Transcripts For CSPAN3 Memorializing Salem 20170824

Im with the Salem Award Foundation for human rights and social justice. This is our 25th anniversary. We were formed with the idea of helping to keep alive the lessons of the trials, promoting awareness, empathy and understanding. One of the main ways we do this is by supporting and being involved in educational events, just like today. I think you all have in your folders cards like this, which are an invitation to our commemorative activity celebration at the witch trials memorial tomorrow. Im here today to introduce our keynote speaker. Before i do that, ive noticed that we havent really talked about the people who have sponsored this symposium. Ive mentioned the Salem Award Foundation. Essex National Heritage has been a Fabulous Team player. But i have to tell you donna seeger has been driving this bus. [ applause ]. And i really i know shes pulled the entire History Department along in her wake. [ laughter ] but i wanted to make sure she got credit for the incredible amount of hard work and coordination that it takes to pull off an event like this. Its been a wonderful day and im glad to see you all here. So onto what im supposed to be talking about. Im glad that our keynote address is in the afternoon rather than the morning, which is often the case, because i think weve all had time to stop and think about what a thorny problem we face in just understanding, interpreting, teaching and commemorating something that happened 325 years ago. But perhaps nobody has given more thought to how we commemorate sites like this than our speaker today, dr. Kenneth foote. I had planned to pull a few choice nuggets from his resume to use for my introduction, but that has not been possible. Im not an academic. Im from the Business World flr where the mantra is a onepage resume, possibly slide into two. So i was somewhat unprepared for at least ten pages of golden nuggets. Instead, i am using a little bit from what he has posted on the uconn website where he chairs the department of geography and is a professor. He joined the faculty there in 2013. His particular interests are in cart ography, Geographic Information science. G. I. S. , particularly internet based applications. American and european landscape history focusing on public memory and commemoration and issues of geography in higher education, particularly Instructional Technologies and professional development, undergraduates, graduates and graduate students and early career faculty. Hes here today because of his keen interest in what we might call the landscape of tragedy. His book shadowed ground if you havent read it, i highly recommend it. It really awakened us to think about how we deal with places where bad things happened. How such places are marked or not marked continues to be his area of interest. He is a graduate of the university of wisconsin, got his masters and doctorate at the university of chicago. While shadowed ground is probably his most well known book, he has authored ten other books, more academically oriented and enough articles and chapters and contributions that, if i listed them, would take up his entire allotted speaking time. Prior to joining the faculty at uconn he had been associated with both the university of texas at austin and the university of colorado at boulder where he chaired the graduate studies program and is now professor emeritus. He has been the president of several geographic and industry related associations and has won numerous prizes related to geography and particularly of interest to me in mentoring people. So important. And i know we are all going to value what he has to say today on how what happened here in salem has played out across america. It is indeed my honor to introduce dr. Kenneth foote. [ applause ] thank you shelby. And id like to thank her second of donna seger who invited me for the symposium. Id also like to thank the salem awards foundation for helping organize this as well as well as Salem State University for helping sponsor the program and maybe give a callout for the Geography Program at salem state. I have worked with a lot of those geographers. Its a great group here at salem state. It really is an honor for me to be here at salem state for this symposium. My first visit to salem was in 1984. I have to say in a sense salem changed my life. I have to say that ive been haunted by what i found in 1984. And what i saw in salem in 1984 has shaped much of my research over the last 30 years, as ill relate to you today. For the next 40 or 45 minutes, id like to reflect on the four questions that are on the first slide. Id like to put salem in a broader context of other sites that have been stigmatized by events of violence and tragedy. Salem is not alone in that context. Many people today have been mentioning other sites that have been affected by events like the witchcraft killings. The first thing i want to do is focus on comparisons between salem and other sites in the United States and a few from overseas as well. Then id like to focus on why it is that sites like salem are so difficult to commemorate. The tensions involved in these sites that are both shameful but also have some reason to be remembered. Id like to go from there to many of the comments that come from the previous panel, which is whats different about salem . This kitschy celebration of witchcraft and so forth. We have zombies walking down the street and so forth. Its different than other places that have been touched by tragedy. [ laughter ] i dont think i have to say a lot more because thats been well covered. It does raise that issue of what comes next. What about the future for salem, salem witchcraft . Over the last couple of weeks ive been kind of reviewing the growth and scholarship. I dont think there can be enough material on the salem witchcraft episode. It is so important. I really am impressed by the number of books, websites, movies, television, events and so forth that have been focusing on witchcraft. In fact, i was really a bit humbled by the people who were on the panel and gave lectures earlier today, because we have such expertise here in the room today that i dont want to claim to be an expert on salem. My expertise as a geographer focuses on sites like salem. Dont take me to task if i get a name wrong or mispronounce something. But we really do have some wonderful experts, and i have gained a lot from the discussions today. But my interest in salem comes from the standpoint of geography. When i first visited salem in 1984, i was very much interested in the study of the sense of place, the deep emotional bonds people develop to the environment, to the places where they live. It might be a persons home, where you live, where you go as a retreat with your family to enjoy and relax and live comfortably. It may be a place