"WHOSE HISTORY IS IT ANYWAY?"

Museum Innovations | Keelan Cashmore

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Before there can be innovation in museums, there must be a history. But, whose history? When it comes to studying the past, everyone has a different opinion. What history was beneficial, what was detrimental, what was both, and for whom? These topics are constantly debated throughout high schools and universities alike. But I think the most interesting thing about histories is how one can be silenced in favour of the other.

In April 2018, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice opened in Montgomery, Alabama. ["This memorial"] commemorates 4,400 black people who were slain in lynchings and other racial killings between 1877 and 1950. Their names, where known, are engraved on 800 dark, rectangular steel columns, one for each U.S. county where lynchings occurred.” Source.

An image of the rectangular steel columns commemorating those slain in lynchings. Source.

 A museum entitled The Legacy Museum will also open its doors. One of the main displays are shelves of more than 800 jars of soil from lynching sites across the country. Source.

An image of the jars filled with soil from lynching sites. Source.

So, you might ask, why is this an innovation? Is it not studied? Taught in schools? How are the memorial and museum "innovative"?

The answer is because “There is nothing like it in the country. Which is the point.” Source.

An image of a statue on display at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. Source. 

Because this history is constantly overshadowed. Because brutality, violence, and discrimination still run rampant today. And because, in the light of the controversy surrounding the confederate monuments throughout the United States, The National Memorial for Peace and Justice is facing backlash.

Residents of Montgomery have called it a waste of money and a waste of space, arguing that it’s “bringing up bullshit.” Members of the Alabama Sons of Confederate Veterans have said to bring the history to light, but not to dwell on it, because they have moved past it. Others have stated it's gone, and it will not happen again, and that the reaction of many Montgomery residents was to “let sleeping dogs lie.” Source.

My response to that is no.

One person moving forward does not mean others have. It is easy to let sleeping dogs lie when history paints you as the winner.

There are hundreds of confederate monuments in the United States. But this memorial and museum are the first of their kind. The fact that there is nothing like The National Memorial for Peace and Justice and The Legacy Museum in the country proves why they were created, and why they deserve to exist.

An image of the Alabama Confederate Monument in downtown Montgomery. Source.

If you are causing an uproar over the removal of confederate monuments because they are a piece of your history, what right do you have to promote the same actions being taken against others? Why do you think displaying your history is right, but someone else’s is wrong?

I am the first to admit that I do not know everything about this history. In fact, the only thing I know for certain is that I do not know much. But what I do know is that these reactions are the reason museums and monuments like the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and The Legacy Museum need to be open to the public.

It is 2018. History is not a single all-encompassing story. History has twists and turns. History can be good, but history can be bad. Something that you regard as positive may very well have disastrous consequences for others.

History is not a singular entity, but tens, hundreds, even thousands of different versions of the same event. One side’s opinion is no more factual than another. And it is our responsibility to share more than what we have been told is “right”. What we have been told is “fact”.

An image of the lynching death of Henry Smith, Paris, Texas, 1893. Smith, accused of murdering the young daughter of a policeman, was mutilated and burned alive before a crowd of 10, 000. Source.

It is time to let voices be heard and history be shown.
It is time to stop running and face the past.
It is time for us to learn.
To accept other realities.
To grow.
To change.

It is time.