Transcripts For CSPAN2 Interpreting History In Charleston South Carolina 20220814

We can make them better, and i want to thank i hope you have had the opportunity to get some of the food that was served up outside by, first of all, morris brown member Reggie Simmons cooking up a lot of the sides, and then we had ben connell come down here from South Carolina. He is so committed to what the foreign means and what is doing. He is a lawyer in Kershaw County and he drove down here and cooked the chicken and sausage for us, and he didnt just cook it. He donated time and all of that food and that is a commitment to the community and we thank you so much, my friend, ben. I want to thank some other people while we get started, make sure i get these sponsors right. Dominion energy, el hoppa foundation, the joanna foundation, the federal bar foundation, marin, marvell, bradley and anderson it is a law firm if you couldnt tell boomtown, and of course the law firm. Other brie thanks to our dedicated Board Members other brief thanks to our dedicated for members. It takes a lot of work to pull off an event like we are doing this evening. One in particular i would like to call your attention to is the chair of our committee, beau moore, emeritus professor of social science at citadel. Thank you both. And others. You see a lot of people from mp strategy around who made this happen, abigail, megan and the other volunteers. Thank you all for doing that. A couple housekeeping items. We are welcoming cspan here tonight. We are certainly happy to have them. Please room or to turn off your cell phones or silence them. When you are seated, we encourage you to stay seated until the intermission if you are able to, and that will allow for easier filming for everybody, but it is, again, great to get back here together. Thank you to pastor manning and his continued stewardship of the Charleston Forum and our relationship with the Mother Emmanuel Church and the commemoration activities every june. Next week, it will have been seven years since the hate crimes committed at mother emmanuel, and that seems like a long time ago. It does, but weve had constant reminders along the way, including the killing of george floyd, the victims in buffalo recently. We still have got a long way to go. And it is the it is the forums purpose to get us there as a community and as a model for the nation. We try to bring different perspectives and forge solutions out of that common understanding, a way we can move forward together. The forum focuses on four social pillars, education, economics, policing and criminal justice, and what we are here for tonight, what we call the future of the past. What is interesting is our surveys have revealed in the past couple years, you may have seen the surveys. They are available on our new website for you to review. You can get everyone to agree on goals for education, for treating People Fairly by law enforcement. You can agree on all of these goals in these areas but what really still is a division or these issues that seem less practical but certainly more emotional of a divide for our society and that is these issues of the future of the past. So we want to bring everyone together and have an understanding of why only 36 people in the tricounty area think that our government is handling controversial statues and monuments the correct way. We want to find out ways to get there to where we can all appreciate, that all reasonable people in the low country believe we are handling it the right way, or at least an acceptable way. We cannot have better guides for our journey to find we couldnt have better guides for our journey to find the correct way to do things than our panelists night. Our second panel of Public Officials will have two faces with those who are not in your program but who should be familiar to you, councilman and reverend middleton, who will step into one spot, and city councilman ross appell will be in the other spot. Certainly, you can understand that they are not only good Public Officials because they are ready and willing to do this but they are engaged enough to do that on short notice, so thank you for rounding out our panel tonight. But starting with the first panel, i would like them to come join me on stage if you would, moderator extraordinary for the form, john, who is heading the mdc currently, which is creating an economic and equitable infrastructure across the south. Next, we have dr. Walter egger, who im sure Everybody Knows is a preeminent historian of South Carolina, but not only that, one of the first Founding Trustees of the interNational AfricanAmerican Museum, which of course is a nice segue over to dr. Tonya matthews, who is steering our interNational AfricanAmerican Museum to educate the world about these issues starting in january this coming year. And we are thrilled to have dr. Roberts back with us, a Charleston Forum alum, and coauthor of an awardwinning book on these very issues about our community. Down at the end, we have mike allen, who is an awardwinning historian with the National Park service who has dedicated so many years to these issues in our community. I thank them so much for joining us. John . Thank you. John thank you, brian. Good evening, everybody. As a former ypder, i am happy to be here at morris Brown Community church, even with a little bit of feedback, and it will be a pleasure to lead you alter a conversation today where we talk about public history, how we were a member the past, which passed we choose to remember, and what choices we make in doing so. I am going to allow my colleagues appear on the panel to introduce themselves in one way by responding to probably the easiest question you will get today, which is, how do you enter this conversation about public history in the low country and in South Carolina . Where are you as you enter this conversation . Dr. Edgar . Dr. Edgar as of right now or over