Black History is American History DC

Duration:

1 hour, 21 minutes, 4 seconds

A panel discussion with Cheryl LaRoche, Sabrina Romain, Edie Wallace, and Kimberly Robinson about the influence of African Americans on park lands and landscapes in the greater DC region and our nation. Includes discussions of NPS research on the long history of civil rights, the Reconstruction Era, and rural African American communities, and the stories of black history that are an integral part of American history.

The webinar "Black History is American History: Centering the Long Civil Rights Struggle in DC Area Parks" occured on August 17, 2021. A transcript of this video appears below.

Full Transcript

EMILY KAMBIC

Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Emily Button Kambic, and I am the regional historian for the National Park Service's National Capital Area. Apologies for my voice today. Welcome, and thanks very much for today's discussion of ongoing research on African American history in the larger Washington DC region. To start, I'd like to mention just a couple quick housekeeping items for today's virtual panel.
First, we welcome audience questions. You can submit them at any time throughout the presentation in the chat box, or the Q&A box at the bottom of your screen. We will also be stopping a little bit early to ask for audience questions on things you heard during the presentation.And again, please submit them through the chat box or the Q&A. For a note on accessibility, if you need live captioning for this event, you can get that at the link in the chat here.If you can't stay for the full event or you'd like to share it with someone, we are recording this event, and we plan to make that recording available. We will share it through a similar channel for advertising this panel.With that, I'd like to recognize and thank the National Park Service's partner for this event, the Organization of American Historians, especially Paul Zwirecki, director of public history and Sally Hanchett, who is hosting today's webinar.The National Park Service began prioritizing studies of African American history through the civil rights initiative in 2016. Since then, the national capital area, which includes parks in Washington, D.C., parts of Maryland, Northern Virginia and West Virginia, has funded and launched 65 projects.These projects are trying to provide a broader context and to document African American historic places and stories in our parks, so that we can better preserve and share the way black Americans shaped our nation and the DC Area National Parks.The Organization of American Historians has been a vital partner in many of these projects bringing in accomplished researchers like Dr. LaRoche and Ms. Wallace to lead them and expanding dialogue between the National Park Service, academia and the broader public history sector.You can find links to completed projects on National Capital Area history program website, which I am also going to share in the chat.Today, you will be getting a sneak peek into some projects that are in mid to advanced stages of development, many of which we are hoping to be able to share with you and the public in late 2021.The facilitator for this discussion today will be Dr. Dean Herrin who retired at the end of 2020 as the regional historian for the National Capital Area. He holds a PhD in American history, and he's long been interested in topics of African American history. He is the chair of the research committee for ARCH, the African American Resource Culture and Heritage society in Frederick, Maryland. We asked him to facilitate today's discussion due to his instrumental role in expanding the scope of African American history research in the National Capital Area’s parks including conceptualizing and establishing partnerships with the Organization of American Historians for most of the studies you will be hearing about today. We thank him for joining us today to reflect on what we learning from this ongoing work.So with that, I will turn it over to be Dean.

DEAN HERRIN

00:03:27,680
Thank you, Emily. And Paul, Sally, thank you, OAH, for being a partner on so many of our projects and so many of our civil rights and African American history related projects.As Emily said, we have been looking at these projects for some time now. I think our area really took advantage of the civil rights initiative fund, and we have lots of projects that we have worked on, lots of projects that are in process and lots that are coming forward soon as well. So, let's get started.And as Emily said, I'm going to introduce speakers one by one. And there will be a short intro to the projects they're working on.And then after that, we'll have a discussion and a chance at the end for additional questions.Some people have submitted questions in the initial email that went out.We had solicited questions. So, we have some from viewers already, but we'll have a chance for others as we go.So, we will get started with Dr. Cheryl LaRoche, archeologist Dr. Cheryl LaRoche, who is the author of the forthcoming National Park Service National Capital Area Civil Rights Framework, and also Reconstruction Historic Resource Study, which we anticipate releasing in late 2021.Dr. LaRoche is an Associate Research Professor in historic preservation in the School of Architecture at the University of Maryland College Park. She was the principal investigator for the National Park Service Ethnographic study of Hampton National Historic Site in Towson, Maryland. Dr. LaRoche served as a project historian for cultural expressions exhibition for the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American history and Culture, and has consulted on numerous historical projects. Her first book is Free Black Communities and the Underground Railroad: The Geography of Resistance. She authored two articles for edited volume in 2021. The Underground Railroad in Maryland’s Ports, Bays and Harbors Maritime Strategies for Freedom, and Sailing to Freedom, and Secrets Well Kept: Colored Conventioneers and Underground Railroad Activism in the Colored Convention's Movement, Black Organizing in the 19th century. Dr. LaRoche.

CHERYL LAROCHE

00:05:58,720
Thank you everyone for joining us today.Yes, I authored two of the reports, the first on civil rights which expanded our understanding, both of these reports. I really looked at the time horizon and change the times that we normally think about it. For the Civil Rights report, we started with the end of the war for independence and then moved up into the 21st century and tried to cover so many aspects of the civil rights movement inside of those time horizons.For Reconstruction, we did the same thing. We move the time to the beginning of Reconstruction to 1862 and move the end date to 1902, which we will discuss further. I would say that both of these projects, but particularly Reconstruction, has been deeply illuminating, as Dean indicated.I worked on the Hampton report and many of the things that I talked about in the report seem like discreet things that happened in East Towson. After working on Reconstruction in particular, I now see that much of what I was talking about there was part of a much broader pattern, and I think that's one of the things I'd like you to take away is that some of these small stories that you're looking at--at your site are part of this much larger and much more inclusive story that remains to be told.My biggest recommendation is for everyone to stop saying post-Civil War. If you're saying post-Civil War, you're actually talking about the start of Reconstruction and so your Reconstruction narrative begins there. I have much more to say about that, but I'll turn it back over to Dean.

DEAN HERRIN

00:07:43,720
I said something brilliant there. You didn't hear me.

CHERYL LAROCHE

You can say it again!

