An aid to navigation in troubled, uncertain times
This compilation of 15 speeches spanning the years 1989 through 2016 brought renewed appreciation for the wisdom of the elder statesman of America’s historians.
All posts filed under: Historic Preservation
I Am Not Invisible
Last evening I spoke in Athens, Georgia, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation. The topic was the future of preservation, and I took segments from remarks given by my colleague Tom Mayes at the recent EDRA conference on Why Old Places Matter and combined it with the basic elements of our recently released Preservation for People: A Vision for the Future. The first key concept from the vision is that a people-centered preservation movement hears, understands, and honors the full diversity of the ever-evolving American story. I built on this concept by noting that, “The recognition of our stories and the capacity to see yourself and others in the American narrative has a profound effect on our sense of identity. A few years when the National Trust conference was held in Nashville, Congressman John Lewis challenged us to believe in the idea that ‘my house is your house. My story is your story. The history of my people is the history of all Americans not just African Americans.’” I …
Places teach us, if we let them
I have just finished reading two books about the American West that were written in 1987 and 1994. As I finished the second one on a rainy Sunday afternoon I thought, “I hope I age as well.” The older of the two—which I actually read second—was the first book cited by the author of the 1994 work in her “Sources” chapter. Both are written by women I greatly admire as writers and thinkers. So enough of the cat and mouse games. Rebecca Solnit‘s Savage Dreams: A Journey Into the Hidden Wars of the American West, was republished in a 20th anniversary edition in 2014, with a new preface by the author. I’ve been on something of a Solnit kick lately, as she is one of the most thoughtful of writers exploring a wide variety of issues across the American landscape. This early work is often hailed as a foundational work of environmental thinking. However, I saw this more as a book about place and unacknowledged history, and the title of the post comes from her …
Living at the intersection of past, present, and future
(Note: I made the following remarks at the funeral of Dr. James K. Huhta on Monday, May 8, 2017, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Jim was the founder of the Historic Preservation Program at Middle Tennessee State University, an early mentor in the field, and—along with his wife Mary who died 11 months earlier—a dear friend.) I thought I would start my remarks with a history joke…but they’re all too old. Feel free to groan, because I will keep on with the bad puns and jokes if you don’t. Just as Jim would have done. In recent days, I have talked with people who knew Jim from all walks of life. We all acknowledge the deep pain of the past year to the family, friends, and this community. But like these friends and colleagues, I want to reflect today on his many accomplishments and his impact on others, before the inexplicable challenges of recent years became too much for him to bear. Several people recounted how Jim’s optimism for the future set them on a path which …
It’s hard to remember not to rely on your memory
In a recent email exchange with some colleagues, I made the mistake of relying on my memory for a budget number instead of first checking our documents. When the mistake was corrected by another on the email trail, I made the excuse that I was working from memory, and added that I should remember not to rely on my memory. A colleague with a very dry wit responded with the quip, “It’s hard to remember not to rely on your memory.” He had me there. I’ve written in the past that, “Memory is a poet, not a historian.” When you need things like budget numbers, we call upon the historian part of the brain, to make sure the figures are correct. But in many instances memory—and especially the poetry of memory—is crucial. Max DePree writes of the times when memory and storytelling come together in powerful ways. He does so to differentiate between what he calls scientific management and tribal leadership. “Every family, every college, every corporation, every institution needs tribal storytellers. The penalty for …
Clarity of Vision
We all benefit when we are clear about what matters. I have always admired the clarity of vision that comes through the work and writings of Morris Vogel, the retiring president of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. Morris is one of my colleagues at the National Trust, and I value our professional relationship. On a personal level, Morris is someone I look to for both advice and inspiration. In these days when the nation is – once again – struggling with its checkered history on immigration, the Tenement Museum has stepped time and again into these conversations in ways powerful, relevant and timely. I found the following statement, which Morris recently shared with his board and staff, a great reminder of how clarity of vision and mission is so important in finding one’s voice. “Tenement Museum leadership in the museum field means that our colleagues at other institutions regularly ask how we handle difficult issues, and we’ve recently fielded requests for information about how we determined our pro-active response to the government’s refugee ban. …
Problem Solvers
I spent much of last week with eight mayors, and seven other resource panelists at the Mayors’ Institute on City Design in Charleston, South Carolina. The mayors – two women and six men – came from cities as large as San Bernardino, California, and as small as Juneau, Alaska. Three of the cities were state capitols, at least two were located on historic Route 66, they spread from coast to coast, every community had a historic core that the mayors saw as vital to their identity and future, and all were ethnically diverse. The political leanings of the mayors – and those of their cities – spanned the spectrum. Some had been in office for several years, others were relatively new to either the mayoral office and/or public service. One was a writer on social justice. Two were accountants by training, while another was a banker. One had spent much of his career running YMCAs. As befits the mayor of a city that abuts Canada, the mayor of Juneau had worked for the U.S. Customs …
Two unexpected books for these times
It wasn’t until I was well into the second of two books I’ve devoured in the past few weeks that the timeliness of these very different works dawned on me. Nothing in either the biography or novel – both released in 2016 – would have suggested that they were important books for our time, much less that there would be common threads. And as a bonus, both are terrific reads. Timothy Egan has produced a page-turning biography that captures the incredible saga of Thomas Francis Meagher (pronounced Mar), one of the most famous Irish Americans of all time. Egan – one of my favorite writers (see the “Writers I Enjoy” list on the side of my blog page) – has previously written highly readable and well-researched histories on the Dust Bowl (The Worst Hard Time) and the founding of the U.S. Forest Service (The Big Burn). In The Immortal Irishman: The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an American Hero, Egan bring Francis Meagher’s time and story to life. Meagher was born to comfort in Ireland, but …
Those who do not know their history…
The recent executive order temporarily banning travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries brings to many minds an earlier, ugly incident from American history. As is often the case, those who do not know their history are destined to repeat it. An op-ed in yesterday’s New York Times spoke to this earlier, discriminatory ban. When Lies Overruled Rights tells the story of the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. “Seventy-five years ago on Sunday, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, all people of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast were forced to leave their homes and report to incarceration camps. Two-thirds were American citizens. Fred Korematsu, my father, then 23, refused to go. A proud and loyal citizen, he had tried to enlist in the National Guard but was rejected and was wrongly fired from his job as a welder in an Oakland, Calif., shipyard He was arrested and tried for defying the executive order. Upon conviction, he was held in a horse stall at a hastily converted racetrack until he and …
Nothing Can be Changed Until it is Faced
Last week, President Obama named the A.G. Gaston Motel (a National Trust National Treasure), the 16th Street Baptist Church (site of a bomb attack in 1963 that killed four young girls), and other places near them as part of the new Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument. Made on the eve of celebrating the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, the president’s designation was a good reminder of the importance of why we protect places that tell difficult stories from our past. A few weeks ago I finished reading a powerful book that harkened back to the work and writings of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is a work that demands a response from the reader and is not easily dismissed. In the book’s foreword, Cornel West alludes to the link between Alexander’s work and Dr. King’s core beliefs. King called for us to be “lovestruck with each other, not colorblind toward each other. To be lovestruck is to care, to have …
MORE TO COME... 