the past 40 years, it has been an evolving process, both personally, with communities and certainly with organizations. Things and rather dramatically things have changed and rather dramatically. My late friend charles joiner, a great historian, his quotation, in 19 94, speaking of South Carolina as a community, i know we have come a long way since 1960. Some have dragged their feet all the way, but they have come. Some say there has been no progress but they have forgotten where we started. Some will stop here because they cannot see how far we have left to go. When my friend said in 1994i still think is true today. We did start somewhere along time ago. We have come a way, but we still have a way to go. I think i come to this in an interesting way. Even though i am now stewarding the interNational AfricanAmerican Museum as its ceo, there are days i feel like i am coming into the space as a member of the general public. My background is in engineering. My liberal arts lean is into poetry so i come into this space on sort of a constant and continual learning curve, and now i am jumping into this space, as i have been as a public historian, but i still have that fascination with these stories with surprise or chagrin that i am just hearing the story, the amazement that other people do not know the story. And thinking about, to your point, what should be the inspiration behind talking about how far we have come . I think one of the reasons we resist that conversation is because of the fear that someone will say, far enough. And so i think that gets in the way with the fact that, if we have come this far, clearly, whatever is ahead on the journey is something we have been prepared for, and i think what we are also seeing are the shadows of an unreckoning or a non on nonreckoning. You may be moving along but you are still dragging some stuff along with you, so it will catch up to wherever you are eventually. As i think about public history, which is about how to apply history to modern questions and conversations, i am always struck at how much easier some of the conversations i find myself in would be if we already knew the earlier story. And then what does it take to give people a space for what i call a courageous curiosity to admit what is unknown, to slow down, go back, pick it up just a little bit, and then have a conversation about what happened last week or last month or seven years ago. Hi. I am Blaine Roberts and i have lived and i lived in charleston from 2005 to 2007. I come into this conversation as a nonnative charlestonian who was here and i was troubled. We went on a lot of tours of charleston when we lived here, my husband and i, who is over there in the audience, and we were very disturbed by some of the things that we heard on these historical tours that we went on when we were here. We did not hear much about the black experience at all. We didnt hear anything about slavery or segregation. We heard nothing about africanamerican accomplishments, and so the two of us became very interested in why the Tourism Industry developed the way that it did. So i think my perspective then comes from deciding to figure out how that happened, why that happened, and immersing myself in the historical archives, really for the better part of a decade, all over town, the South Carolina historical society, the special collections at the college of charleston, the Avery Research center, and really digging through the records to figure out why certain charlestonians were charlestonians were only telling part of the story and ignoring a really significant part of the citys history. So thats kind of where i am coming from, an effort to really understand the deep history of the narratives that emerged in charleston. Good evening. My name is michael allen. I am retired from the National Park service. To your question, ironically, 42 years ago this very week, i began my journey with the National Park service, of all places in our american experience, at fort sumter. That first week of being there in many respects put me on the pathway of sitting here this afternoon. Why would i say that . Within the first week or two of me working in this transitional place in our american experience, i was peppered with such questions as, why are you here and what do you as a person of color or a black man have to do with the story of fort sumter and the American Civil War . And beyond that, what version of the civil war will you be telling us . As a youngster 42 years ago, i had to digest that. One day, while walking through fort sumter, i thought maybe i should walk through here as a tourist, not as an employee. So the first thing i did is i went into the gift shop. I began looking at the gift shop, the various titles of books that were being presented and sold to the public, and i did not see myself in the bookshelf. The next thing i did, i walked and took a look around in the museum. I mean, that is where we go to get the information of where we are. Again, i did not see myself in the museum. There was a voice in my head saying, well, this museum was built in 1961. Then i began to listen to my fellow employees sharing the story and the journey of the site as well and i didnt hear myself in their narratives. So either i was out of place working at this transitional place in American History or the agency which i worked for for 37. 