like marblehead, in the upper left hand corner, a wonderful place, beautiful place to relax and enjoy the seashore. Or it might be someplace that you enjoy going to visit the friends or be with friends. Down in little havana, the domino park is one of the centers of community. People go there and stay all day long playing dominos and cards and so forth, and talking with their friends and sharing some food. Or it may just be a place of contemplation. I have this photograph of where thor therouxs cabin was around walden pond. People go there to honor him and think about his writings and so forth. When i first came to salem, i was interested in these ideas. But i only came up from boston on a day trip. I was trying to get away for an afternoon and drove up. This was in 84. You know, i spent the day looking at the maritime history and Industrial History and so forth, interesting places. There was nothing much about the witchcraft episode at this point. This is 1984. So at one point i asked people, well, where did the executions take place. People said, well, it was somewhere over there, gallows hill. We dont know exactly. Nobody really knows. Somewhere over there. I found that really curious. I realized then it was a very important episode, but to actually lose the location was really quite striking to me. Within a month i was in berlin, germany. This was before the reunification of east and west germany. I was in berlin to give a talk at a conference and i was struck again by the highly stigmatized sites associated with the nazi regime. The division of the city, the war. The wall in berlin was put up precisely to isolate some of the sites of the nazi power so that people couldnt get to them. It was still so highly stigmatized. That summer was also the time of one of the worst mass murders in American History, the shootings at the Mcdonalds Restaurant in san ysidro, california. I learned about that while i was traveling. I got to thinking, what happens when these events occur. How do these events affect that emotional bond to space . Do people feel a deeper attachment because a loved one may have died at a site, or does it break that attachment . Since then, ive been very interested in this idea of how events of violence and tragedy affect this sense of place. Our motive, our effective bonds with place. Over that period of time, i visited dozens or hundreds of sites, both in the United States and in europe, because much of my work now is in Central Europe and hungary. I have visited sites of individual tragedies, murders, mass murders, homicide, suicides and so forth. Ive also visited sites like cherry, illinois, mine disaster where in a single day a community lost almost all of its men in a mine disaster, in a coal mine collapse. Ive also visited a lot of sites associated with the revolutionary war, the civil war and other engagements like that where we have different approaches to the portrayal of history, and sites associated with the European American encounters with native americans, the history of japanese americans, chinese americans, hispanic americans in the United States, and also events that are very equivocal meaning, maybe a little bit like salem, like the Branch Davidian fire in 1993, the horrible event in waco, texas, where so many people died, and leading, of course, two years later to the bombing in Oklahoma City. Now, after many of these visits in documenting all of these sites, i would say theres no single outcome when tragedy strikes. In fact, what i portrayed in shadowed ground was a continuum of outcomes. Some events are so important, or they become judged as so important that they become saktfied, is the word i used. They become so important that people set aside the site for that particular event. On the far side, on the right hand side, i think we have almost the opposite. Its obliteration. These are so shocking and shameful that people really want to scour the evidence away. For years i put gallows hill down on that far side, because i think that in a sense that is what happened. It was afterwards remove the evidence, forget about it, its been obliterated. Maybe its a little bit closer to two of the other outcomes there. Youll see rectification, which is by far the most common outcome, which is we dont see any great significant in this event and were going to cleanse it and put it back right. Were going to reuse it or we employ it for some other activity. I think maybe and well come to this a little bit later. Maybe salem is somewhere in there between rectification and obliteration. But i think there is some greater tensions there we need to discuss as well. There is another outcome that i often times see which i call designation. Thats the idea that something important happened here, but it isnt quite enough to push it towards sakt fi sanctification. I have some examples here. Well come back to gettysburg in a minute. For example, in 1920, a terrorist attack on wall street in new york, who knows of it anymore. The last physical evidence of that bombing is just a few shrapnel scars on the side of a Bank Building on wall street. So thats kind of faded from view. Here we have the eastland disaster in the Chicago River where a cruise ship tipped over in a harbor just as it was loading and claimed as many passengers as the titanic. Although the titanic was a greater disaster because far more crew died on the titanic. But lets take a look at these outcomes in a little bit more detail before we go on and turn a bit more towards salem. I want to note, if you look down in the lower righthand corner of this power point, youll see an important point about this. That sanctification occurs rarely but people think it happens more often because its so visible. We tend to see sites that are sanctified because they are very visible in the landscape. We see them because theyre very pronounced but i would say they only occur in three sorts of situations. The first is when there is a moral or ethical lesson from the event itself. I point to gettysburg because its one of the most decorated landscapes in america. Virtually every engagement in the threeday battle is marked on the ground there. Or it may be a sense of community loss. Here i have a memorial in wisconsin which was destroyed in the largest forest fire in u. S. History, same night as the chicago fire, for larger fire, claimed more lives than chicago but is largely hidden. Martyrs. President s, great leaders, even great entertainers. John lennon. We have Strawberry Fields in central park just across from where he was shot at the dakota apartment building. Those sorts of three things. Sank sanctification is important because it means were setting aside part of the environment for a purpose. This is dedicated to the memory or remembering or commemorating some event or person. Designation is a step oftentimes on the