DEAN HERRIN

I forgot it. No, I just said that opens up another question which is great. Which is what these projects are supposed to do. You touched on so many things there in those few minutes so thank you very much.Okay, next presenter is Sabrina Romain. Sabrina is a Civil Rights Historian for the National Capital Area. She is developing a synthesis of this region’s civil rights initiative research from 2016, to the start of the civil rights funding, to 2020 to highlight the work that has been started with the new fund source, while also identifying research gaps. Her scope of research highlights cultural and political implications of the African diaspora along with African and Afro American women fight for rights. She completed her undergraduate degree in history with a minor in African American studies from Valdosta State University. And earned her master's in applied social sciences history, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University in August 2019. In May of 2019, Sabrina accepted a civil rights graduate fellowship at the National Park Service in the National Capital Area focusing on developing best practices and engaging descendent communities on the topic of enslavement, and on research for the African American reading school project. In 2020, she rejoined the NCA cultural resources team as a civil rights historian, where she conducts research and assists with project management of the NCA's civil rights initiative project. Sabrina.

SABRINA ROMAIN

00:09:26,700
Hi everyone. As Dean said, I am Sabrina Romain, the Civil Rights Historian for the National Capital Area. Welcome and thank you for attending this panel. I hope it addresses a lot of the questions that you guys continue to ask about how we should approach this history, how we should approach the research process. So I look forward to answering more of your questions. Thank you.

DEAN HERRIN

00:10:01,700
Next. Edie Wallace. Edie is an independent historian specializing in American social architecture history and the author of the forthcoming National Park Service historic resource study of rural African-American communities in the National Capital Area. Miss Wallace has a Master of Arts degree in historic preservation from Goucher College, Baltimore, Maryland, where she received the 2003 Hiram McCullough award for her thesis on preserving African American historic resources in rural Washington County.She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in anthropology from the University of Delaware, and a certificate in historic preservation from Shepherd's College, Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Ms. Wallace led historical research and context development Services for Paula S. Reed and Associates, incorporated in Hagerstown, Maryland from 1998 through 2018. She is a founding member and immediate past President of the Friends of Tolson’s Chapel, dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of Tolson’s Chapel, the school, in Sharpsburg, Maryland, which as she will mention is a National Historical Landmark. Edie.

EDIE WALLACE

00:11:15,600
Thank you, Dean, and thank you all. I'm honored to be invited to be part of this panel. And I was really honored to be asked to prepare the report on the African American communities-rural communities in the National Capital Area.Our, our period of coverage went from 1865 to 1900. So we kind of ran afoul of what Dr. LaRoche is now, or Cheryl is now saying about the period of Reconstruction and beyond. But my, my project really looked at the context of Reconstruction in the states that are within the National Capital Area today, being Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia after 1863. And then continuing on through to1900's, the kinds of laws that were passed and, and the obstacles that were put in people's way and also the kind of things that these communities did to overcome those obstacles.And then the, the bulk of the report was looking at specific rural communities, two in Virginia and two in Maryland, and how these individuals within these communities, how they lived through these decades of difficulty, to say it nicely. And the kinds of institutions that they establish to support them through this period and what their lives were like. So it really is my kind of project because I'm very interested in and looking at the social history that the people who actually lived it and what their response is or was to what was happening to them and around them. So that's about it.Thank you.

DEAN HERRIN

00:14:02,200
Thanks Edie. Yeah, as Edie alluded to as all of you who work in the National Capital Area know, our region is not-it’s a lot, complicated and the fact that our historians are dealing with so many different jurisdictions which means different laws, different events, that all gets very complicated. Butwe’ve all done a good job of trying to pursue those threads, and in some ways, it is such a fascinating region to study all these things because you do have different experiences, different jurisdictions and different events. So it is one of the complicating factors.Let me introduce Kimberly Robinson. Kim has just joined- actually- Harpers Ferry Center as a staff curator and planner. So, our region’s loss is Harpers Ferry’s gain. Congratulations, Kim. She most recently served, prior to joining HFC, as a museum curator of the George Washington Memorial Parkway National Park Service Unit in the Washington metropolitan area that includes Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee Memorial, and the Clara Barton National Historic site, amongst others.She graduated from the George Washington University graduate program with a master of arts degree with a concentration in collections Management in 2006. Her research interests are focused on 19th century fine decorative arts, as well as architecture in particular of the art architecture and design of the Victorian era.Ms. Robinson has given numerous talks on historic homes and museum collections management and recently taught collections management at George Washington University. Kim.