5 years, the National Park service, perhaps was out of touch. I did not believe that i was out of place, so from those conversations 42 years ago, and the journey that ive been on and have worked with many of you all sitting in this audience, in many respects, i can say perhaps changed the narrative in some way. Does that mean we have reached the Promised Land . No, but i believe today we are in a better place in our interpretation then when i stepped on that area of fort sumter, because i can look here and see pastor matthews and the director of the National African American Museum and realize that some of the conversations i had 42 years ago allows her to sit here today. We all, if you do not know, are sitting in the gullah Cultural Heritage corridor, which stretches from North Carolina to florida. Perhaps, we are having conversations that 42 years ago would not have been a reality. So i come to this from a personal perspective of my experience, the opportunities and the partnerships and relationships that have allowed me to be part of this change. But i believe we still have a few miles yet to go. Thank you for that book end comment, mr. Allen, because he reference to dr. Eggers earlier comments about when he quoted chaz joyner about how far we have to go. A broader question about the notion of narrative, the creation of narrative, who tells the story certainly came out in your responses as well as the way that is processed individually and collectively. We have our stories. Sometimes there are stories that we tell each other individually and then sometimes there are stories that we tell collectively. All of this to say that history is contested. The past is contested. How do we accurately and comprehensively and completely grapple with our past when there is no consensus on what that past is . And this is a question for anyone who chooses to jump in, not any particular person. There is no consensus, and i was thinking first of all, michael did mention the reconstruction National Park, which is rare in this world. North carolina just appropriated 16 million for the reconstruction National Park. We have got the part but we dont have 60 million the park but we dont have 16 million for it. And i heard blaine say sometimes presentations are made, whether it is at Middleton Place or colonial williamsburg, explaining the lives of africanamericans, bipoc, whichever term you choose to use, and sometimes the white visitors, that is not what they want to hear. Tourists, probably, and i dont want to mischaracterize anyone, probably like gone with the wind history better than they do what really happened. Blaine, you are looking at me, because weve had this experience at williamsburg. The Oldest School for africanamericans in the country is at colonial williamsburg. Why are you all doing this . That is what our interpreter said. Why are you doing this . I think thats true. There is a historian at the university of mississippi who wrote an article about this. The title was, nobody knows the troubles i have seen but does anyone want to hear about them when they are on vacation . And i think that gets to the core of the problem. I think it is the case that for much of the 20th century, many tourists wanted to avoid these hard questions and issues, but i have been somewhat encouraged the last couple years. I think that the traveling public is much more aware and much more interested than they were previously, and there are a couple good examples in charleston that i think would illustrate that. One would be mcleods plantation, which some of you may have been to. It is an outstanding historical site that centers the experiences of the enslaved. You do not even go in the big house. And of course, that type of tour would have been unimaginable, you know, even i think 20 years ago in charleston. So i think that that has changed. A similar site in louisiana would be the whitney plantation. Some of you may have been there. It is a similar approach. So i am cautiously optimistic that we are changing what people are able to handle when they are traveling. So let me throw in sort of a let me throw in a sort of potentially alternative perspective to that because im curious if thats one of the stories we told ourselves to allow us to get away with the stories we were telling. You still have to know somebody who knows somebody to get into the new africanAmerican History and Culture Museum at the some sony and, ended this point at the smithsonian, and at this point, you know you will take a lot of deep breaths and rub a lot of shoulders. We have Brian Stevens as brian stephensons project in alabama. So we have projects like plantations or civil war sites. They are growing into a new story and finding the audience is already there. So i want to be careful around thinking that it is just sort of a matter of time. I do think some audiences are coming to a space where they are ready and do want to hear that. I think the other part is these are simply not audiences that people wanted to talk to. And im not just talking about our classic population. If i think about my background and family, we are africanamerican. We are not trying to go to the big house and hear about how great the big house was. That is not quite the tour we were looking for, and that audience i think has always been there. So the way i think about this time is using it to help us balance the actual reality that, if tourism is one of your main industries, there was a fear, well, if we change the story, will people still come . Now that we know people will still calm when you change the story, that kind of take that off the table, but what i think i see happening now is i see indications that people will not come if you do not change the story. What im noticing is this sort of search for gentle spaces where i can curiously explore something that i probably should have known. I am starting to see some pushback on places that are interpreting in a way thats become a bit more broadly known. Either thats not a correct interpretation or not the only interpretation so they are asking and i think at the museum we are starting to get people are asking us for references of which Plantation Tour should we go which of these folks is going to get me close to the truth and there is something we can do within that. Lets follow up with a question related to that. Is there now an emerging industry that is catering to those people who are curious and come to you for the recommendations that you