programs on the history of communities across the country tour.pan.org/cities this is american history tv only on c-span3. this year marks the 325th anniversary of the salem witch trials. tv, on american history kenneth foote talks about memorializing sites like salem. his book on the subject is called "shadowed ground." this hour-long speech is from the salem state university symposium on the legacy of the witch trials. >> my name is shelby. this is our 25th anniversary as we were formed on the centenary

as we help to keep alive the lessons of the trials. to promote empathy and understanding. one of the main ways in which we do this is by supporting and being involved in educational events just like today. you all have in your folders cards like this which are an invitation to commemorative activities, a celebration at the witch trials memorial tomorrow. but i am here to introduce our keynote speaker. before i do that, i have noticed that we have not really talked about the people who have sponsored this symposium. i mentioned the salem award foundation. ethics national heritage has been a fabulous team player. i have to tell you, donna has been driving this bus. [applause] i know she has pulled the entire history department along in her wake. [laughter] i wanted to make sure she got

credit for the incredible amount of hard work and coordination that it takes to pull off an event like this. it has been a wonderful day. i am glad to see you all here. on to what i am supposed to be talking about. i am glad our keynote address is in the afternoon rather than in the morning because, i think, we have all had time to stop and think about what the problems we face in understanding, --,rpreting, teaching can't teaching commemorating something , that happened 325 years ago. perhaps nobody has given it more thought than our speaker today, dr. kenneth foote. i had planned to pull a few choice nuggets from his resume to use for my introduction but that has not been possible. i am not an academic. i am from the business world, where the mantra is a one-page resume.

possibly slide into two. i was somewhat unprepared for these 10 pages. [laughter] of golden nuggets. instead, i am using a little bit from what he has posted on the yukon website where he chairs the department of geography. and is a professor. he joined the faculty there in 2013. interests are in cartography and internet taste applications. american and european landscape history, and issues of geography in higher education. particularly instructional technology. and professional development. undergraduates, graduate students and early career faculty. he is here today because of his interest in what we might call the landscape of tragedy.

his book, if you have not read it, i recommend it, it really awakened us to think about how we deal with places where bad things happened. how those sites are marked or not marked continues to be one of his main areas of interest. he is a graduate of the university of wisconsin, masters and his doctorate at the university of chicago. while, shadowed ground, is his most well-known book, he has authored 10 other books. more academically oriented. enough articles and chapters and contributions -- if i listed them, it would take up his entire speaking time. prior to joining the faculty, he had been associated with the university of texas in austin and the university of colorado at boulder. where he chaired graduate studies programs and is now

professor emeritus. he has been the president of several geographic associations and has won numerous prizes. related to geography and mentoring people. i know we are all going to value what he has to say today on how what happened here in salem has played out across america. it is my honor to introduce dr. kenneth foote. [applause] dr. foote: thank you very much, shelby. i would also like to thank the salem award foundation for helping organizing this as well. as well as salem state university for helping sponsor this program and maybe give a call out to the geography program at salem state. [applause]

i have worked with a lot of those geographers. it is an honor for me to be here at salem state for this symposium. my first visit to salem was in 1984. i have to say, it changed my life. i have been haunted by what i found in 1984. what i saw has shaped much of my research over the last 30 years. as i will relate to you today. for the next 45 minutes, i would like to focus on the four questions on the first slide. i would like to put salem in a broader contest with other sites have been stigmatized. salem is not alone in that context. the first thing i want to do is focus on comparisons between salem and other sites. in the united states and a few from overseas as well. then i would also like to focus

on why it is that sites like salem are so difficult to commemorate. the tensions involved in the sites that are shameful but also have some reason to be remembered. i would like to go from there about the comments that came from the previous panel. witches, what is different about salem? this celebration of witchcraft -- we have zombies walking down the streets and so forth. it is different here than many other sites that have been touched by tragedy. [laughter] i do not think i have to say a lot more. it has been well covered. it does raise the issue of what comes next. over the last couple of weeks, i have been reviewing the growth and i do not think there can be enough material on the salem witch trials. it is so important. i'm impressed by the number of books, websites, movies, television, events, focusing on witchcraft.