KIMBERLY ROBINSON

00:15:49,420
Good afternoon everyone and thank you so much Dean for your congratulations and for that great introduction. Having some internet funk up here.So, I may what I may do is turn off my video, but I wanted to if I could briefly share some of what we've been doing up at ARHO, Arlington House…forgive me, I don't want to speak in acronyms, for the last couple years now on expanding the story that we tell and how we choose to share them.So with that, why don't I try to share my screen. Oh let me stop my video before it crashes on me. I love Zoom. Okay. Thank you Dean.
Yes, so just very briefly, as Dean alluded to, we have been working on a multi-year project to rehab Arlington House. And within the context of that rehab, also expand the stories and history that we highlight here at the Antebellum Plantation estate.
So, to give folks some context I wanted to show some pictures of Arlington House now that we've completed our multiyear rehab project.
Here is the House post-construction. Pristine before time wears on it the way it does for all buildings. It is looking good right now. Also, here are some images of some of the other buildings here at Arlington House South Slave Quarters.
Here are a few images of the site of the new interpretive exhibits that were installed as a part of the recently completed rehab project at Arlington House.
Just really quickly for those who don't know the site, it was originally a plantation estate owned by a gentleman named George Washington Parke Custis that was built with a combination of enslaved, indentured and free labor. The house itself was built between 1802 and 1818 and was once on 1100 acres of property and what is now include Arlington National Cemetery. It is a Greek revival-style mansion and it was originally a brick or masonry structure that is covered in stucco and has a faux finish applied to the facade. Arlington House, itself, was originally established as a site in 1925 and became an NPS unit in 1933, when a lot of other NPS sites did, including a lot of our urban parks.
These are some of the folks these are just a few of the famous figures with the history of Arlington House. In addition to Custis, we have George and Martha Washington. Many might not know this, but Arlington House was built as an early memorial to President Washington so that's how he comes into the story, and of course, Custis was the grandson of Martha Washington from her first marriage.We also, of course, since it's in the name, also tell the story of Robert E. Lee and his family as well and how their history comes into the story is very interesting, and very lengthy, but we don't have time for that today, but, of course, we also highlight the history and impact of Robert E. Lee. Of course, those are not the only stories that we tell, as I alluded to in the introduction, we also are, we work very hard with, within the park, our partners at the Harpers Ferry Center and members of the descendant community to make sure that we tell the story of all those who lived and died at Arlington that includes, of course, members of the Syphax family who were descendants, as well as the Gray family and the Parkes family.One of the things we highlight now the parts-both that our exhibits and the interpretations that our wonderful park rangers do, and also in our physical exhibits is that we highlight that Mariah Syphax was the daughter of George Washington Parke Custis through a forced relationship he had with Arianna Carter, an enslaved woman at the estate.
And so, those are just some of the stories that were trying to shine a light on more and more in our new interpretation now that we are reopen to the public.
So, of course, how did we get to this point as mention? I don't know if this was mentioned, but we received a $12.35 million-dollar donation from David Rubenstein to embark on this journey. It included not only the restoration of the historic mansion, but it also included updating interpretive exhibits as well as a host of other repairs and restoration projects. And this gave us a unique opportunity to really dive into the interpretation, the history and the stories that we tell.
One of the key things that we did, of course, it's mentioned, was we updated the interpretive exhibits and also restored and acquired museum artifacts. And as a result of this process, we came up with several re-imagined interpretive themes on the overarching theme of the property now being that this was a place of division and unification. Some of the other core subthemes show that this was a memorial to President Washington that it was the Custis and Lee family home, this was a place where an oppressed community traveled for freedom, as well as being a trophy of war and hallowed ground. So, those are some of the core themes that were developed as a part of this project.
But, of course, today we are talking about how does this-how do these intangible themes tie into the tangible?
Because I know one of the things I am going to be highlighting in our questions is about material culture, so how does material culture come in?
So, the sites that we developed, the areas that we developed these new exhibits for were divided across five scenes starting with orientation and ending with the museum. So, tying in material culture to this discussion really quickly I wanted to highlight, for those who are not familiar with the concept, that we were talking about material culture- we are saying that material culture, tools, weapons, utensils, machines, ornaments, art, buildings, monuments, written records, religious images, clothing and other ponderable objects are produced or used by humans.So when we're talking about material culture we are talking about items that are produced by humans.
So how does this broad concept tie into park service and tie into this exhibit? In material culture as a concept to park service projects, we’re looking at those interpretive themes that I mentioned, but we are also tying those themes into backing up those themes with historical information by using primary sources. We are looking to tie objects to the stories using old histories. We are also being sure to do careful research and to secure proper well enough-our information.And, you know, we are using extensive modern resources in and outside of the park to do so. So we were talking about the scene, for example, of where an oppressed community struggled for freedom, how that ties into material culture, we used the personal correspondence of both the owners of the plantation as well as those were once enslaved to get an idea for objects and items that were connected to the history in those themes.
We were fortunate to have primary sources such as an oral history interview that was done with two daughters of Selina Gray. And we also have extensive-due to the history of the site, a lot of records and data that backs up the providence of the objects that we ended up showcasing in this project.Two examples-really quickly, of how we applied material culture in more detail include the development of products such as the Historic Foundation support, doing a lot of research into the material culture of the site and the objects. We were able to tie those objects to specific interpretive themes and acquire furnishings that create a sense of space, that create an immersive environment that really connect people to the site.
And of course, that part of that is also using primary sources, as I have already said. So, this is how you see it manifested. This is the Gray Family Quarters and that’s South Slave Quarters. And you can see how objects are used to create a sense of place and to really help expand upon the interpreter messaging and themes that's the Park Service has established for each area of the site.
And then also--really quickly, and a more direct point, we also use objects in our physical museum galleries to tie people to this, tie the narratives to the people who live and work at the plantation. So you have here, circled on the screen, a small Wedgewood cup. And you know, at face-if you're at an art Museum or a typical Museum, you only look at the kind of traditional things that we taught value for these items. You know, we have that it was made by, produced by Josiah Wedgewood’s company, that it’s ceramic, that it’s Jasperware, that you know, that it was made in the 19th century. But this object is so much more than the sum of its parts. And what makes it critical for us is its ties to our interpretive themes and messaging.
So that simple picture was a gift to the property by Annie Baker, who was the daughter of Selina Gray.I mentioned those oral history interviews, during the course of those interviews, the daughters also sold to the National Park Service several items associated with their mother and with Ms. Lee. So, you know, you have one object that yes-it's just a cream pitcher made by Wedgewood, but it has so much more meaning because of its connections to the Grey family and the larger story that it tells about their relationships or lack of relationship between these families and these stories.
So this is a final version--so the object of the exhibit and how it again fits into the larger narrative,a larger conversation about history and culture as we get into the panel today, and thank you everyone for your time.Let me stop sharing my screen.

DEAN HERRIN

00:24:27,200
Great. Kim, thank you very much.I love the last discussion about meaning of the context of objects and how important that is, really for everything. So we are going to start the discussion amongst the panelists and, Paul and Emily, feel free to jump in as well if you would like.We have sort of a broad question at the beginning. We are wondering, for all of you sort of how did you get started in researching African American history? And how do you get to this point? and what still motivates you with studying African American history? Cheryl, do you want to start out?

CHERYL LAROCHE

00:25:17,960
I do because it’s a natural segue from what Kim is saying. I got to African American history through art. I hated history.I thought history, when I was a school, was a series of wars, War of the Roses. I mean, I could have cared less.Now, I can tell you everything about the Civil War, the War of 1812. I know more about war than I ever thought I would know.But I began looking at…David Driscoll published a book called Two Centuries of Black American Art. So, I came here to art history from there I went on to become an art conservator, only to become an archaeological conservator, which took me into archaeology, which took me in the historical archaeology. And I didn't want to just work with the object. Although I agree with Kim, material culture is very important, and I have lots to say about that too. But, I began to put these objects in context. And then from there, I started working on the Underground Railroad and just kept going. The history, what's not available, in one of the things Kim is talking about, these objects that you can touch and feel, I'm an archaeologist because often there's nothing left, and the footprint of the building, the contacts, the contour of the land, those become objects. I develop Maps because maps, an object that-that you can leave behind. And so, what do you do when there is nothing there for interpretation, but we also already understand the deep power that these objects bring by re-envisioning the land, and by talking about the things that we can surmise from looking around us when we don't have objects in hand.So, thank you Dean.

DEAN HERRIN

00:27:05,500
Thank you. Cheryl. Edie? Give us a go?