can send them to . Yes but probably not at the speed we needed to. Need it to. There is more interest of diverse presentations at nine the first nine diverse spice non diverse spots. They are expecting to see a mix. Navigating that has been interesting and i think i am also starting to history as much a product of the time it is told in as of what happened in that space so i am starting to work to figure out how to cultivate an openness to understanding that there are differences in the narrative. There is incredible power and understanding that there are multiple narratives around a particular conversation. I was going to ask, what you said, tonya, i can remember when this doorpost historical sites were uncomfortable. Even as we share as we are in this together. If someone comes to our particular plantation site and you have a bad experience there, they are going to assume that that is the same narrative that is going to happen if you go to one of the three at highway 61 so one of the first things we have to cultivate in the mind of leaders at these historical sites that we are in this together. We may not have all the answers in our home palm but collectively in a collaborative move, this can help us all rise. That became a part of the chute back leaders believed in and trying to work more diligently to be more inclusive and holistic and diverse and look at their stories because for some of them, this was very hard. There was a conference we did behind the big house and one of the things we talked about was the experience at the Historic Sites and Many Americans are looking for experiences but that is not where we are in 2022 so we have to push the narrative that we are in this together. If i can add, in talking about thy diversifying the experience, charleston did a lot of things while wrong things wrong but when we entered interview you for our book some time ago. One of the things you told us is when you were doing this hard work with the National Park service, you are concerned that some of the National Sites around town, they might undermine what you are doing because they are not giving accurate history so you reach out to the sides and said lets start working together so that we can make sure that we are all telling more accurate stories and i think that is important. Similarly, it is important to recognize that there were a number of africanamerican entrepreneurs in charleston who said you dont like what we are hearing on these Carriage Tours so they started their own tort company. Alonzo brown had a company. Another group started a company. They deserve a lot of credit for taking this on themselves, taking the risks to do that and they played a major role in changing the story that was here. Is there any effort to promote others who would like to get into the Tourism Industry, who want to tell those stories, who want to set up the businesses that you can refer them to . That is one of the things we are working with a lot on partners and to the point that was made, full art folks are separated. The nice thing about charleston, it is not a ton of secrets but whispers town of secrets but whispers. There is a lot to be said. There is some but not quite enough and often when you have entrepreneurs and the smaller businesses, they are not in the Broad Network of listening. You are saying, i am coming to charleston and doing a airbnb, that is a whole level of infrastructure. Things pop up, we are on a boat and eat rice. Is work we can do around our infrastructure there is work we can you are on our infrastructure about thinking about how our infrastructure elevates and emphasizes or deemphasizes certain folks and communities based on the size of the business and what is required to support those kinds of businesses and things like that. In the mail, i got my copy of the South Carolina green book. This is a bigger project which claims the spirit of the traditional green book and now it is a encyclopedia of africanamerican historic heritage sites across the state. Bears everything, if you park your car to the left of the oaktree and take 20 steps to the left and dont look up. It is right to the ground. Verses, there is a hundred thousand plus where put museum on the water and thinking about as a community how we are navigating the sites and how to towards navigate the sites, it becomes it its own kind of thing and the last thing i want to say around diversity, the storyteller matters. While this is really good because we are diversifying the story and telling the truth, even if you go to our friends, they will so you, based on who is telling the story, the reaction on everything from acceptance to pushback and hostility is different based on who is on the story. We have to think about that to the point you have to be selfaware in terms of how your callings are being received colleagues are being received. There are wave your part of the africanamerican journey that i can tell because it is part of my experience and i can own it. If i am ok, you will be ok. There is a lot to be say about the mixed mingle in the storytellers. Of the business perspective, from my eyes, from a local chris becker, perspective i have been fortunate enough to be engaged in terms of hoping him to see their place in terms of how we expand the narrative and from a state perspective, part rare park recreation terrorism, they managed tourism for the entire state but p. R. C. Prt may not be Kitchen Table conversation so people may not have the knowledge of these two entities but they console the narrative of how terrorism for informs the existence organism tourism and forms our existence. It is incumbent on us to continue to remind them that they are here to serve all sock carolinians for south carolinian fold folk. What this sacred spaces, and this shows people keep asking for those and a lot of them are podcasts. The heads are coming from a very diverse audience but there has been a powerful