. Quite frankly, reconstruction in South Carolina is a very hot in a nice way a very hot topic. I want to make sure we get one last question. Leon from the journal of labor and working class is true. Apart from the new sites for the parks, which strikes me as a laudable goal, it strikes me it has relevance to one other contemporary issue, maybe project, that involves historians. We all know cities and campuses around the country, theres an ongoing contest about memorialization in statuary around the issue of race, essentially because of the slavery era. Why not, as historians and historian activist, instead of making the focus contesting the old monuments, in the spirit of what eric foner offhandedly said, why not around the destruction or in debate with the old statuary there be a new commemoration of reconstruction, of its advocates, its a victims, and so on . Mr. Babbitt a powerful suggestion. John oliver has covered that. [laughter] he did an episode of monuments he wanted to see and one of them was robert smalls. Mayor keyserling in charleston, they are trying one thing, too low. That is to take in this case, its a big monument, john calhoun. But instead to invite the public to come in and do a contemporary interpretation. This is what it was then. This is what we think it means now. History i need not tell you all is not like chalk on a blackboard. You need not erase it. Blackboard. You can look at it differently. I think the mayor has been very, very clever to engage his community. Lets not tear it down, but lets be honest and put more interpretation to it about how we see it today. We thank you all for coming. We want to thank our panel. [applause] host you are watching cspan3s live coverage of the American Historical Association meeting in washington, d. C. We welcome our and Radio Audience as well as we continue. We will be focusing on the issue of reconstruction. Katie mazer masur will be joining us. All of our programming is available on our website, www. Cspan. Org history. We are also taking your comments on our Facebook Page and you can send us your information as well by following us on twitter or emailing us. Next, we continue our coverage of this weekends American Historical Association meeting in washington, d. C. You are watching American History tv on cspan three. We want to welcome kate we followed your Panel Discussion a moment ago. What was your take away with what you learned . Dr. Masur it was such a pleasure to be together with a group of people