EDIE WALLACE

00:27:12,220
Sure, I too started as an archaeologist, but I moved above ground to look at buildings. And my degrees are in not just in anthropology but also historic preservation, and I think the two work together really well. But as I was beginning my master's program, I had recently moved to Sharpsburg which is of course where the Antietam Battlefield is, and very naively, but probably not uncommon, I had thought that slavery was not something that was important, not important. I don't know, that's the wrong word. But that was uncommon in western Maryland. And as I started working around the Antietam battlefield, I realized that there were, in fact, slave quarters on the battlefield, and I needed to rethink what I had believed growing up. So, as I started to do that research, it became a very powerful line of research for me. I was introduced to Tolson's Chapel by Dean Herrin, as he was also going through very similar research, and that has really driven a lot of what I do now, and I am an independent historian,So I work with a lot of other subjects, but my main area of interest continues to be African American history, and particularly about the lives of individuals, and how they can be understood through buildings and objects. As you all are saying with material culture. That's sort of my trajectory.

DEAN HERRIN

00:29:41,900
Thanks, Edie.Sabrina?

SABRINA ROMAIN

00:29:46,500
I am the exact opposite of Dr. LaRoche. I loved history. It was always my favorite class.I started researching African American history as a young child. I am a first-generation American, and my parents made it a goal to educate us on American history, and the experiences of African Americans in this country. And it was so impactful to me because I realized--ha, we just read about Malcolm X, why aren’t we talking about this in school? I have so many questions about why we weren't able to learn anything regarding African American history at school, when it was dedicated to one month.We learned about, like, three people. They were all nice, and they were all progressive and doing things the right way, and then the narrative was always either incorrect or completely skewed.So I was that student that was like, that's not my truth, that's not what I understand as happening.So my motivation for continuing to research and do history, is to tell the truth. Everyone has a different truth. Everyone has their own personal biases, but I just want to make sure that all sides of the story are told so we can have a nucleus.

DEAN HERRIN

00:31:20,400
Great, Sabrina, thank you very much.And, Kim?

KIMBERLY ROBINSON

00:31:24,080
Hello. Yes, how did I get started in this journey? I will keep it brief since I went so long last time. Sorry about that!Yes, I actually started off kind of like Dr. LaRoche that I actually started on the art side. I appreciated history because I've always been fully aware that we need to be able to tell our own stories and have a basic understanding of that, but I was definitely more of an arts, decorative arts person. So in my undergraduate studies, I did a minor in art history, particularly with art of the ancient world because that is what I was interested in so much. It really was not until I actually started working and going out into the real world a little bit in between undergrad and grad school that I started to really become more interested and drawn towards history, and in particular, African American history.My first internship out of undergrad was at the Alexandria Black History Museum. And from there, I was able to get an internship with Harpers Ferry, and that's, you know, again for me, I was able to interact with these objects that had this connection to the history of this country, and for the first time that I really was not exposed to growing up, and that was a really eye-opening experience for me and made me realize that I really wanted to work for an agency like the Park Service that meshes history with the physical in a way that a lot of other agencies can’t. And then from there, after a series of internships both inside and outside of the government-on my way back to grad school and pursued the Master’s degree that you mentioned earlier in medium studies with a focus on collections. And from there, it's been being able to work, first in the regional office, and then at the George Washington Memorial Park.Options not only at the Arlington House, but at the Clara Barton Historic Site, and at some of our other smaller units like Fort Hunt Park that really opened my eyes to the importance of material culture, but just in general, the importance of finding different ways to share these stories and this history.

DEAN HERRIN

00:33:23,160
Yeah! that's obviously with the parks. There’s parks and there's projects. It’s so important to think about the importance of place and the importance of material culture that runs throughout all of our projects.We have a question from [Inaudible], This is an interesting one.What is the most exciting story or new piece of information that you discovered while conducting research for these studies? And I know that all of you discovered several things, but you can give us a brief answer? What is the most exciting thing you discovered or thought about, or whatever? Sabrina, lets start with you.

SABRINA ROMAIN

00:34:08,900
Sure, so I'm going to say, I didn't discover new information, but it was exciting to see tangible connections in some of the research that I was doing. So the family unit was so pivotal and people survival, and their determination to continue on when they were enslaved.So it was exciting for me to see some networks and communities that were in place in, to actually identify loved ones that may have assisted family members and their escape to. People took such an enormous risk to just give people the opportunity at living a life.And we know that Harriet Tubman continue to return to the South to help free her family and countless others. I was doing some research for black laborers at the C&O Canal, and I identified family members, lovers and friends who were believed to be involved in aiding other people's escapes.So, one individual his name was Sandy, and it was believed that his father Robert Holman who escaped to the North in New York City years before his son did. They believe that he returned to Maryland to help guide his son to Freedom. So taking that risk of being recaptured and re-enslaved, knowing that he would have a harsher location, he would have a harsher workload than he had escaped from to help assist his son. There was another young man named Frank, and his pass, his clothing and some other items that he took were found as what I can only identify as his “girlfriend's house.” It was a free woman named Mary Parrott. She was actually arrested after they located these items at his house for assisting in aiding him in his fight to get free. So seeing these connections and knowing that people put so much at risk. It's just something that I value.

CHERYL LAROCHE

00:36:28,600
You know, I want to just follow up on what Sabrina said, in part, because my family has been here forever. We're descended from like Daniel of Saint Thomas Jennifer. And we are, you know, as old as the old Maryland families can be. My father's from Washington D.C., and in researching these communities, you know, understanding that Barry Farm was sort of this project and now to see that it's got this long history. All these places that I had heard about around the area, including where I live.I had no idea of the depth of the historical connection.I live around, not far from Glen Echo, and I didn't realize its history as a segregated park and that it took a civil rights movement to open up Glen Echo for people to come and visit. So much of the history that's around me, that's been looking in on-I used to live off of River Road and had no idea of the depth of history there around the Moses Cemetery. Those kinds of things were so Illuminating for me and to realize that-that that we're all walking around these stories that include family stories-is not just a story of community, but Reconstruction is a family and community, church, school history, and it has been changed over time to reflect this sort of legislative understanding of the time period, but it was just a huge “aha!” that this-I keep saying this that this study has opened up my eyes and so many different ways and that's just one example.

DEAN HERRIN

00:38:14,000
That’s great, Cheryl. Of Course, that's what we're hoping to do with the public in various programming and other ways we can get this information out-is that, you know, we historians are surprised by some of this information and the public does not know anything about some of this, so we really want to get the information out.We may have to speed up just a little bit.I’m sorry to cut off others from particular questions. Kim, let me ask you a question. Having worked at Arlington House and with the George Washington Memorial Parkway, you have been in the region for quite some time, so thinking of that context, how are parks in our region working to shift the narrative and more accurately interpret the exhibit, Histories of Enslavement? Do you think a civil rights perspective is useful for this aspect of African American history?