change certainly in terms of being able to teach. As we did where public history, it is more than the historic site. That raises a bigger question that i want to get into. Bobby donelson at usc he is building something there, physically, on the former campus of booker t. Washington high school. What is happening across the state to tell that were complete and complex story . How are historians talking to each other about these issues . Well, those of us who teach South Carolina history are very rare breed these days. [laughter] quite frankly, those of us who are talking are an older generation. One of the bright young stars of South Carolina American History he is at clemson. You did not know . He is going to clemson and is a former student of mine. Seriously, when they made their quotation, there was someone teaching South Carolinaish history at every institution of his state. It is still taught at another school until someone retired, it was taught at nc state. We do have a problem because some folks deal with we are dealing with product broader issues, the world. Forget about the community that they are supposed to be serving. I think you bring up a really good point, something that the field history and public history both need to grapple with, which is that if you are interested in this space but thought you would not be allowed to tell the truth in that space, that would not necessarily lead the degree you want. If you are thinking i am trying to write this promise story and my Tenure Committee what knock this down what knock this down that is something we really need to grapple with quickly because in the day and age of podcasts and a create your own broadcast, while i am a personal fan of academia and that kind of rigor, it is not required to get the story out so i think we need to think about that and grapple with, if you want younger. Who are coming up in this generation, all about unnerving the truth in any 20 are automating at 65yearold man is part of a mission, 20yearold is making a 65yearold man is part of a mission. Where is the next generation of historians coming from . How do we support them to uncover additional troops with the same level of rigor we would require in that setting . What does that look like in a country in which various approaches to teaching history are under attack and not to speak of it in the context of what is being taught in colleges, but what is being taught, k12 where there is this notion that these attitudes will die out but what we are seeing also clearly in the city is that young people get radicalized by a version of history aversion of history. How do we get to the people who are coming up in the public system, a version of history that is complex and comprehensive . I wish i had a answer for that. [laughter] when they redid the history curriculum in the 90s, we start on that committee served on that committee and the people who teach, i feel for them because what the state department of education puts out, they have got to teach and students have to pass this course and, quite frankly, dealing with something as local as what might happen here you to connect anything in South Carolina is a national issue. Our history is that important. Teachers are stressed. I worry about worried about it 20 years ago and i worry about it now as to what is being taught. There never seems to be enough time in the day to do what has to be done. It is not unique to South Carolina but for those of us who deal with teachers, maybe you have a better i dont have an answer but when other things is implicit that is implicit is that public history is a category. Sometimes i like to just in the category or complicated because the most important public history practitioners are teachers. Anytime you walk through a classroom and you teach history and social studies, you are engaging in the most important form of public history and that is conveying in a way that your students will understand, these important truths about the past. It is important that our teachers feel that they are public historians and i agree with you that we are in a incredibly difficult moment and being in a university with tenure, i operate in a different environment and i feel empowered to say anything i want to say and if i were a public history teacher, in a state that had recently passed an anticrt law, i would be cautious about some of the things i would say and that is a horrible place to be in. I dont have an answer except to say we probably need to focus a lot more of our political energies on our local school board and city council racist and that is probably how we are going to solve the problem. In terms of connecting with teachers, this is another responsibility i share as well with other folks at Historic Sites. Kids come to your class as a field trip. They need to know that they are coming for educational experience. This is not a day out of class. First thing and that is why when i was engaged in trying to relationships with the School System and the teachers before they stepped on the property because if you did not have that relationship first, there is an accident when they arrive. Having those relationships as i remember with teachers, it gave them a sense of trust and a sense of competence and it gave them a sense of awareness of where they are going and they would use those feelings to empower the kids, we really are going to a transitional place in American History. This is not just for me and this is a hot topic. As we come to the conclusion of the Jurassic Park era, we are all thinking about the original line, light always finds a way like always finds a way, the way to keep our kids away from errant Sexual Activity and not to tell them about it, how does that work out for us . Not well at all. The idea that our students are engaging with our stories, do we want them to engage with the stories alone . Do we want them to engage with those stories