in fact, i was a bit humbled by the people on the panel and you -- that gave lectures earlier today because we have so much expertise here in the room today that i do not want to claim to be an expert on salem. my expertise is as a geographer. focusing on sites like salem. deco take me to test, ok --? [laughter] do not take me to task if i get a name wrong. we really do have some wonderful experts. my interest in salem comes from the standpoint of geography. in 1984, i was very much interested in this study of the sense of place, the deep emotional bonds that people develop to places where they live. it might be a person's home, where you go as a retreat with your family. to enjoy and relax and live comfortably. it may be a place like marblehead, a wonderful place for recreation.

a place to relax and enjoy the seashore. or it might be someplace you might enjoy going with friends. down in little havana -- domino park is one of the centers of community. people go and stay all day long playing dominoes and cards and talking with friends and sharing food. it may be a place of contemplation. i have this photograph around walden pond. people go there by the hundreds to honor thoreau. to think about his philosophy and his writing. when i first came to salem, i was interested in these ideas. i just came up from boston and it was a day trip. i was trying to get away for an afternoon. i drove up. in 1984. i spent the day looking at maritime history and industrial history, interesting places because there was nothing much about the witchcraft episode. at that point. this is 1984.

at one point, i asked people, where did the executions take place? people said, somewhere over there near gallows hill, we do not know, nobody really knows. i find that curious. to actually lose the location was quite striking to me. within a month i was in germany and i was in berlin to give a talk and i was struck again by the highly stigmatized sites. associated with the second world war and the division of the city. the wall in central berlin was put up to isolate sites of nazi power, the old reichstag, so people could not get to them. these were highly stigmatized.

that summer was the time of one of the worst mass murders in american history. the shootings at a mcdonald's restaurant in california. i learned about that while i was traveling and i got to thinking about, what happens when these events occur? how do these events affect the emotional bonds? to space. do they make them stronger. do people feel a deeper attachment? since then, i've been very interested in this idea of how events of violence and tragedy affect the bonds we have with place. over that span of time, i visited dozens, hundreds of sites in the united states and europe, because much of my work is in central europe and hungary. i visited sites of individual tragedies, murders, mass murders. homicides, suicides. so forth. i have also visited sites like

this mine disaster. in a single day, all of the men in the community were lost. a coal mine collapsed. i have also visited sites associated with the revolutionary war, the civil war -- other engagements like that, where we have different approaches to the portrayal of history. sites associated with the european american encounters with native americans, the history of japanese americans, chinese-americans, hispanic americans. also events with critical meaning, like the branch davidian fire, that horrible event near waco, texas, where 69 people died in a fire. in an encounter with the u.s. -- government.t

leading to the bombing in oklahoma city. after many of these visits, there is no single outcome when tragedy strikes. what i portrayed in my book was a continuum of outcomes. some events are so important, they become so important, they become sanctified. they become so important, people dedicated, consecrated for that particular event. the opposite side, we have obliteration. these are so shocking and shameful that people want to put the evidence away. for years i had put gallows hill on that side. in a sense, that is what happened. remove the evidence, forget about it. closer to the other outcomes. you will see, rectification is the most common outcome.

we do not see any great significance in this event and we will put it back right. there is another outcome which i call designation. the idea that something important happened here but it did not quite -- it is not quite enough to push it toward sanctification. often times that designation is a step toward sanctification a little bit later and i have some examples. we will come back to gettysburg in a minute. for example, in the 1920's, the terrorist attack on wall street in new york. who knows of it anymore? the last physical evidence of that bombing, a few shrapnel scars along wall street. that has faded from view.

here we have the eastland disaster in the chicago river, a cruise ship tipped over as it was loading. it claimed as many passengers as the titanic. although the titanic was a greater disaster because far more crew died. let's take a look at these in more detail before we go on. and turned toward salem. if you looked on the right hand corner of this powerpoint, you will see an important point. sanctification occurs rarely but people think it happens more often because it is so visible. we tend to see sites that are sanctified because they are very visible in the landscape. we see them because they are very pronounced. they only occur typically in about three sorts of situations. the first one is when there is a moral or ethical lesson. that is read from the event itself. i point to gettysburg because it is one of the most decorated landscapes in america.

