Kate masur is an associate professor of history at northwestern. They have been looking at ways to incorporate the history of reconstruction into the National ParkService Sites and they will report what the National Park service is doing. Will do, etc. And then, Jennifer Taylor is a phd candidate in history right here at the university of South Carolina who helped to develop very impressive exhibitions and tours at the Woodrow Wilson family home here in columbia which focuses heavily on the , reconstruction era when he lived in columbia. Let me just begin just by saying my involvement in this little part of reconstruction history goes back to the year 2000 when totally out of the blue i received a phone call from the secretary of the interior, Bruce Babbitt, who said, professor, i have just read your book on reconstruction. I said, that surprises me. I hope he was not insulted. I did not really think that cabinet members had a lot of time to spend reading long history books. Now hearing congressman clyburn i know there are some who do , have a strong sense of history. He invited me to washington to meet with him and talk about ways the National Park service that there was no recognition of reconstruction at that time. And even pretty much now in National ParkService Sites the only exception is the Andrew Johnson homestead in the great smoky mountains, in greenville . I was there once. They havent heard about the new interpretations of reconstruction up there. [laughter] news doesnt travel very fast to eastern tennessee. [laughter] before that anyway, the secretary and i visited buford and sort of developed the idea of a National Park service site at buford in South Carolina to exemplify many of the themes of reconstruction. It has not happened yet. Maybe it will happen, i dont know. But it sort of kicked off discussions in the National Park service about how to deal with reconstruction. I am anxious to hear what is happening now. And so i will turn the floor now over to michael allen. [applause] michael good afternoon. My name is michael allen. I am with the National Park service and it is great to be with you all here today. Peoplei are the only two here that were there in 2000, because i was there as well. Thenoutgoing secretary of the interior Bruce Babbitt and others visited buford in 2000. And with a simple thought and a simple mission. To look at the buildings, the landscape, the environment of buford which was essential to understanding the early days and tenants of reconstruction, potentially with an opportunity to establish some sort of park Service Presence in that area. Because in 2000, as it is in 2016, there are no National Park service directly associated that chronicles and talks about the history of reconstruction. Just to give you some background, we began our journey after the doctor and the secretary of the interior left. We then transitioned into the Bush Administration and we still continued, as we say the silly tocivil war sally forthed accomplish that task. We reached out to partners like the city of buford, folks on hilton head island. The city of buford, the county of buford, we try to cast a wide net of partnership and inclusion in an effort to go about the task. From the political side, we did reach out politically to at that point, the congressman and representatives of buford, joe wilson. We apprised him of what our task was and what we hoped to accomplish. We asked for his support. Early in the game, we got both of them, so we continued to move forward. As we moved forward, we began to here the quiet voices of rumbling. Rumbling that came from the group that we did not reach out as well as we should have, and that group was the sons of the confederate veterans. The head of the National Park service was inquired, what are you doing in buford . Since we are public, federal agency, we had nothing to hide. So we shared with them what our thoughts was, the impetus of why we were doing it. And white even be important for the American Public. This is what we do as a National Park service. Well, we reported back to them. I guess they digested what we had sent and somehow it was presented to us by congressman joe wilson perhaps this is not the time nor the season over the or the place to have a conversation about reconstruction. So unfortunately, in 2002, we were told to cease. So thats what we did. But in the back of many of our minds, we knew that the day would come when the National Park service would take up the mantle again to have a serious conversation about reconstruction in our agency. Low and behold, about five years ago, i got a call one day indicating to me that two of our historians were to look at National Historic sites in buford. Ands to show them around part of them coming was to see these particular sites had connectivity to reconstruction. I took the historians around buford in every place that we went in 2000, we went again. They were still there. [laughter] and so, that worked out well. And then i got another phone call and email saying i was the associate director for the Southeast Region wanted to go and look around buford and so i picked her up and again, every place that we went in 2000, we went again because they were still there. [laughter] and by that time, we realized that there was some effort afoot in the National Park service to really begin to address this matter. Again, i was in the Washington Office for another meeting i was attending. One of the Senior Leaderships pulled me to the side and i said, what have i done out . She said, we are moving forward in looking at reconstruction in buford and