KIMBERLY ROBINSON

00:39:13,800
Thank you, Dean. I would definitely say yes, before I respond to the rest of the questions. Definitely, I think a civil rights perspective is absolutely critical to any site across the country, much less the National Capital Area and telling more inclusive stories.You know, it's that civil rights is an ongoing struggle. It’s an ongoing discussion, current events certainly prove that, and I think, you know, any park that doesn't acknowledge that, you know, they have a history-that history is tied to the struggle for freedom, for civil rights is not really maybe taking the opportunity to dig fully into the stories of their site.In particular, I think as many parks across the region who have taken on, who have willingly jumped on the train, as it were, and are really working to expand the stories that they tell. Obviously, we touched briefly on Arlington House, but sites like Monocacy National Battlefield Park, of course, many of the sites at National Capital Park East, Frederick Douglass Home, Carter G. Woodson, Mary McLeod Bethune Council House, and a host of other sites. There have always been telling stories and continue to expand the way they do-outreach. We, you know, we also have sites like Harpers Ferry which has an extensive history tied to civil rights as well with Storer College, an HBCU.So, I think to answer your question Dean, so how do they do that?Obviously, there’s traditional routes like researching own history using key documents like your historic structure report, your cultural landscape report, historic research studies and other resources. But one thing that we have done here at Arlington House, and the work has been led by our superintendent’s office and our visitor services team is to really engage and do community outreach.Reaching out to your descendent community associated at the various park units to get their voices heard and have a chance, give them an opportunity to share their perspective, and their perspective on the history of your site has also been something that we've done in Arlington house.And I know sites like Monocacy have done as well.

DEAN HERRIN

00:41:15,100
Thank you Kim. Working with the descendant communities, I know that several of you have done that, or are doing that.We are finding that to be so important.Edie, you mentioned, and I mentioned, Tolson's Chapel. You have been so instrumental in leading that Friends group into where that is now, and in nominating the site successfully as a National Historic Landmark. You touched on this a little bit before, what role does physical preservation play in telling stories and getting beyond the Civil War battlefields? Antietam has, of course, been-was very helpful in what's been going on at Tolson’s. They are obviously very interested in that story. Can you speak to that?

EDIE WALLACE

00:42:08,600
Sure. Tolson's Chapel, just for a little bit of background, is an African American Methodist Church that was established in 1866 in Sharpsburg, which is, of course, on the edge of the Antietam battlefield.And then in 1868, it also became a Freedmen's Bureau sponsored school and continued as the county Sharpsburg colored school through 1898/99. And it's no longer an active church.It has now been restored by the Friends of Tolson's Chapel. The story that Tolson's Chapel and school then represents for us is what we like to call the rest of the story coming out of Antietam Battlefield which, of course, is focused on the Emancipation Proclamation that came out of that battle.I can't emphasize enough, how powerful the building itself, Tolson's Chapel, is for telling the storyof the community that occupied it, that built it, that kept it going, that got the school going there and continued through into the 20th century.Through the lives of the people that were associated with this building, we are able to share that community and family experience that these people-that they depended upon to bring them through this Reconstruction period. And then the decades beyond, as segregation took hold and continued and deepened. It is for me-it's the power of place.It gives you a foundation for the stories that come out of it. Photographs, documents, they also help to tell the story. Being a small, rural church and school, we don't have the same kind of documents and stories that you're going to get from a National Park Service site. So it's a different-slightly different experience, as a researcher, how to develop those stories and to bring them to life.So we're still learning. We are working on education programs at Tolson's Chapel, but our association with the battlefield is really important to us to broaden the story of not just the battle but the Civil War and the decades that followed.

DEAN HERRIN

00:45:37,600
Great. Thank you very much Edie.So all of you are contributing new information to the region, to our parks. Some of these are region-wide stories, but obviously have direct information for certain parks, in some ways, all parks can use this larger contextual information. [Inaudible] We get the important point about inclusive history at our parks.This is a really broad question, but what does a truly relevant and inclusive history look like that centers Black experiences instead of privileging White perspectives?And even if that White perspective is on an African American history topic. That’s an easy question, right?

SABRINA ROMAIN

00:46:35,060
Such a great question. That sounds like something I would ask, getting a little taste of my own medicine.Inclusive story, what does that look like?At least for the Park Service to me that means including the stories of all of the people that live there, that interacted at the site, that engaged in science, and as they said, not turn it-taking the information and sharing it from a white paternalistic point of view.So, what resources do you have? Are you actively seeking out the communities that lived there?Or are you going based off of report that was from a superintendent or all of the park staff when the site was still segregated? Those points of views are not inclusive. Some examples of best practices, one of the best practices is to just include the experiences of everyone, particularly African Americans since this is a civil rights discussion. If you have a site that is focused on, if it's a Civil War site-it is a Civil Rights site.Okay, so the Civil War started over the legality and the potential expansion of enslavement. So it's impossible to not discuss African Americans, and some sites are still doing that.So that's the first step to acknowledge the people that live there and to include your experiences and the narratives that you're telling. Maybe start with the resources that your site already has.If you have enrollment records, you might find something regarding the U.S. colored troops, personal diaries or papers, newspaper articles, census records.The most important thing is to acknowledge that these people were human. They were there, they existed. And when discussing their lives and their experiences, tell us their agency. Don't say 'oh well, this is what their enslaver had to say about them’.There was no such thing as a good slave owner. So, stop perpetuating the lost cause narrative and share the story from these people's life experiences in their points of view.That's the best advice I have for making it more inclusive and telling a truer narrative that’s right.

DEAN HERRIN

00:49:11,860
That’s right, thank you Sabrina. Doing some work on historic sites and I came across a national register that was about as the title would be name is slave workers at a particular plantation. And you talked about the archaeology of the slave quarters without ever mentioning who might have actually lived in the quarters, what their experience might have been. It was the architecture that was almost the total interest. It was a very old nomination, granted, but it was kind of amazing reading through that.

SABRINA ROMAIN

00:49:53,220
Yes, I'm glad that you mentioned that, Dean. I would also challenge people to look at the researchers you're hiring to conduct this work.What has their previous work shown? What perspective are they coming from? If you're studying a specific topic-yes, I understand that, they might have specialties in a specific area, but hire someone that might be closer to the community that understands the implications of the research that they're writing and how it will impact how the perspectives of the African American Community are told.