way towards sanctification. In the examples i have here, i can tell you about the process. The first photograph there is of the Lorraine Motel in memphis, tennessee. Thats the balcony where Martin Luther king jr. Was assassinated. The site was marked like that for years and years. I took the photograph in the 1980s. The marking was done by the owner walter bailey. He lost his wife the day after the murder. It took 20 years for him to move this gradually towards sanctification. Getting support from the city of memphis, the county, and the government to turn this into a major civil rights education center. This moved it in that direction. In the lower lefthand corner there, one of the japaneseamerican internment camps in california was a stepping stone towards sanctification. The families and their children went back there in a pilgrimage. Those pilgrimages were very important in gradually building towards legislation for the families illegally interned there during the second world war. I have saved rectification because it is the most common. In many cases we dont see that significance in some of the daytoday violence and some of the daytoday tragedies that go on in american society. Many of these sites are simply put right. The photograph here is part of my familys lore. I wasnt born yet when this crash occurred in madison, wisconsin, but wmy mother told stories about this because she heard it happen. Our window to our kitchen in 1953 looked out towards the University Arboretum and she saw the plane spiraling in and hitting this area. Its been left to go back to an arboretum setting. The last one, four, obliteration. Events seen as so shameful. Mass murder. Gang, mob violence. Tragedies involving gross negligence. Taboo subjects are sometimes so shocking and shameful that communities try to destroy all the evidence. They dont want to be reminded and they dont want people to come to look. They want to scour the landscape accordingly. In the upper right is the site of the homestead of ed geen. He was a murderer. A necrophiliac. He is the inspiration for norman bates in psycho and also the texas chainsaw massacre. If you get an idea where i am going. The residents of plainfield were so disturbed, when he was caught and spent the rest of his life in a psychiatric ward in madison, the neighbors were really upset because people kept coming to visit. They were vandalizing the farm stead and so forth. Eventually someone went out and burned all the buildings. The land went up on auction. It was sold and planted as a pine plantation for pulp paper. Thats what it looks like. In newtown, connecticut, we know of the horrible mass murder at the elementary school. When the building was finally torn down the contractors walled off the entire site. The remains of the site had been buried anonymously somewhere. The contractors had to agree to keep it completely anonymous so that no one would visit the sites. The school has been rebuilt. New design, slightly different footprint. They finally decided on putting up a memorial there but its been a hard struggle for the community to lose so many children and teachers. Finally, across the river from cincinnati. A popular supper club. The owner was very careless. Got around all the fire restrictions, building codes and so forth. A fire claimed almost 300 lives. From what i can tell, no one has been able to rebuild on that site because its still so highly stigmatized. What i found in my research, its not as though places get to one position on this scale and stay there. Its constantly moving back and forth. We can see changes occurring through time, as traditions build, as people reinterpret the past and see value in some events and less value in others. I like to show the way we see the national past. In the lower right hand corner, sites you may have walked on or probably looked at, this is the precise location where the revolutionary war broke out. Where is it . This is a test. Boston massacre. The star at the center of the walkway is the precise place where he fell on that spot, the free black sailor. That wasnt marked for another hundred years. It was only looking back. Now weve gotten past the first hundred years, now its time to mark these sites that are associated with the war. And 100 years later that was a marker put up on boston common. Thats the second photograph from the left. Then bunker hill. We see this big obilisk as we drive into boston. I think it was finally finished in 1875. It took a long time. This was raised by private donations and fundraising, it was not done by the national government. It was pride of place in the sense that this is a really significant event because the american troops held their ground against the british. Then we get very distinctive points. The photograph second from the right is the High Water Mark of the confederacy of the gettysburg battlefield, to actually mark this is the point where the civil war began to go in the favor of the union. This is the point where, right in the middle of the war, where the confederate troops were turned back. Very specific in terms of telling the story of the nation. I point to the last slide on the righthand side. Thats the site we are looking from the mansion at Arlington National cemetery, across John Kennedys grave. The reason there are so many people there it may look a little bit small there is this was the weekend after jack W Jacqueline Kennedy onassis had been buried and many people came to pay their respects. By the 1960s, 70s and 80, we had our history laid out on the ground. When Jacqueline Kennedy was picking that position for the grave, she wanted it to align with the lincoln memorial, which you can see in the distance there because this was another martyred president. She wanted to be able to see the National Capitol to the right and the white house to the left, representing John Kennedys contributions to the nation. So we have this whole cos mography of all these historical sites and the way they line up. The same thing happens in other places at the state or city level. I used to live in texas. And i used to be focused a lot on texas history. Texans are very proud of the texas war of independence. This was in 1835 and 36. Even then the commemoration moved gradually. Some of them returned and wanted to be buried at the san ysidro battlefield near houston. The alamo which was completely abandoned after the battle passes to the state and becomes curated by the daughters of the republic of texas. And then by 100 years later you have the tallest masonry obelisk in the world put up on the sannia sinto battlefield. This becomes an incredible invention, a kind of tradition thats been built and inscribed on the landscape. It happens also in places like chicago. In chicago, the city flake in the left hand corner has two blue stripes. One representing Lake Michigan