we needed to be a part of this. Again, we are going forward. So at that point, i had been afraid i said, madame, the last time we engaged in this journey, we were not as well prepared as we should have been. There were fundamental things that we should have addressed that we did not. And in some places, we may have been uncomfortable or afraid. I said, i know this time we will be successful. If you ask me to be a part of the process, im going to bring my agame. In the things that we did not do last time, we will do this time. One of the first things that we did, we gathered in washington a number of historians to actually sit with us. I think you were invited. To look at the whole history and the spectrum of reconstruction, its impact, its legacy the , connectivity to life today into big into look at the themes we could begin to address and the concept of this type of process. Thats the first step we did. The next thing we did is we pulled together to great two great americans that we called part of our team, greg and kate. That we would have scholarship on our side as we move forward. And then we also realized, the besides Andrew Johnson, i have to defend my friend. Lindsay is a good friend of mine to be clear, you mean libby is your friend michael she realized the challenges that come with it. We are moving her forward in terms of what needs to be done. She just has to continue to engage the community that they will also move forward, as well. So, the next step was bringing us together, but also realizing several things to put into place. Before we looked at buford, we focused on the county. We made a tactical decision to look at the entire southeast in to look at all of the states of the confederacy and the dynamics that came with that in terms of reconstruction. Mind you there are other parts , of our nation beyond the south that were also impacted by reconstruction. That does not mean we are going to cut off the rest of the nation. But our focus in our working canvas is the south, first step. Earlier today, you heard congressman clyburn he gave an outline of reconstruction. I think you made a said 1865 through 1877. One year ago, i shared with him that on this journey our timeline is 18611895. He grumbled a little bit when i said that to him. He and i have a Good Relationship and at the end the conversation he said all right. For our purposes of our work, we are looking at 1861, bringing in the port royal experience and hilton head all the way through plessy versus ferguson in 1898. Trying tome folks pull us into the 20th century but we havent got there yet. That is our working time. The next decision we made is that in addition to looking at sites and places and buildings across the landscape, we need to look internally. Look at the existing park Service Sites in the southeast specifically that have connectivity to reconstruction but perhaps at the present time are not addressing it. And so we pulled together another team working out of our plan to office looking , specifically at park Service Sites across the south specifically and their connectivity to reconstruction. And then for the broader context, we reached out to the state Historic Preservation offices across the south, universities and colleges, groups, entities, organizations, whomever that can bring this information. We are cataloging locations, buildings associated with reconstruction across the entire southeast because we realized that reconstruction in Many Americans minds is a challenged challenging subject. We are going to move forward in terms of having a conversation about that time in our american experience. We need to tell people where they can go and experience where the physical vestiges are located. We are doing that both internally and externally in a way that, in the end the day, this will not be a report on a shelf, but this can be a report used by the American Public. To that end, one of the things i want to highlight with you here, many of you have probably visit park Service Sites across the United States. And perhaps when you go, you used to try to buy a handbook. I hope you do. You better. [laughter] i am holding in my hand a recently released handbook that says the reconstruction era. This is your tax dollars at because we are putting your money where our mouth is [laughter] in terms of having a physical, tangible product that talks about the history, the legacy of reconstruction and these three people sitting at this panel have some part to what is in this document here. Why is that important . Remember the last time, we did not do this. Now, this is something tangible that is coming out of the work that we are doing. The last thing i want to share with you is that we realize that reconstruction is a challenged subject in Many American minds but we try to put it in a , context that people perhaps can relate to the work that we are doing. So we looked at some themes and sub themes developed by the park service staff, civil unrest and violence and what that brought about during that time. Black institution building, the family and the churches and businesses. Enfranchisement in new democracy, labor federal power, modernizing and rethinking of the south. Those are our broad themes. At the end of the day, when this is all said and done, i thinwe will have not only a primer but a textbook a roadmap. The reality is, as we look around our nation today, a lot of our conversations, whether social or political, thai into the efforts of reconstruction. Many americans may not know that there is connectivity to reconstruction. And so, it is the mission, the vision, goals