DEAN HERRIN

00:50:28,100
That is good. Cheryl, do you want to tackle this?

CHERYL LAROCHE

00:50:31,540
I do want to jump in there.You know, I always know when I'm coming down on the passage about slavery because it shifts into the passive voice. It's the first thing that happens, and so when you're being disempowered, it starts in language and then moves forward to every other arena.
So the first thing to do is to make sure that you're using an active voice and that the people have agency in, and that they are the actor in the narrative that you're speaking about, which is not always easy to do.
Thematically, you know, we have been handed a set of themes, and one thing that I've learned from [the] Reconstruction [era report project] is that I started out with this theme about military-1877, and it took me a long time to realize, this isn't working. This is the wrong frame.
And so we often have to really rethink the narrative we've been handed. We have to step outside of the thematic overview. I had to step outside of the segmentation of time.
All of those things I had to put aside, and then I had to look for different sources because the places that you go-and I would say the people, though the national register nomination, even when they're old, they’re better than nothing, and that they are a way to begin to get out this history.But to come back and look inside of the places that you wouldn't expect to look.
But I had to look inside of church narratives. I had to look inside of resources that perhaps historians would think were less than reliable. I had to learn how to use oral histories.
I've learned that now, [I’ve learned] that lesson ten times over at every single site I've ever worked with and can now pretty responsibly say that if you don't have an oral history factor in your research, you're probably missing much of the story. But people don't understand how to do that because we're talking about 200 years ago, and how is an oral matter going to help you understand something from, you know, two centuries before. So those are some of the ways that I think that we can be more inclusive.And then just monitoring your own thoughts because one of the things I see, Dean and then to the panel, is that I can give you a fact, and you may think it's important, you may not, but people don't have the capacity to actually understand this significance and put it in its logic context in park,following what Sabrina says, because they do not have a depth of training in African American history and they can't make the connections that are required to now move a story into its larger context.To say, oh! This connects to a much larger narrative inside of Black history, and so stories remain quite small and quite under-sort of utilized or really under-aggrandized isn't the right word, but they don't receive enough significance because we don't understand how these stories connect to one another. So thank you.

DEAN HERRIN

00:53:39,100
Now, very important and, of course, that's one of these were hoping to do through your project is to help create that narrative, that context, which individual parks can play some of their individual stories and sites, and events, and people within the larger context to know when that is important. So, thank you very much.

CHERYL LAROCHE

00:54:07,760
You know, I would add, Dean, that one of the things that was a challenge is that you see people showing up across-they start one place and then you see them in, you know, a different town in the region.So tracking these people across their multiple responsibilities, in their multiple endeavors, will mean that some parks do have to talk to other parks because people are moving around them in different contexts throughout this period, and it is something that if you stay narrow, you miss that larger connection.

DEAN HERRIN

00:54:36,960
Right. In the parks in the region that think everyone is doing a better job of looking throughout the region and with other parks to see what some of these stories are because they do obviously transcend park boundaries.Cheryl, let me stay with you just for a second.Can you talk again a little bit more about your definition of the Reconstruction Era and the dates that you chosen for the historic resource study.

CHERYL LAROCHE

00:55:05,200
Thank you, yes, you know, when I started Reconstruction, I had this sort of typical “we’ll go to the end of the Civil War and we'll stop in 1877,” but I quickly realized that if you're going to center agency, that African Americans begin to get their freedom--the freedom in Washington DC with the gradual Emancipation Act of 1862, you start to see African Americans coming into these Civil War defenses. You start to see them pushing The United States because they are leaving slavery in massive numbers and coming into the Union Army.And for me, that is beginning of Reconstruction, when we have to start to call them contrabands because we don't know what to do with them.They are shoving-they're pushing their freedom forward and they're altering that narrative. They begin Reconstruction. So that got me through the early period and that was what made me stop saying post-Civil War, instead of now, I say the years of early Reconstruction. When I got to 1877 and the end of the time period that we're normally handed and with the withdraw of the troops from the south at the end of military Reconstruction in The Tilden Hayes election,what I realize is that, no, African Americans are still deeply involved in Reconstruction. They are deeply involved in the convention movement.They are forming their clubs. They are still forming their communities and their schools. The things that Reconstruction-the groundwork that it laid continues well beyond 1877. And I couldn't, as we, you know, Dean, we debated the end date for a very long time because I couldn't quite figure out how to stick the end day.Where does it stop? Somewhere between 1902 and 1910. They show Birth of a Nation in the White House in 1910 and Skip Gates says that's the end.We know the Virginia Constitution really starts to pull out all of the sort of civil rights for Blacks in 1902. We know Plessy versus Ferguson is in the late 1890s and so that is what we were grappling with in terms of trying to find the end date.But if you look, from 1877 to 1900-If you don't include that period, Reconstruction actually doesn’t make any sense because Blacks are continuing to organize themselves, their communities are continuing to form.All these things that we see happening, there's no historical anchor for 30 years of Black activism.When you move it to 1900, now that arc from coming out of Slavery to Plessy versus Ferguson, to the nadir to all of the laws to Jim Crowe that started really to shut down all the progress that we see Blacks making. Now that sweep of history makes a lot more sense.And so I'm very wedded to changing the dates for Reconstruction based on those things and will argue for that time horizon, pretty strenuously based on the studies that we've concluded for the Park Service.

DEAN HERRIN

00:58:28,800
Okay, thank you, Cheryl.Let me get to a question,Elizabeth asks a question. You brought up the word “contraband,” Cheryl, and so, of course, contraband was a legal term that was used early in Civil War to refer to enslaved African Americans who were being used by Confederates to help the cause of the Confederacy. So is a legal stratagem.They were considered property and therefore, the union could take them in as property.So, start out as the legal term, but of course, it has been controversial whether you use the word or not. So did any of you have a reaction to the use of the word contraband, and if you do what is the phrase word that Park should use?

KIMBERLY ROBINSON

00:59:32,500
Hi Dean. This is Kim.I was just responding to a comment in the chat about the term contraband. That very discussion came up during the planning for Arlington and that started, of course, well over five or six years ago.So, I guess as we can see, it's still not been settled. A few alternatives that we-I don't think we ended upJust-we think we ended up trying to put the term in context but still use it as the time.But in hindsight, I wish we had gone in a different direction. I have to go back and look at that specific part of the script and confirm what we did, but I know today terms that we used to talk about those who have sought freedom or, you know, were free doing the war.I have heard things such as self-emancipated, it’s something I hear a lot for those who sought their own freedom. I have also heard the term, they were refugees essentially.So, you know refugees is another term that I've seen used more recently.But like I said, five years ago when we had this debate we kind of didn't really settle on it, but I think today that's been the continuing dialogue has been very helpful.