many of you have probably visited and every engagement is marked on the ground at gettysburg. it may be a sense of community loss. here i have a memorial in wisconsin, destroyed in the largest forest fire in u.s. history. the same night as the chicago fire. a far larger fire, claimed many more lives but it is largely hidden, though it is still sanctified there in wisconsin. or heroes and martyrs, presidents, great leaders, even great entertainers -- john lennon, we have strawberry fields in central park just across from where he was shot. at the dakota apartment building. those sorts of things. sanctification is important because it means we are setting aside a part of the environment and setting it aside for a purpose. this is dedicated to the memory or remembering or commemorating

some event or person. as i said, designation is a step often times on the way toward sanctification and the examples i have, i can tell you about that process. the first photograph is in memphis, tennessee. of the lorraine motel. that is the balcony where martin luther king jr. was assassinated. that site was marked for years and years and years. that marking was done by the owner, walter bailey, and he lost his wife the next day. after the assassination. it took 20 years for him to move this toward sanctification, getting support from the city of memphis, the state of tennessee, and finally the national government to turn this into a civil rights educational center. this moved it in that direction. the lower left-hand corner, one of the japanese-american

internment camps, also was a step from sanctification. -- towards sanctification. the families went back as a pilgrimage and those pilgrimages were very important in providing restitution for the families. that were interned illegally during the second world war. rectification is the most common. in many cases, we do not see that significance in some of the day-to-day violence and day-to-day tragedies that go on in american society and many of these sites are put right. the photograph here is part of my family's lore. i wasn't born yet when this crash occurred in madison, wisconsin, but my mother told stories about it because she heard it happen.

the window to our kitchen looked out toward the university arboretum and she saw the plane spiraling in. and hitting this area. to site itself has been left go back to an arboretum setting. finally, the last one of the four is obliteration. events seen as so shameful, mass murder, gang violence, tragedies involving gross negligence, taboo subjects, are so shocking and shameful that communities try to destroy the evidence. they do not want to be reminded of it. they don't want people coming to look either. in the upper right-hand corner, the site of the homestead of ed gein. he was a murderer and necrophiliac. he is the inspiration for norman bates in "psycho." he is also the inspiration for the "texas chainsaw massacre."

if you get an idea where i am going. the residents were so disturbed -- when he was caught and spent the rest of his life in a psychiatric ward in madison, the neighbors were upset because people kept coming to visit and they were vandalizing the farmstead and someone went out and burnt all the buildings. the land was sold and is now a pine plantation for paper. that is what it looks like. in newtown, connecticut, the horrible mass murder at the elementary school. when the building was torn down, the contractors walled off the entire site. the remains of that site were then buried anonymously somewhere. the contractors had to agree to keep it completely anonymous so nobody would visit those sites. the school has been rebuilt. completely new design. they have decided on putting up a memorial there. it has been a hard struggle for

the community to lose so many children and teachers. this is a case just across the river from cincinnati. it was a very popular supper club and the owner was careless. the owner was careless. a fire broke out and claimed almost 300 lies. -- 300 lives. nobody has been able to rebuild on that site. what i found in my research, it is constantly moving back and forth. we can see these changes occurring through time. an example of like to show is an invention, the way we see the national past. the lower right-hand corner, a site you may have walked on. this is the precise location where the revolutionary war broke out.

this is a test. where is it? pardon? >> [indiscernible] >> the boston massacre. the center of that walkway is the precise place. that was not marked for another 100 years. it was only looking back, now we have gotten past the first 100 years. now it is time to mark the sites associated with the war. bunker hill, we see this big obelisk, that almost never was completed. it was finished in 1875. call out the date if you know it. that took a long time. this was raised by private donations. this was not done by the national government.