of the National Park service to have a concerted conversation about this time. Many of you sitting in this room supported us the previous 45 years during the sesquicentennial, which was also another challenging time of how do we interpret the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the civil war . How do we do it in a way that is broadbased, diverse and holistic . I can say we survived. He is survived that. So the next chapter in our american saga is reconstruction and so it is my goal, my mission , my lot in life to work diligently with you the American Public, historians, with the National Park service, that we can as i often say, reconstruct , reconstruction. Thank you. [applause] gregory before i came out here, before i got on the plane i , called a friend of mine from greenville, South Carolina who now lives in los angeles and i said im flying out to columbia to talk about a museum they are developing on reconstruction and he is a bit older than i am and he paused and he said, for or against . [laughter] gregory i said, for. And he said, you are doing is voluntarily . Or they were made to . So i said, voluntarily because they believe in it. He said, South Carolina has come a long way. Not to say there is not more to there is a long way to go but we want to thank you for having us here and it is amazingly heartening for the things that we do in large present the country where reconstruction is barely mentioned or kind of hidden in euphemisms to see a place that is really embracing the idea of its country already to their culture, history, development, and i feel like you all will be a model not just for the kinds of ideas that well talk about with the National Park service but i hope a model to lots of other communities. I will quickly give you a sense of how kate and i came to be interested in this before i do that, i will about how i got to be there. Eric talked about the politics of history. There is also along with that, the propaganda of history. I grow up nobody can talk a south carolinians in crazy stories but i grew up in central kentucky and in the center of the town square, there is a cannonball stuck in a brick with a big brass arrow pointing to it. And if you ask people what it was from, it was the union , the union army, of which was no such thing the United States army had fired at the town of when it was held by confederate. If you walk a couple blocks off is that there was a marker and it said, george custer, custer 1875 when he to was overseeing the seventh cavalry efforts to collect taxes against moonshiners. Both of these are total nonsense. [laughter] the first thing was at the town square burned to the ground in 1929 and when it burned to the ground, somebody walked through and pulled out the cannonball and when they rebuilt it he got on the latter and stuck it out there. The second thing is that the town was a unionist town, a loyal town patriotic town, not a , a treasonous town i mean, kentucky has a lot to answer for that, but asto say you will see in the next part. And the canon was fired by confederates attacking the town. The third is that custer was stationed at the depot in elizabethtown in 1874 because the seventh cavalry had been sent in both in the Green River Valley in kentucky but then down down the train lines of alabama and mississippi to put on a wave of insurrectionary violence against African Americans and loyal whites. A second wave of what had followed up with came from putting down the ku klux klan in the carolinas in 1871 not to collect taxes from moonshiners. But this is the same propaganda, right, which is to say the problem of why we misunderstand reconstruction is tied up with we problem of why misunderstand the civil war. It is necessary to have a propaganda about reconstruction to support a propaganda about the civil war in that if we are going to undo that propaganda, we cannot just undo the propaganda of the civil war and then stop. They have to be interconnected. Now, kate and i have each individually been writing about work on reconstruction. It seems like there is nothing new to be said and there is an uncanny way in which you think of something and think it is any pick up erics book and youre like how did he think that in there . Which anticipates sort of everything that one would want to be said that she had written a book about reconstruction and civil rights in washington dc here and i wrote one on North Carolina which i apologize for that i picked the wrong carolina and then one on the u. S. Army and the occupation of the south in the middle of this together collected new scholarship for this book. But we began as a lot of people in this room we were speaking during the sesquicentennials and we were increasingly dissatisfied that as we would go around we would ask people in the New York Times about the civil war which we and others participated in what are you going to do about reconstruction and the answer was nothing. The New York Times series closed in 2015. Many historical societies seemed to imagine you get to appomattox and you close the door to the and you are done commemorating the civil war and you are onto something else. This frustrated us as it did many of our colleagues. We are certainly not unique in enough. We follow the example of american eric and many of the people in this room and drying figure out how to fulfill our responsibility to the public. We were led with the help of the American Historical Association and others in National Park service where we were lucky to find for the reasons mike and a group of people in the park service who had been working to