without someone who can walk them through it . Our secret weapon is that we have now moved from rote memorization to practice critical thinking. School was probably never but it is deftly not about indoctrinating children. It is giving them information and examples to critically think your way through which is far scarier than a student that will never erase that will memorize whatever you tell them. As a daughter of education who gets reminded regularly that teachers need to be in charge of their classrooms, i think that in this world of radical access to information, our students and our adult neighbors are being exposed to all this information in these confirmations and i have never met anyone who has been angry who is discovering the truth but i need people daily who are angry that the truth was hidden from them and that is what we need to think about. The students are engaging in conversations and engaging nav stories and i think it is a dereliction of duty for us not to give them the tools, the guidance, the educators education, the historical sites, to be able to explore that space , a little bit of safety and a lot of confidence and experimentation in their early steps to their critical thinking. I worked with countries that were writing constitutions. In liberia, when liberia decided to reimagine its relationship with the United States, they created a commission to look at history and the history that have been received in the country. The cold air was repair goal. Was repair the goal there was repair. Is the goal here repair . Repair, perform, reform. All of the above . I think all of the above. I wonder if we can reach out retail retell drs the rs seem to have it. We havent reconciled with these things so we have commissions to celebrate history and do commemorations but we dont often have commissions to explore and interrogate the history. Hope springs eternal on that one. We need to stop thinking of history as a celebration. The issue is to celebrate this and i can remember when ever going to celebrate the civil war and someone said what do you want to talk about something that killed 40,000 young men from South Carolina . What is the celebration about . It is like someone wishing a veteran happys happy memorial day. That history is not pleasant. History was made by human beings and we know human beings make mistakes. Human beings can also change. I will use that as a segway as we tackle the other part of public history. Everyone has dodged on this panel the third statute, i am not sure. People do change. Trying to do a nuanced reading on why this plaque is there, wife accept you is there like that statue is there and i do agree the whole city and i dont know how many monuments in the city of charleston defines that, it covers the waterfront but that is the one thing that we as a group have not addressed. You are coming from the angle of people changing. In some of our journeys here, we have met. 1020 years ago had a specific box pattern in this audit in a manner and they saw it in a manner. And in eight. In a period of reflection, they had a better understanding to move the narrative and we are not as convinced but we are able to show them the way. Often, the foundation is what they were taught so if what was put into them was not correct or did not occur historically, they will travel with that. Dave you can say to them they were traveling with a flaw in here is the evidence and here is the evidence, sometimes there is a anger that comes up because you have told him something that you know to be true, documented to be true, but there grandparents said otherwise. They are conflicted and what you said earlier, we have to realize that people can change given the right circumstances and the right environment. That is right and you are trying to lead us to Something Like a specific monument. In 2015, i was here in charleston for an event that marked the end of the 150th anniversary of the civil war. Someone in the audience asked, what about all these confederate monuments . What will we do . I was one of a group of six historians and we side sighed and said, there is Something Like 2500 confederate monuments throughout the region. There was the dean of civil war memory studies and he said i dont think there is anything that can be done and everyone on stage agree with them. There were historians who spent their lives studying change but we happys assumption that this commemorative landscape that had been in place was unchangeable. There was no way these things would ever go away. Things changed rapidly. I do think it is possible that we show the evidence, people can change their minds. If enough people change i know people changed their minds in charleston to get that one monument down and that is something stuff something. People do change and i have been quoted as saying in the 1990s that i do not think i will live to see the Confederate Flag taken off the front of the statehouse. It happened seven years ago but because of a tragedy but it is happened it did happen and enough people had to be dragged forward to make it happen because that was a decision made by political persons who, if you take a poll in South Carolina, the majority of the population would say leave it up. But it did come down but that was and that was a powerful statement. Even if people didnt care that the fact that South Carolina was boycotted, you could have a certain athletic contest in South Carolina because of that flag. You had the basketball coach in carolina leading a march two columbia to take it down. It did not get anywhere so people can change. You go can change photo op we know in South Carolina, is that change comes incrementally. We are an incrementalist state and how do we balance those two things went you can still drive down california street and see the not the monument and the monuments that exist in charleston and the rest of the state. What does further change