it was pride of place in a sense that, this is a significant event because the american troops held their ground. against the british. then we get very distinctive points. the photograph second from the right is the high water mark of the confederacy. the gettysburg battlefield. that is actually marked. this is the point where the civil war began to go in the favor of the union. this is the point, right in the middle of the war, troops were turned back. very specific in terms of telling the story of the nation. i point to this last slide on the right-hand side because that is the site, we are looking from the custis mansion at arlington national cemetery across from john kennedy's grave. the reason there is so many people there, this was the weekend after jacqueline kennedy onassis had been buried.

thousands of people came to pay their respects. the reason it is there, by the time of the 1960's and 1970's and 1980's, when jacqueline onassis -- jacqueline kennedy was picking that position of the grave, she wanted it to align with the lincoln memorial. which you can see in the distance there because this was another martyred president. she wanted to be able to see the national capital to the right and the white house to the left representing john kennedy's contributions to the nation. we had this whole cosmogony of all these historical sites and the way they line up. the same thing happens in other places. at city level or state level. i used to live in texas. i used to be focused on texas history. what i want to point out here, texans are very proud of the texas war of independence and this was in 1835 and 1836. even then the commemoration , emerged very gradually.

the first commemoration was 50 years later. when some veterans returned and they wanted to be buried with their comrades near houston. by 1905, the alamo, which had been completely abandoned, after the battle, passes to the state and becomes curated by the daughters of the republic of texas. 100 years later, you have the tallest masonry obelisk in the world. over a span of 100 years, this becomes an incredible invention of how the tradition has been built and described. it happens in places like chicago. in chicago, the city flag has two blue stripes, one representing lake michigan and one representing the chicago river. the four stars represent for

events that the city is proud of. 1892,lombian expedition, the century of progress, 1933. two others represent the chicago fire of 1871. another one represents fort dearborn, ended in a massacre. everyone died. translating this into marks of accomplishment. in the photograph on the left, you see the fire academy of chicago. at the fire academy, you see a little sculpture. maybe i can pointed out. -- point it out. that is called pillar of flame. that stands on the exact point where the chicago fire began. the exact spot. after all of these years, they see it as a point of pride

because after the chicago fire, chicago modernized its police and fire programs. it is a starting point for the modern city of chicago. the fire was so destructive they had to change. the fire changed the city government, police and fire and so forth so they see it as a mark of progress. into the future. many of these things, we can see looking at the landscape, what i find interesting visiting salem is how the witchcraft episode is described. here we are looking at a sheet of the gettysburg battlefield. it is interesting here because this is not just the markers on the battlefield but the whole landscape has been named. we can look on this map and we can find important engagements in that battle. if you look at the center of the map, you may recognize the peach orchard. which was some vicious fighting. the second day of the battle,

there is also the wheatfield. little round top toward the lower right-hand corner. these are major features which have been marked in terms of memorials and marked -- memorials. i was reminded of some of the work of david lowenthal. "futurese here is, ."garded with pride this is very true with gettysburg. we can contrast this with an event that happened a year later in colorado. the sand creek massacre. this is in a time, during the civil war and there is a lot of fighting going on. on the frontier. and arapaho --

young men are attacking white settlements. many of the older adults are staying home with children. it escalates in 1864, militias are gathered in colorado and they slaughter an entire village early in the morning. a defenseless settlement that thought it was under the protection of the u.s. army. this was recognized as shameful almost immediately. if you go there now there is a national park service site but when i went there there was not. i nearly destroyed a rental car taking a photograph. [laughter] this is really way out in the plains of colorado. you can see from the photograph that there is nothing marked. no names on the maps. this has disappeared. this reminded me, this idea of shaping of the past worthy of public commemoration in the present is -- it is very important to keep that in mind

in remembering things. as a geographer, i have to remind us all that very often these debates revolve around where and what to do. that is what we have been talking about today. ledge, do on proctors what to do here in salem. that is the focus of debate. what about salem? i am not an expert in salem witchcraft episodes. in many cases, there is great tension going on here between sanctification and obliteration. we know there is something important we need to remember about the salem witchcraft episode. at the same time this is very , difficult to come to terms with because it is something that is shameful and shocking when a community turns on itself and kills people. it would lean toward