and the Chicago River. The four stars represent four events the city is very proud of. Columbian exposition. Century of progress. Two others represent the chicago fire of 1871 and other represents Ford Dearborn which ended in a massacre. Everyone died. How is it that a city should transform two really perhaps horrible, tragic events into marks of their accomplishments . In the photograph on the left you see the fire academy of chicago. There at the fire academy, on the very lefthand side you see a little sculpture. Maybe i can point it out. Right here. Thats called pillar flame. That statue stands on the exact point where the chicago fire began. The exact spot. So after all of these years, they see it as a point of pride because, after the chicago fire, chicago modernized its police and fire programs. They see that as the starting point for the modern city of chicago because that fire was so destructive they had to change. It changed the city governments, police, fire and so forth, so they see it as a mark of progress into the future. Now, many of these things i think we can see, looking at the landscape. I think its one of the things i find so interesting visiting salem every couple of years is how the witchcraft episode is inscribed on the place. We are looking at a topo sheet of the gettysburg battlefield. Its not just the markers on the battlefield but the whole landscape has been named. We can look on this map and find particularly important engagements in that battle. Toward the center of the map you might recognize the Peach Orchard which was some vicious fighting, on the second day of the battle. The wheat field a little bit further, a Little Roundtop toward the lower righthand corner. These are major features which have not only been marked in terms of memorials but are marked in terms of toponyms. I was reminded in writing my book of a quote, features recalled are pride are apt to be safeguarded against erosion and vandalism. Those ignored with shame may be ignored for erased from the landscape. Thats true i think for gettysburg. We can contrast it with an event over a year later in colorado. Sand creek massacre. This is in a period, its during the civil war, there is also a lot of fighting going on in the frontier between cheyenne and arapahoe. The cultures are breaking down at this point. The young men are attacking white settlements. Many of the older adults are staying home with children. At this period it escalates in the fall of 1864. Militias are gathered in colorado and they go out and slaughter an entire village of cheyenne and arapahoe early in the morning, a defenseless settlement that thought it was under the protection of the u. S. Army. This was recognized as shocking and shameful, almost immediately. And if you go there now there is a National Parks service site. When i went there there wasnt. I nearly destroyed a rental car getting out to take that photograph. This is really way out in the plains of colorado. And you can see from the photograph there is nothing marked. There are no names on the map. This has really disappeared. This reminds me, i think, this the john gardner was mentioned earlier. This idea of the shaping of the past worthy of public commemoration in the present is contested and involves a struggle for supremacy between advocates of various political ideas and sentiments. So its very important to keep that tension in mind in remembering things. But as a geographer, i have to remind us of this point in the lower right hand corner, very often these debates revolve around where and what to do. Just like we we have been talking about today. What to do in salem. Thats oftentimes the focus of the debate. What about salem and danvers . What about the sites weve been looking at and talking about today . I am not an expert in salem witchcraft episode. I think there is a great tension going on between sanctification and obliteration. We know there is something really important we need to remember about the salem witchcraft episode. At the same time this is very difficult to come to terms with because its also something thats shameful and shocking when a Community Turns on itself and kills people that will lead more towards obliteration. I think it is worth reflecting on some of the reasons that i think its difficult to resolve that tension from other sites that i have looked at around the country. First of all, one of the major points of tension is whenever we memorialize an event like this it calls attention to the perpetrators, the killers themselves. In the upper left hand corner is the dedication of the Columbine High School memorial for those who died in the shootings in 1999. This was put up in 2007. People really observed to it. In fact, it might not have been built at all, but a couple of people pushed this forward because people said, we would love to honor the victims, but by doing that we are also calling attention to the killers. We are putting up a shrine for the two High School Students who killed all of our neighbors. Why should we do that . This site in the middle is the house of terror in budapest. It was both the headquarters for the gestapo during the nazi occupation late in the second world war. It was immediately taken over by the secret police after the second world war. Its doubly stigmatized. People said, we should Say Something about the victims of the nazi terror as well as the socialist, the communist period. But doesnt this create a shrine for the people who have oppressed all of these people . And finally, i point to the controversy of the sixth floor museum at the School Book Depository in dallas, texas. There was a chance long ago we could have lost it because people said we dont want that building. Thats where oswald was situated when he shot the president. People said, if you create a museum in that building, youre creating a shrine to oswald. You are not honoring the president , you are creating a shrine to oswald. Peat sa people said, no, this is such an important site in our history that we really need to do something. So i think, very often, when debate starts about what to do after these events tragedy and terror there is attempt to kind of other the killers. This comes up in the news all the time. Lets dismiss this as an extraordinary event that was caused by some outsider or someone who just couldnt possibly control him or herself. So we think of president lincolns killer. A redanged fanatic killed lincoln or a crazed anarchist shoots president mckinley or a homophobic antiabortion zealot bombs the atlanta olympic park in 1996. That circle indicates where one of the pieces of shrapnel fell. You can see people still go there to touch that place. Associated with the bombing. Its interesting, then. You can explain away the violence by explaining away the perpetrator. As it wasnt part of our community. Its