Courtney Hobson, Maryland Lynching Memorial Project
Proposal Type
Structured Conversation
Seeking
- Seeking Additional Presenters
- Seeking Specific Expertise
- Seeking General Feedback and Interest
Related Topics
- Memory
- Public Engagement
- Social Justice
Abstract
With the recent opening of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, as well as the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration, in Montgomery, Alabama, there have been national discussions about confronting America’s history of racial violence. Often these discussions lead to the topic of truth and reconciliation commissions. In Maryland, the MD Lynching Memorial Project is looking to lead localized efforts in the Free State, which was the site of 40 known lynchings. This structured conversation will hopefully look at case studies of such efforts and discuss their successes or lack thereof.
Description
I would like for the session to have participation from 3-4 different organizations/individuals (national and international) who have experience with doing repair work in communities by way of truth and reconciliation efforts or similar methods. I also would like to allot time for audience input.
Please reach out if you have suggestions or ideas for how to structure such a panel or connections with people/orgs that we might want to invite to participate.
If you have a direct offer of assistance, sensitive criticism, or wish to pass along someone’s contact information confidentially, please get in contact directly: Courtney Hobson, [email protected]
All feedback and offers of assistance should be submitted by July 1, 2018. If you have general ideas or feedback to share, please feel free to use the comments feature below.
Hi – you might want to consider the work of the slavery reconciliation project of the Epicopalian diocese of Providence. Rhode Island was the center of northern saving voyages, and most of those involved were members of the episcopalian diocese. They are trying to bring broader recognition to their role in slavery, etc.
This sounds like a great proposal. You might also want to consider more broadly truth and reconciliation movements and how that has shaped public history conversations. In Canada, the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Reconciliation Canada (http://reconciliationcanada.ca/) have developed resources to help facilitate conversations about race, colonialism, and history. That might help if you’re looking for examples of how to frame your session.
It will be important to look at some of the limitations of these TRC processes. Who initiates them? Who is invited in and who is not? What are the expectations of participants? Supports? What can be said and what cannot? How much space to people have to speak? What happens then? And what are their effects (do they actually “work” as intended). Canada’s TRC had not thought through what would “happen” to the statements collected (as the starting of statement gathering was rushed), eventually leading to legal action about whether these recordings should be destroyed or preserved for future researchers/society.
You might take a look at the proposals of Lannon, High, and Tang and see if you think there’s a session here…
I would like very much to join in this conversation. I am the Executive Director of the Lynching Sites Project of Memphis and Chair of the Elbert Williams Memorial Committee. I am currently involved with active projects of rembrance and memorilization and would welcome the opportunity to connect and learn from similar efforts,
As the Director of the South Carolina Collaborative on Race and Reconciliation I would really like to participate in this discussion. Our main initiative, The Welcome Table SC, works in communities to foster trust through storytelling. We have also been a part of the placement of historic markers on the campus of University of South Carolina to recognize our history of slavery and to name those people held in bondage by the university.
Hi Courtney,
You may want to try reaching out to the folks at the Detroit Historical Society. Their Detroit67 project was a study in the 1967 Riots and race issues in the Detroit area–definetly a reconcilation project of epic proportion that included workshops, committees, and lots of public comment. It won an AASLH award this year. https://detroit1967.org/
Canada might make a lot of sense, as would South Africa. David Helen has done work here, and he might be of help finding someone to join. I would be happy to also forward this via the mailing list of the International Federation for Public History.
This is a great topic and will pair well with an exhibit on the Civil Rights Movement that will be displayed at the Connecticut Historical Society Museum during the same time as the Conference in Hartford. I am sure there will be overlap perhaps in content but certainly in sentiment. It would be nice to pair your panel with this exhibition in some of the NCPH promotional materials if approved.
Hello! I’m new to Public History group, but a cultural anthropologist who works on popular vs. public memory. I’d love to participate in your panel, if you think my topic appropriate (and if you aren’t doing entirely TRC stuff):
Challenging Monuments, Repairing Settler/Native Relationships
Across Pennsylvania and New York, monuments, plaques and markers abound to General Sullivan’s Revolutionary War expedition of 1779. His mission, penned by Washington, no-less, was to remove the Iroquois threat; over a four-month period, his troops destroyed over 40 villages and all foodstuffs. It is remarkable that these markers remain to this day, and are sometimes even replaced with fanfare when damaged. As part of a larger project on the history and legacy of these markers, I propose to focus here on the ways these celebrations of genocide have initiated counter-movements among settler and Native American communities, as well as an alliance that has resulted in a marker replacement.
(I am professor, department of Anthropology & Sociology, Lafayette College).
The challenges of facing a genocidal and racist past are discussed here, with an eye to identify an array of solutions carried out by different actors.