Tweet
WELCOME TO #PRESERVEHISTORY
We would like to invite you to a conversation. This is a conversation not only about history, but about tragedy, death, loss, grief, and, we hope, healing. To be productive, this must be a dialogue. There must be more than a barrage of facts asserted in defense of a point of view. There must be honest contemplation. However, this may be more than our internet culture can handle.
But we must remember why we are having this discussion in the first place. Though our nation has seen many tragedies, the coming of a new millennium seemed like the doorstep to a bright future of infinite possibilities. Tragically, that bright light was snuffed out in September of 2001. Since then, we have seen wars with no end, violence at home, and intolerance among ideological echo chambers, sharpened by an online culture that lacks the capability to connect rhetorical quips and barbs to the humanity of the source or target.
Amid this drought of empathy, on a warm summer Sunday in June of 2015, a young man, bloated on a steady diet of hate, availed himself of the hospitality of at Emanuel AME Church, then callously killed nine of those who “welcomed him as a stranger” (see Matthew 25:35). This was a brutal reminder that believing lies and allowing ourselves to see each other as less than human, makes us capable of committing atrocities.
The shock of this horrible crime caused many in our country to question the continued presence of symbols of our history, namely those of the former Confederate States.
Amid much anger and controversy, the last flag to fly in remembrance of the Confederate States was removed from the statehouse grounds in Columbia, South Carolina. Soon, there were calls across the south to remove Confederate monuments, relocate Confederate graves, and several articles suggesting that Confederate museum exhibits were inappropriate. Simultaneously, proposals were put forth that monuments honoring other slave owners were not appropriate, including monuments to former presidents and ardent anti-secessionists.
In January, 2016, the staff of The Authentic-Campaigner www.authentic-campaigner.com, a website for living historians of the American Civil War who espouse a high standard of historical accuracy) decided that it was within the site’s mission of historic preservation to give voice to concerns about what appeared to be a wanton rush to disassemble historic monuments, markers, and museums. This effort was given the hashtag #PreserveHistory to reflect our preservation goals, while not advocating for any particular interpretive point of view.
To be clear, #PreserveHistory is not a “pro-Confederate” site, but rather a preservation site. We want to promote and champion the preservation of interpretive displays of all sorts and from all periods of American history. Whether it is the preservation of a Civil War or American Revolution museums or collections, or efforts to erase aspects of our own history that we may take issue with. The point is that we should never apologize or attempt to alter our history, but rather embrace it... The good, the bad, and even the ugly.
We should embrace them because all of those many shades of history shaped and molded our nation. We cannot take our history “a la carte”, selecting only those aspects we find acceptable. We must realize that we are all slavery, Washita, Watergate, the internment of Japanese-Americans, pollution, and corruption. We are televangelists, junk food, and lynch mobs… all of us, all fifty stars.
…But we are also Lewis and Clark, Frederick Douglas, Lou Zamperini, Jesse Owens, and Dr. King. We are Leadbelly, Woodie Guthrie, Hemingway, Michael Jordan, and Jack Kennedy. We are Valley Forge, the Berlin Airlift, the cure for polio, and the Moonshot!
This is the goal of #PreserveHistory. Open and honest dialog. We are now moving to its next phase as a stand-alone page, apart from The Authentic-Campaigner. While this page is managed by some of the admin staff from The Authentic-Campaigner, we have included a number of concerned historians, film makers, and educators. By creating a separate page, we hope to bring more focus to #PreserveHistory by helping to illuminate the issues that surround the memorialization and interpretation of our history, while allowing The Authentic-Campaigner to return to its primary mission of serving the living history community.
TO FOLLOW PRESERVE HISTORY ON FACEBOOK, CLICK HERE.
Welcome to the Conversation!