difficult to do that because its ushering in a kind of denial. Its difficult to do that if the people come from the community. The second thing i think here in salem is to say, look, this happened so long ago, really, really. Think of whats happened since. The maritime power, the industry that built up. Hawthorne. House of seven gables, the fire of 1914. A lot has passed. Maybe its just not necessary to bring up the witchcraft episode. I dont agree with that, but its one of the readings here. So sometimes people say, well, its time to let that rest. But another thing is that a lot of people might say, compared to the violence in early america, the witchcraft episode doesnt amount to very much. Its just like the point made this morning that compared to what happened in europe where you have 50,000 witches or supposed witches killed, this is not a very big outbreak. I think of the mystic massacre which people argue over whether it was genocide of the pea peck woths. You have them murdering the whole village. Down there is what the site looks like today. Its a suburban street. There is nothing there at all. The fairfield swamp fight. There is one marker. Again, that kind of finished them off. We think of the bloody brook massacre in deerfield which was brutal, brutal fighting and we have one single memorial in deerfield for that memorial, for that event. But i think this comes to an important point. I think sanctification is very difficult when this event occurs because civil legal Police Military forces have turned on their own people, the people theyre supposed to protect, the citizens of the town or the state or the nation. When it turns on itself, its particularly difficult to sa sanctify. That also applies to the situation here in salem. Where neighbor turns on neighbor, it presents a very difficult issue in terms of sanctification. I point to the bath school bombing. This was the treasurer of a school board blew up the school. Right . Claimed about 50 lives. I may be off there, but it was a substantial loss of life. Children, teachers, so on. The race riots after the first world war. This is running the negro out of tulsa in 1921. It wasnt the only race riot of the period but the rowswood massacre of 1923 where you have neighbors turning on neighbors and chasing these africanamericans out of this area near cedar key, florida. Terrible events like that. I think this comes up with events that relate to police violence, for example. I have had example here of this horrible event where the chicago police, working with the fbi, assassinated fred hampton and mark clark late in december 1969. And i think that that photograph in the lower left corner, i think is one of the more horrible photographs that ill show you today because i think those Police Officers are actually smiling. They know that they just got away with murder. They killed two people and they were never, never penalized for doing that. We have other events like this terrible bombing of the move site in philadelphia in 1985 where the police bombed this separatist group on the west side. And they take out 65 homes, they kill 11 people, including five children. No one ever went to jail for that. So these sorts of things are very difficult, and they have to do with other major events in u. S. History. I think of the hay market riot of 1886 where you actually have the police turning on citizens. Theyre out protesting. They want the eighthour day. The eighthour work day. In fact, with a hay market affair, we have two separate readings. In the lower left we have the reading of the people who are executed for leading that, however we can question that legal decision. But that monument in the lower left is at the cemetery where they are buried. On the righthand side is a Police Monument marking the hay market and their defense of chicago. So even today that is very, very highly contested event in chicago. Other events that are somewhat similar. I think of bleeding, kansas, where you have neighbors killing neighbors. Characters like john brown, who was so dedicated to abolitionists that he was willing to kill his own neighbors who were slavers. He was willing to kill his own neighbors, and his whole family was dedicated to ending slavery. You have this back and forth, burning in lawrence, kansas, fighting across in missouri, back and forth. In many cases these are tensions that still exist today. This also happens to events like sand creek. So this is my son andrew reading a plaque at the base of the Civil War Monument in front of the state house in denver, colorado. It was put up in 1909 honoring the heroic battles of colorado troops in the civil war. Listed on that monument is the battle of sand creek. Battle at sand creek. In 1999 the Senate Finally passed a resolution. They said, were not going to take down this memorial, but we are going to describe the fact that we have thought carefully about this and there is no way we can describe sand creek as a battle. It really needs to be described as a massacre and it is really quite striking. From that has grown an event maybe it could be mirrored here. They have a healing run run every year around the same time, around thanksgiving which is close to when the massacre occurred. They started the sand creek start at the massacre site and run typically to denver but sometimes to other states as well like wyoming and use it as a way of talking through some of these issues about memory. So what makes salem different . I dont have to say very much. I mean, i just i just grabbed a few illustrations of the way that witch imagery. I mean hocus pocus. Episodes of bewitched they dealt with witchcraft and accusations and so forth. I think it is quite striking because is this the way we want to remember a key lesson about religious freedom, about social intolerance, about wrongful prosecution, persecution, in the development of the american legal system. And as people have been talking about all day long, this is something that is highly questionable because there is that sense that people dont they dont reflect on what they see here. They tend to see the kind of kitsch side of things and maybe it is time to think about how we might do that. I think there are ways forward, perhaps. I can think of many sites that attract thousands of visitors. Three weeks ago i was at auschwitz in poland and there were huge crowds there. Auschwitz is treated as a cemetery, as it should be. It should be. There are rules. About going into that site and how to behave and how to act. And people follow them. And the guides are scrupulous about that, saying there are things that you dont do inside of these camps because it would be disrespectful to those who have died. There is also, i think of the World Trade Center site in new york city. You know what its like there. You have probably all been there. Its almost