look like . If i can take the perspective of a new south carolinian, when i think about the calhoun statue conversation, or me who just i have been here the storage, it is a calhounbessie conversation stop you are thinking about the common statue it i am thinking about the bessie statue and dave they are the same conversation. Doing this conversation and i think what strikes me and i am borrowing this phrase, statues are as much about whatever date commemorative sar about the people who put them up they commemorate sar about the as they are about the people who put them up. The statues are reflecting the people that put them up, and that is the approach we have to take. It is not about if the statue or monument reflects that then, does it like the now . That is what people see. The reinterpretation or even removal but i am not big on the destruction of statues. Removing or reinterpreting them because one of the things i know is that my beloved country has a short memory and if we arrange erase all of this, will we remember that there is a time where we believe that this is what we should honor and venerate . That is important for us to know. That is where we came out of, either as a celebration or a memory of things being sticky. I really want to grapple with it what does that look like at the museum . We dont have that [laughter] i think that this museum in columbia that would be a potentially great way to deal what is it mean to no longer rock walk by the calhoun statue . It is great but we lose the fact that it was there over 100 years and it had an impact on every person who walked by. I like the idea of a museum acquiring the statue and appropriately contextualizing it so that we can understand what it was and more generally, it is important that are part of the history a part of the history of the reason is the removal and destruction of the statue so weeping that treat that we treat that as a part of the narrative and incorporate into museum design. I think that making that a part of the narrative, the fact that there was a lot of conversation after 2015 on what these things meant, a lot of debates and contentious arguments, i think that that is useful to have that chronicled in these places where we record history. I would add being a part of the city of charleston history commission, there was a lot of conversation about calhoun and one of the things i shared and others shared that is a part of our american experience. We all agree here. When we did vote to move forward to encourage the city council to move forward, i knew at some place in time that it needed to be in some other building where it could be interpreted and you can have an understanding of John C Calhouns life from then to now and there was an effort to have it taken to california to be a part of a collaborative at the end of the day i saw that in california as a place they can talk about it collectively but that did not materialize in my understanding is that there are conversation underweight now perhaps with the state museum in which this could be taking care of taking care of taken care of because this is something south carolinians need to know. The reality the words that came out of his mouth in many respects dictate the movement of our state even today. History is complicated. Everyone says he is the founder of clemson university, he is. He is a founder of another university and South Carolina State University which is very seldom mention. There is a reason that he was a founder of South Carolina state but it is amazing, anytime comes out about them, they always talk about clemson. We are all a part of the same starting story. I want to go back to something that a few of you alluded to about the importance of South Carolina and to ask be brought or, what is it that even broader question, what is it that we have to teach other places, even with the gravelly though grappling with our complicated history . When i began our journey with my journey with the park service, having someone standing with it can accept but the connectivity with west africa and as i grow with understanding, that narrative that 40 of all people of color that survived the Middle Passage and survived that voyage had the opportunity the first step put on north american soil, less than seven or eight miles where we are sitting in today, 6070 of all people of color living in the United States can make some connectivity, intersection into those who put footprints on some of on the island, just using that. There are other individuals and activities that we can also lift up as being important to our nation story nations story but for me, that was eta finding that was a defining moment of understanding the relationship. That was not important to me between first grade and my senior year of high school. It wasnt until i was a freshman in college as i thumb through the group book, i begin to see myself in ways that i did not fully understood understand. Speech and culture and tradition but not understand the full africanisms. These are the tools we can utilize and say this is South Carolina. If we have an influence of something beyond that is normal, over the years, ive had people from other states, whether involved with state sites, how can you do that in South Carolina . Why did they change their narrative . Why did prt change certain things . We had people looking at us for one reason or another. What have yall done lately that will be on the International News but they also understand that South Carolina has a very important place. We have done some other things we have done, we have come a long way as others would like to get half where we had have. We keep doing what we are doing and we keep moving. Others will take notice. I will bring those to those two together. There is a seminal africanAmerican History and connection and there are the things we are doing right now but between reading your book and all the whispers