obliteration. it is worth reflecting on some of the reasons i think it is difficult to resolve that tension from other sites i have looked at around the country. first of all one of the major , points of tension is whenever we memorialize an event like this, it calls attention to the perpetrators and the killers themselves. in the upper left-hand corner, it is the dedication of columbine high school memorial for those who died in the columbine shooting in 1999. this was put up in 2007. people really objected to it. it might not have been built at all but a couple of people pushed this forward because people said, we love to honor the victims but by doing that, we are calling attention to the killers. we are putting up a shrine to those two high school students who killed our neighbors. why should we do that?

this site in the middle is the house of terror in budapest. it was the headquarters for the gestapo during the not the naziation -- during the occupation and it was taken over by the secret police after the second world war. people said, look, great, we should say something about the victims. doesn't this create a shrine? doesn't this create a shrine for the people who have oppressed all of these people? finally, i point to the controversy in dallas, texas. a good chance that we could have lost the texas school book suppository. people said, we do not want that building. that is where oswald was situated when he shot the president. if you create a museum in that building, you are creating a shrine oswald. people said, no.

this is such an important site in our history that we need to do something. i think very often, when debates starts about what to do after these tragedies, there is an attempt to other the killers. this comes up in the news all the time. let's dismiss this as next extraordinary event that was caused by some outsider. and so, we think of president lincoln's killer, a deranged fanatic or a crazed anarchist shoots president mckinley or a homophobic bombs olympic park. in 1996. that is where one of the pieces of shrapnel fell. and people still go there to touch that place associated with the bombing. it is interesting that because you can explain away the

violence by explaining the way -- explaining away the perpetrator. thering is a kind of denial. that very difficult to do if people come from the community. in salem, this happened so long ago, really. think of what has happened. the maritime power, the industry, house of seven gables. the fire of 1914. a lot has passed. maybe it is just not necessary to bring up the witchcraft episode. i do not agree with that. it is one of the readings here. sometimes people say, it is time to let that rest. but another thing is that a lot of people might say, compared to the violence in early america, the witchcraft episode does not amount to very much.

it is like a point made this morning, compared to what happened in europe where you have 50,000 witches or supposed witches killed, this is not a very big outbreak. i think of the mystic massacre -- people argue over whether it was genocide. you have the puritans murdering a whole village. of the peaquots. down there at the bottom is what that site looks like today. it is a suburban street and there is nothing there at all. the fairfield swamp fight. rookink of the bloody massacre in deerfield and we have one single memorial in deerfield for that memorial for that event. brutal fighting. to ank this comes important point. i think sanctification is very difficult when this event occurs

because police and military forces have turned on their own people. the people they are supposed to protect. the citizens of the town or state of the nation -- when it turns on itself, it is particularly difficult to sanctify. that also applies to the situation here in salem. when neighbor turns on neighbor, it presents a difficult issue in terms of sanctification. i point to the school bombing. the treasurer of the school board blew up the school, claimed about 50 lives. it was a substantial loss of life. children, teachers, and so on. or the race riots after the first world war. photograph, the horrible title, running the negro out of tulsa. this was not the only race riot of that period. the massacre of 1923 where you have neighbors turning on

neighbors and chasing these african-americans out of this area. near cedar key florida. and terrible events like this. this comes up with events that relate to police violence. i have this example of this horrible event where the chicago police working with the fbi assassinated two men. fred hampton and mark clark in 1969. that photograph is one of the more horrible photographs that i will show you today because those police officers are smiling. they know they just got away with murder, they killed two panthers and they were never penalized for doing that. other events like this terrible bombing in philadelphia in 1985 where the police bomb the separatist group on the west side and they killed 11 people including five children and no