CHERYL LAROCHE

01:00:34,240
I would add, Kim, that we went through the same thing in the Underground Railroad with “fugitive slaves.” And when you’re talking about the concept-You know that there is a time where we have to hand the concept off.We want to keep the concept and get rid of the language.So, I agree that it has to be in quotes or short hand, somehow, to say, we're referring to this concept and to this time period.New language is tough, but I do agree that term needs to be rehabilitated, but it also is highly recognizable for concept.

DEAN HERRIN

01:01:17,300
Sabrina, I know you've spoken today already about being careful about language and not using outdated, wrong expressions.You have opinions about that?

SABRINA ROMAIN

01:01:38,000
Is there a well-written definition of contraband? That's a good question.I go back to what you said, Dean, that this was the legal term, so as a historian, you kind of battle with what should I use in this context versus what should I include, like Dr. LaRoche mentioned. And there's some sites outside of the Park Service and within the Park Service that will start the conversation saying, “The term Contraband was used for ‘da da da da’ and now we are redefining that word. We are redefining the term and using this word instead.” So rather than a contraband we’re using self-emancipators as Kim mentioned or we’re using Freedom Seekers. So it’s really-it's still up for debate.

DEAN HERRIN

01:02:36,840
Thank you. Kim, moving to a different topic. We touched on it before with conferring with descendants. And I know that you and Arlington House has-you’ve done a lot with speaking with descendant communities. Can you speak a little bit more about what that process has been like, both the-you know,the Kumbaya feel-good moments about it, but have there also been challenges with that?

KIMBERLY ROBINSON

01:03:14,100
Of course, Dean, I am happy to. I am going to turn my video back off before I crash.Yeah, so I would say for Arlington House, I think when we started the process-and one of the things I said in the chat was, I think one of the issues with how we initially approached reaching out to the descendants, that we were looking at it, and I think our superintendent Charles Cuvelier has said this many times as well, that, you know, we intend to reach out to our community partners or descendants when it only suits our needs, when we have a project or a goal that we would have met. And that was kind of unfortunately how we kind of approach initially or approached our descendent outreach.
For example, we kicked off the development of the interpretive exhibits at our Arlington house with the historians’ round table, and we invited several members of the descendant community and worked with them to write essays about their presentation and, you know, worked with them to provide comment on the exhibits as we developed them, but it really didn't really go much beyond that initially. And then I would say, you know, following that initial process and we also ended up participating in various aspects of the exhibit including all history interviews that were later featured in a film. But I think, you know, so we started with that, and it was very much project focused, but we did eventually did the efforts of park staff and they were led by the superintendent's office to continue to improve upon our initial effort and really try to be more inclusive and try to meet their needs as well. Not just our needs.So, I did want to say that.
After that initial kind of effort for the exhibit, some of our interpretive staff did kickoff a community practice that included members of the descendants community as well as different partners from the museum and historic community in the National Capital Area trying to really highlight how all the interconnected sites and interconnected communities and how we can collaborate in the future to do exhibits in other projects at Arlington, we make sure that in that original goal that group was to be-we continue on with our goal with being more inclusive and telling our stories when the site reopened. That effort, the community of practice lasted for several years, but due to staff turnover, which is another challenge that you encounter when you do these things, that effort kind of petered out. But, quite thankfully our superintendent's office, You know, wanting to build that community relationship especially as we prepared to reopen the Arlington House, but also to just meet that goal to be more inclusive, they started reaching out to a larger swath of the community, descendants we hadn't contacted before even to have facilitate dialogue session.They were invited to the park prior to reopening to experience prior to the public and a host of other kind of special meetings and events that really continue to build upon that initial work that was initially project focused. But you know, to really shift that to being more community engagement and growth focus. And I think we, I definitely think that the whole team, as the process went forward over the last five or six years, we definitely learned a lot about what to do and what not to do.I'm in community engagement and I think the work of the superintendent's office. It's been a really great example of how you can kind of buildup on and build up to a really great program and practices.

DEAN HERRIN

01:06:27,700
Alright, thank you, Kim.Sorry. Just double-checking here on something.I want to get to questions that we had from the audience. So, for, I guess perhaps Kim or Sabrina or any of you with ideas on this.One of the questions we have is: how can someone in a park get started on some of this work? Chris has asked to please speak to research needed in terms of funds, staff, archival research before starting some sort of an interpretive product project in to get a product for some of this, how can folks get started? Kim, you had just mentioned some of the things Arlington has done, but do you guys have any other thoughts what the folks from parks can do?

KIMBERLY ROBINSON

01:07:35,400
Sabrina, you definitely jump in any time here. I know one thing that we did both when we started planning for both the rehab side and for the exhibit development side, we took a good look at our baseline documents and their status and we had several meetings where we made a determination what needed to be updated, what needed to be expanded upon and that helped, and you know, doing all that kind of prep and planning really helped us, get us into the right mindset, in addition to things like that historians’ roundtable to get to the kind of goals, interpretive goals and messaging that we were trying to get to.We, you know, worked to update core, kind of focused on museum documents, core museum documents like our collections management policy and our furnishings report, so that they could be more in alignment with the new interpretive messaging.And I know the cultural resources team, our folks at the park as a part of the programmatic agreement, keeping in mind that even though it's not important to only update documents going into our project but also post a project to document changes, and one of the great things coming out of that is that they’re going to have to update the historic structures report for Arlington house to incorporate all the changes that have been done as part of that programmatic agreement. So I think you know that core kind of thing about getting a handle on resources that you already have, getting ideas of the gaps in your knowledge and, you know, also important including within that community outreach and engagement as a part of your planning because you know, the community-even though the Park Service has a lot of turnover and change the communities there and so they see, they have a fuller view of the history than the park does.That's a few thoughts I had.

SABRINA ROMAIN

01:09:06,100
That's a wonderful point and just expanding on that, you mentioned, looking at what you guys have already completed.I'm trying-

DEAN HERRIN

01:09:18,700
Sabrina, you are muted.