i am listening to if i go to Mount Pleasant and i get part of one story and i come to the peninsula and i get the other half. One other things i picked up and this is why i think that if anyone can do it, charleston can because from my perspective, we were the madman of the country. We are the mattresses kings and queens of reinventing the narrative based on whatever is suing us and however we need to we tell the story so we come out on top, that as challenging as those rewritten narratives have been, it is an incredible quote for skills that we have everything about the retelling of the stores. If there is a community that is culturally predisposed to do this, i do think it is here and as i am in here and trying to learn and understand this culture, i can feel it in a way that also are born and bred here do very conservatively intuitively. Someone asked if charleston is important, and i figured that out in the first 90 days. It is not that we are just the center and have been seminal, we have a way to retell the story to suit the times and at agenda we are in and if we continue to think about that and pointing it in a interesting direction, i think that is it is an important place where these rivers come together to form the atlantic ocean. [laughter] when he talked about. Drowsy of charleston, other things related to you are saying how this information and this information works di sinformation works because white sock carolinians work master both white sock carolinians were masterful in propaganda. Whether it is history and politics so there is a lot to learn from how these stories were brought up and manipulated and washed whitewashed. It is another lesson that charleston, South Carolina can teach us. A lot of what you have mentioned during this conversation has reminded me of a book. The author wrote in the aftermath there is video on the states website but she asked be recurring question, who are we now. When we think of that in regards to trusting in South Carolina, how do you answer that . Who are we now . As to where we are now in 20 22, some other games we have made some other games are under threat of the gains under threat. When i see posted are coming in to take advantage of the change that we work hard to build. That is ace a concern. People are in an effort to still say they are shaping the narrative. I probably didnt see that years ago i feel that now. I say it publicly. We are on a good trajectory in terms of the hard things. I am grateful for january 21 hopefully of that year because i have the good fortune of sitting in the first board meeting. I didnt understand why i was in the room. I thought of some of us is just going to come to pass . Back then, it was only 40 million. I think we are on a good place. There are enemies at the gates but for me and others, standing and sitting here, you have to be confident in yourself and i think when you are, they gives you the capacity to overcome things. Thank you. One of the important distinctions or developments that makes this moment to different from 100 years ago is all of the stakeholders have ableist. When the African Americans were in the process of being disenfranchised and because of the 1895 constitutions, whites disenfranchised the majority of africanamericans in South Carolina and a lot of the decisions, the sites that were preserved, these decisions were made only by a Surgeon Group of people surgeon grew up people and now searching group of people Certain Group of people. At least all of the stakeholders theoretically have a voice and i am encouraged by the fact that the city is promoting a more collaborative approach to the decisions that are being made about what to talk about and what cites matter and what stories to tell. Being, i am wondering, while i get excited by the lowering of the flag, i am thinking, we almost also won the war and we are talking about the flag. Part of me is trying to ramble with the visual and this is abrasions and making sure we dont forget. Right now, who i think we are , i think we are a people who is . The power of the ability to tell my own story so we have the ability to tell my story. That is a song, you have no control who lives and dies and who tells your story. The last part is no longer true and you have control because you can tell your own story. If we are drunk off of that power, who is going to have the courage to tell our story . Now that we all have the power to individualize our story and prioritize our own particular perspective, cool among us will be brave enough to step forward and tell our story. That is what we are looking at. There is a whole bunch of folks standing in the rain and we are looking at our story. That is a good thing. To your point, it is not three people in the room deciding what stories will come out. That is what i see. And in this new space where we have our own voice come up we are being challenged to try to figure out how to make the our o ut of the you and i. That is what has me excited and i think that is a large part that i hoping the museum plays in natchez told me his ring but making space in not just showing that history but making space. Everyone being able to tell the story hopefully. It is happening in columbia and florence and greenville. Places that 25 years ago, it would not have happened. I am hopeful for the future. While i read, i hope it breathe, i hope. The writer, and her talk, talk about the bounds of the stores and what i am feeling for from you all is that we are in need of a balance of stories and, locating factors that tell many facets and versions of the truth. South Carolina History is nuanced. Please join me in thanking our panelists. [applause] here we learn about people being dragged along and dont really want to get all the way there and everyone has their own individual narrative in their own space telling tell it. As we mentioned earlier, our surveys reflect that things dont people dont