spiritual in some ways. People assume a certain attitude toward that site when they walk across the plaza. And theres also, i think of the Last Stand Hill at the little bighorn battlefield. Here it is on Last Stand Hill. If people would imagine having a zombie walk down Last Stand Hill, right . You cant imagine. They wouldnt allow it. It is a National Park site, it would be just completely inappropriate, because i think these sites of tragedy are important. Theyre points of reconciliation, points of reflection, points of remembrance. The little bighorn battlefield is a good case in point. A few years ago, the National Parks Service Allowed the lakota sioux and other native american groups to begin marking the site of to begin marking their site of where some of the warriors fell during the battle. They had never previously been marked. Well, marking death sites is not part of the plains indian culture. But they said okay. We want to mark these sites. We will make that concession because its so important also to present our side of the story and how we fought to defend our way of life. So the little bighorn battlefield has become one of these points of reconciliation between the plains indians and the u. S. Government. Angel island in San Francisco bay is being restored. As a memorial to this horrible period of the chinese exclusion act, where angel island was not like ellis island. This was where they interned people, the chinese, and sent them back to china as quickly as they could. These are important points of reconciliation. So i think there may be ways forward, kind of a middle ground because i think these sites of sanctification are important for several reasons. First of all, i think its very important to honor the victims, the survivors, and the families just like shelby is working on collecting the testimony of descendants of those involved in the witchcraft episode. These are important sites to people who have been involved, even at a great distance of many generations. Its also very important to recognize heroes and martyrs, to sort of say these are people who stood up and said no. They ended these trials. They stopped this from happening. And we need to be able to recognize that, even in these awful events of violence and tragedy. I also think its very important to keep the memory alive across generations. Going back to auschwitz for a second. Many of you may know or have participated in whats called the march of the living. This is an annual event in april. And thousands of people march between auschwitz one and birkenau or aush witts auschwitz two. Its about a mile to go. And theyre saying we are alive. We have survived. This is something that happened. This happened during the second world war, but we will not let this continue. We will not let this go on further. This is something we need to continue. So this idea of continuing the memory across generations, i think, is very, very important. So just as i move toward the close today, i think it is important to see, though, the public memory is more than just the memorials i have been focusing on today. The Public Memorials i think are just the starting place because they anchor traditions. They anchor our activities. They mark the spots of events and so forth. I put down there a quote from one of an article i wrote with a colleague on the geography of memory. Public memory has to do with contemporary experience. It has to do with visiting a battle site or celebrating a centennial or dedicating a new memorial. It has to do with precisely the things we have been doing today, part of public memorial. It gives people to place to come, it gives people a place to remember events and also to reconcile. I was struck here, this was on the lefthand photograph, the dedication of the Columbine High School memorial. You see the children, the students were so proud, they were wearing their sports clothing and so forth. They were coming because they were proud. They were honoring the people who died in that event. And this photograph on the right is from the dedication to Oklahoma City bombing. Memorial. And talking with some of the people who came back, some of the rescuers and so forth, they said i couldnt come back to Oklahoma City until today. The first time i have been able to be back because it has such an effect on my life, but i came back because this is a good thing theyre doing in Oklahoma City. I might also point to Something Like kent state university. Kent state, this is a photograph taken on the 40th anniversary. And kent state has an annual vigil. They have a midnight walk all the way around campus that comes back to the sites of where the four students died. And you see in the upper lefthand corner the event, the speakers in the afternoon sitting on the hill where a daffodil is planted for each soldier who died in the vietnam war. You can see a vigil at sandra scheuers death site. Those are members of her sorority singing around her death site. And professor jerry lewis was there trying to deflect the National Guard leading people around. So i think as we look into the future, i have to say that there are other cities that are facing just as many ghosts and skeletons as salem is, honestly. I was very struck. I would recommend if you have a chance sometime soon that you listen to the full Youtube Video of Mitch Landrieus speech in new orleans about the removal of a Confederate Monument in new orleans. New orleans, the controversy is removing memorials. And salem is just the opposite, putting up memorials. But he makes just such a stunning argument about why this issue of memorials and public memory are so important. He says, centuryold wounds are still raw because they never heal right in the first place. This removal is, however, about showing the whole world that we as a city and as a people are able to acknowledge, understand, reconcile, and most importantly, choose a Better Future for ourselves, making straight what has been crooked and making right what is wrong. And i think that very much applies to some of the debate that were having here in salem about addressing issues that may have happened 325 years ago, but i think its really imperative for us to look ahead. In closing, i will point back to Bridget Bishop and were meeting here to honor her memory today, but i can point to so many other sites around the United States, just in the last couple years where we also have signs with peoples names on them because they have been killed for various reasons. Because theyre gay or because they were protecting muslims or they were africanamerican. So i think it really is this memory work involved more than memorials, it involves engagement, education, Community Action and so on. What i find so exciting about the discussion today is there really seems to be a commitment in trying to carry this forward. I really