SABRINA ROMAIN

01:09:23,980
Of course, Just going back to what Kim said, going back and finding those research gaps. So I shared a link in the chat that has already been shared before but our wonderful information sharing specialist Megan Nortrup helped develop this page which lists all of the NPS study. So she added tags, so people can see specific reports that focus on African American history and African American oral histories. So if you go there you can access and see what has been completed at other parks that have been published. What has been completed at your site? What is missing? Like Kim said, interact and engage with the community. What do they know that you guys have never shared? It's about starting the work and getting the ball rolling at the regional office. We are here for the parks, so if you have any questions, we are always happy to help.I will contact Dean even though he's retired and get additional assistance if needed. But we are here to support your efforts.If you have any additional questions always feel free to reach out to cultural resources. And we're here to assist you on those efforts and we do have this civil rights initiative funding. I don't think it's a question of having the resources to complete the task.If you are filling out a new project, go ahead and click the civil rights initiative funding, if you believe that your project is qualified. And if you have any additional questions about that, feel free to contact me and I will let you know if it will be approved or not.

CHERYL LAROCHE

01:11:08,180
Can I add one thing to this too, Dean? As a person who kind of comes in and does the work for the Park Service, lots of times I would say that your initial research design- sometimes when I get there and I look at what's being asked, the questions are not, I won't say they're not right, they're not foundational, they don't begin at the beginning.They start in the middle to maybe service a Parks Service agenda and they will often find that when I get there, I'm like ‘no, that, I’m not doing that’ and that creates a little tension. You know how that goes. But-

DEAN HERRIN

01:11:45,100
Not at all!

CHERYL LAROCHE

01:11:47,300
Not at all! Dean, right! But that’s something that we have to watch because if you set up the wrong questions and start down that path, that really hasn't been foundational or really thought through, you're going to-project spend, not go in the direction that you needed to go.And those questions often have to be based on a level of knowledge that sometimes the Park staff doesn't actually have.So I just would caution you in that way.

DEAN HERRIN

01:12:18,500
That's good that good. Good points around Sabrina. Thank you for yours and Kim as well.Let me just reiterate what Sabrina said for those of you in the National Capital Area. Civil rights funding is ongoing. So, please take a look at that fund source.The area, the region has been extremely successful in getting projects funded through that so if you have not, if your park has not yet taken full advantage of that funding, you should. It is a great way to get some of this research done.As Cheryl is saying, there's just a lot of research that needs to be done. Let me move to a couple of questions that we got. This sort of large context stuff-from Stephanie, which publications are recommended to provide background, context and inspire further work? Please provide NPS study titles.So, I don't know whether we-Sabrina, we may need to-all of our work, all of these works have bibliographies and suggestions for further study.I don't remember whether our office is ever put out a bibliography dealing with the history of civil rights and in the region or the history of Reconstruction, for example.and also tying into some of the studies that we've done-are doing, but maybe that might be a way to help spread some information.Okay, Sabrina is nodding. So, Stephanie, we will try to get more information to you.And everybody more resources. Cheryl was saying that obviously with staff reductions not every park has the personnel and the time to do a lot of this research, so the region or the area is trying to help out with some of these studies, but we'll see if we can get more resources out there and post it so that you can see some of the work been going on.And then a question from Mary.Are efforts similar to this being made in all regions? I know some of you have worked for other regions or you have contact with other regions.Let me just hog this for a second more. I know that ongoing, one of the projects that is ongoing with OAH is a project we had started that we are collaborating with, what used to be the old Northeast region and the Southeast region and our region, the National Capital Area and we're looking at, in this case, I am going to use post-Civil War because I mean it literally, after the Civil War, African Americans schools started early Reconstruction era 1866, 1867 up to 1900. Looking at early African American schools and we're creating a huge context for that wide area and working very closely with a lot of the parks in all of that and a historian from University of Alabama who is writing a context study and another historian from Auburn who is leading work on case studies of sites that are either on or were very near what is now Park Service land. And again, these are efforts to help parks discuss Reconstruction, in this case, as Early Education efforts and we're excited to work with both of these regions in this type of work,So sorry, anyway, Any of you have anything to add about what's happening perhaps in other regions?

SABRINA ROMAIN

01:16:34,900
I would say that, yes, other regions are taking advantage of this, but I'm a little confused by that message that we just received.So with my current projects I'm researching synthesizing over 60 projects that we have completed with the civil rights initiative funding from 2016 to 2020. That's over five million dollars of funding just from the civil rights funds that doesn't include the outside donations, that does not include personal park funds.Like Dean mentioned, we are doing interregional studies, and we don't even get the bulk of the funding. Legacy, Southeast region has received most of the funding from the civil rights initiative funds. So other regions are definitely doing this work.If you need any ideas of how to approach this definitely contact me please. We want to make sure that the research is being done. Every single region has ties to African American history and the African American experience. And there's no reason that it's not being told or you're not getting the funds allocated to help you tell additional stories.

EDIE WALLACE

01:17:55,160
If I could just say a word.I do work on other Park Service projects with OAH that are specifically historic resource studies, but I just completed one in New Jersey and working on one in New York and both are inclusive of African American history within the larger history of the park that's being covered.So, I don't know if that's always been the way but that's the way I do it.Try to be as inclusive of every aspect of the history of the park and the area so that you get sort of foundational all information that a park could start from.

DEAN HERRIN

01:18:55,600
Thanks, Edie.We have one question, will the panelists please place their remarks in the current decolonization movement to give voice to the voiceless and power to the powerless? That is a great question! Do any of you want to address that?

CHERYL LAROCHE

01:19:18,240
That’s an interesting question. When I was preparing for this I just did a quick perusal of what was online for the sites for the area and I happen to look at Oxon Hill, Cove Park in Oxon Hill Farm.I knew soon as I saw the word farm, it was probably a plantation because the word farm is code word. That's how we get rid of the history of plantation history. So like estate farm, so, I knew. And when I came across this sentence or two with the same sentence, I had found at Hampton and it says, “no information about the lives of the enslaved people who lived on the Mount Welby plantation survives,” in their own words. “Their voice is still unheard and their stories untold.” This is out of Prince George's County and this is online right now.Implying that because we do not have their own words, we cannot tell their story. In an educational arena where literacy was denied and you couldn't write your own story. So now you have this circular argument, you couldn’t write your story, you can't tell it, but we don't have it.So because we don't have it, we can't tell your story.So I just want to bring that up because I've seen this before. This is the way people refuse themselves from actually doing the work. So Hampton had the exact same line on their website. So, when we begin to understand that there are other ways to access the voice, other avenues of research that we have to get rid of this thought that.