do believe there is some imperative in making sure that there is a way of representing the witchcraft episode in the terms of this history that can be engaging and also educational and can keep the memory going for future generations. So thank you very much. [ applause ] thank you very much. Do we have time for a couple questions . Absolutely. Okay. Yes. I was wondering, we have heard a lot of distaste for the salem halloween celebrations and the like. But it seems to me that theres an element that is very similar to what has become of the memorializing of stonewall in new york. That there was a culture of oppression and an event that was an attack on a people by a repressive culture. And the response has been a parade of in your face defiance. And in a sense, we here in salem are seeing a parade of defiance of sinning and witchcraft in the face of a puritan attack on decency and morals. I was wondering if theres any kind of way in which the haunted happenings, et cetera, could be considered a sort of recognition of the i dont know if i would draw a parallel with stonewall. Stonewall is important, and the idea of in your face protests which have happened in new york and other cities as well as a way of raising the issues there. In working on this lecture, i couldnt think of any city quite like salem that has gained so much from developing its witch city. I dont think its possible to change that because it is so important to the tourism industry. I think that its almost the need to follow a separate path like the discussion today about the idea of peabody Ethics Institute or thinking of some other way. You cant displace that tourism, but to try to find another path that allows people to learn more about the events. Thats a good possible comparison. Lets see. There was another. Donna. The parallel i keep thinking of because of the work that i do are the plantation museums across the antebellum south. I think there you do see sites whose tourism for the last 100 years or so has been based on this nostalgic gentile image of the antebellum south. Unlike salem, they havent dealt with slavery at all, but its a really uncomfortable fit for many of these places. What i have ended up seeing is either sites seem to completely give themselves over, right, to a history of slavery, or sites emerge now to talk about slavery. Or it becomes this sort of alternative experience. You know, and thats sort of an antebellum culture piece and slavery piece never really meet up. You know, and im struck by your discussion of shrines, thinking that mt. Vernon and monticello, these early sites were literally created as shrines. Yes. To enslavers. So thats where i keep going. But thats where my mind always goes as i try to think about parallels. I think those are really good examples. I could have brought up some examples that deal with very contested legacy of slavery. Because theres a lot of the same tensions going on there. And i think youre absolutely and i think youre absolutely right in watching whats happening now with the plantation narratives and so on. My only hope is that whats beginning to happen, as you know, is these counter narratives, that people are using those plantation museums in a few cases to cause a different narrative. Its not happening all over, but in a few in louisiana and so forth. But it doesnt really affect places like washington, jefferson. There still has been only a modest change in that. You see sort of theres a real reluctance to engage. Thats not what people come there i was struck as i was doing my research, with visitors, you know, and their comments they make, and they want to come to be scarlet ohara. You know, they dont want to go there to be mammy. So thats not the experience they want. I think thats part of what were dealing with in salem. They want to come for the revelry. Not always for the more somber aspect of the history. We could look also just more generally at africanAmerican History. The examples i gave from the race riots and so forth, for the most part, those have been completely effaced. People dont want to talk about that episode. That was a brutal, brutal period in Race Relations and there are only a couple around the country where theres any note. Roseworth, tulsa, only a couple. People dont want to be reminded their city did this. There were people involved. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, donna. What if the site is sacred but people what if its been sanctified but people arent treating it that way . Thats whats happening to our witch trials memorial. You need to set some rules. Luckily the foundation is the steward of our witch trial memorial. [ inaudible ] well, that is an interesting point because in a lot of these sites, the behavior is patrolled in a sense. They say this is acceptable, this isnt. You cant do that here. And you know, whether theres photography allowed or what not, you cant do that. And i think that maybe it is partly because this has become such a profane area that its hard to enforce that now. I think that site for the memorial at the cemetery is very striking. I was i made a special trip to see that when it was finally dedicated. And i think it is a very appropriate site and a wonderful design. But because its right there in the middle of town and because theres no way to mark it off and control that, you know, that sort of behavior, its a constant problem. Now that youre right, the graveyard has become this its just not a good situation. So it may be that addressing some of those issues is necessary. There are some places where its completely so for example, the cemetery is closed off where its only open at a particular time. I hate to do Something Like that, but it does set the tone for the interpretation. Other questions before we finish . You need a microphone . Here it comes. Thanks. I loved the talk. I was particularly struck when you were talking for gettysburg. A friend of mine who used to work for the National Park service, i was struck by i see a lot of similarities between gettysburg and salem as these places that have this one huge, horrible event happen in the town. It really sort of changed frankly the course of American History and the course of that towns history and how people think about the town and how the town thinks about itself. And i think the one thing to me, and again too, theyre the two places that also, it seems to me, perhaps in a very different way, make their living off people who come to the city because of that event. That despite a wonderful college, gettysburg probably would drive them away if it werent for the battlefield. I think about that, and i think too the one way gettysburg treats itself differently, first time i went to gettysburg, i was struck because even before i got to the cemetery, the national cemetery, i felt like i had been on a cemetery all day because you have the monuments, the memorials throughout the city. And even as you enter the town, theres more than 1,000 of them, as you know. Theyre everywhere. And it does sort of put you in this sort of mood as you enter the city that, you know, of reverence and respect, of Hallowed Ground that unfortunately, you know, i think is a thing that maybe the piece that you said, is lacking in salem. In gettysburg, you can go on haunted tours and they have these events. But out there on the battlefield, i have even seen visitors policing other visitors. They think this is inappropriate. Youre supposed to be on the paths. Youre allowed in certain areas, not allowed in other areas. People are conscious of that. There hasnt been a problem of great vandalism in gettysburg, and people are very respectful when theyre out on the battlefield. In town or other places, they can have other entertainment. It is a close comparison, but its treated very differently. You dont have the problem we have where within several months of the announcement of the ledge, someone showed up at one of the homeowners there and asked for permission to dig in their back yard. At which point, the resident said, im sorry, you cant do that. The person said, thats okay, ill go to the citys property and dig there. At which point, he was told, no, you wont do that. As long as theres a police force in salem. For reasons its hard to fathom, we have an uphill battle. I have seen some sites that i visited where they are guarded. I mean, there is controversy. There is some sites in hungary, in germany, that are guarded because of the friction over the memorialization. But i would hate to see that happen here. Very good. Maybe, i think one more question. Yes, i would like to ask you, you were talking about the removal recently of the statues of Jefferson Davis and robert e. Lee from new orleans. And the thing about that is it seems to me the city of new orleans could do, because its a heavily africanamerican city, they could do more to promote africanamerican people who have really made a difference in new orleans. Because my concern is, we could go to every major Southern City and remove statues of robert e. Lee and stonewall jackson, but what is that really going to accomplish . They were people who fought for a cause. You know, the culture of slavery goes, predates them a long time before. Robert e. Lee was considered a model student and teacher at west point. So i just wonder how we address the whole issue. I think theres been tremendous change since the time i wrote shouted ground in terms of africanAmerican History and the Civil Rights Movement and to some degree the slave paths as well. One of the things i wrote about was how little was done in that area because we werent recognizing some of the great individuals and events. I think that has changed substantially over the last 20 years. Were seeing it in terms of the number of sites that are dedicated to the heroes and cause of the Civil Rights Movement. Were seeing it more in naming, naming streets. I mean, i think the battle for Martin Luther king in both the day and street naming was incredibly important in terms of setting precedence in the United States. Now many names and many buildings and a number of institutions, so it has started but i dont think its gone far enough. So i think my hope is that that will continue long into the future to recognize and more representation of who contributed to the building of the United States. Well, thank you all. Its been a pleasure. Thank you very much. [ applause ] all right, i just have a few closing thoughts. I want to im just full of gratitude. Im full of gratitude to my fellow committee members, shelby hypes and Meredith George and beth bearinger and my colleague, tad baker and Elizabeth Peterson and all of my wonderful colleagues. And drew darian and brad austin, youre still here. Chad baker, and all the brilliant centers. Im full of gratitude to all of you. I think that this spirit and the energy and the curiosity and the concern and the reflection was very evident throughout this day. I think it was a wonderful day for all of us. And a nice respectful day to pay tribute to the victims of 1692. And i also want to look for i want to go forward because youre always supposed to end with a going forward. We do have an event scheduled and sponsored by salem state in collaboration with salem maritime National Park. Its going to be at their Visitors Center on july 20th. The whole proctors ledge group, gang, what do you call them . Team. Team, thank you. At the end of the day, will be there. It will be a forum about the whole process of discovery and commemoration. That will be a nice corollary to this event. Also, let me tell you about tomorrows salem awards event. Six word memoir event to mark their 25th anniversary on charter street from 12 00 to 3 00. Okay. So a lot to think about. And i look forward to seeing you all at future events, and thank you for coming. [ applause ] this week on cspan, tonight at 8 00, with the budget as something for congress to handle, well look at pending proposals for the federal budget. On friday a profile interview with sunny purdue. My political history was i tell people when i was born in 1946 they stamped democrat on your birth certificate. I made a political decision, i called it truth in advertising, in 1998 to change parties and became a republican at that point in time. Followed at 8 30 p. M. By a conversation with black hat and defcon founder jeff moss. The only people doing security were people in the military or banks. As the internet grew and there were jobs and people were putting things on line and there was money at risk, hackers started getting jobs doing security. Listen using the free span radio app. When you think about a oneday festival, the National Book festival, and you have over 100 authors from childrens authors, illustrators, graphic novelists, all of these different authors there all day over 100,000 people come in and celebrate books and reading. You cant have a better time, i think. And im a little prejudice because im a librarian. But i have to tell you, any reader or anybody that wants to get inspired, the book festival is the perfect place. Live all day coverage begins saturday at 10 00 a. M. With featured authors, former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and Michael Lewis and j. D. Vanz. Live saturday starting at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan 2s book tv. Next, author with a indepth look into the history of salem. He explores how it went from a simple town to a tourist attraction. The presentation was part of an allday symposium held at Salem State University. Good morning, everybody. Lovely to see you all today on this day, this reverent day. My name is donna seger. Im chair of the History Department here at salem state