one ever went to jail. these sorts of things are very difficult and they have to do with other major events in history. the haymarket riot where you have the police turning on citizens. in 1886. they are protesting -- they want the eight hour workday. with the haymarket affair, we have two separate readings. in the lower left corner, we have the reading of the people who were executed for leading that. however, we can question that legal decision. on the right-hand side is a police monument and their defense of chicago. today, that is a highly contested event. in chicago. other events, i think of neighbors killing neighbors. in kansas. characters like john brown, who was so dedicated, he was willing to kill his own neighbors who

were slavers. his whole family was dedicated to ending slavery. you have this back and forth. burning lawrence, kansas, fighting across the missouri and in many cases, these are tensions that still exist today. this also happens to events like sand creek. this is my son andrew reading a plaque at the base of a civil war monument at the statehouse in denver and this was a civil war memorial honoring the great heroic battles of colorado troops. listed on that monument is the battle of sand creek. in 1999, the senate finally passed a resolution and said, we will not take this memorial but we are going to -- there is no

way we can describe sand creek as a battle. it needs to be described as a massacre. it is quite striking. grown, it is something that could be mirrored here in salem. haveheyenne and arapaho created a spiritual healing run is around thanksgiving and they start at the sand creek massacre site and they run to denver. other states as well, in wyoming. they use that as a way of talking through some of these issues. about memory. what makes salem different? i do not have to say very much. [laughter] i just grabbed a few illustrations. hocus-pocus, bewitched, they dealt with witchcraft.

with accusations and so forth. it is quite striking because is this the way we want to remember a key lesson about wrongful persecution and religious tolerance? and the development of the american legal system. as people have been talking all day long, this is something that is highly questionable because people do not reflect on what they see here. they see the kitsch side of things. maybe it is time to think about how we might do that. i think there are ways forward. i can think of many sites that attract thousands of visitors. three weeks ago, i was at auschwitz in poland and there were huge crowds there. it is treated as a cemetery, as it should be. there are rules about going into that site and how to behave. and how to act and people follow them. the guides are scrupulous about

them. there are things you do not do inside these camps. because it would be disrespectful to those who died. i also think of the world trade center site in new york city. you know what it is like there. you have probably all been there. it is almost spiritual in some ways. people assume a certain attitude about that site. when they walk across the plaza. there is also last stand hill. at the little bighorn battlefield. people would not imagine having a zombie walk down last stand hill. it is a national park site. it would be completely inappropriate. these sites of tragedy are important. they are points of reconciliation, reflection, and remembrance. the little bighorn battlefield, a good case in point, a few

years ago, the national park service allowed the native american groups to begin marking the sites of where warriors fell during the battle. they had never previously been marked. marking death sites is not part of the planes in the -- of the indians'culture. they said, ok, we want to mark these sites. this has become a point of reconciliation between the indians and the government. angel island in san francisco bay is being restored. this horrible. -- this horrible time of chinese exclusion. ofse are important points reconciliation.

i think there may be ways forward. i think the sites of sanctification are important. i think it is very important to honor the victims and survivors and the families. just like shelby is working on collecting the testimonies of the people involved in the witchcraft episode, these are important sites of people who have been involved for many generations. it is also very important to recognize heroes and martyrs. these are people who stood up and said no. they stopped this from happening and we need to be able to recognize that. i also think it is important to keep the memory alive across generations. going back to auschwitz, many of you have participated in the march of the living. this is an annual event in april.

thousands of people marched between auschwitz i and auschwitz ii. it is about a mile. they're saying, we are alive, we have survived. this is something that happened. this happened during the second world war but we will not let this continue. this is something we need to continue. the idea of pursuing the memory across generations is important. just as i move towards the close today, it is important to see that public memory is more than the memorials. the memorials are just a starting place. they anchor traditions. they mark the spots of events. i put down there at quote from an article i wrote with a colleague on the geography of memory.

public memory has to do with contemporary experience. visiting a battle site. it has to do with these sorts of things we are doing today. that is a part of public memorials. it gives people a place to come and a place to remember events and to reconcile. the left and photograph, the dedication of the columbine high school memorial. the students were so proud. they were wearing their sports clothing. they were coming because they were proud and they were honoring the people who died. the photograph on the right is from the dedication of the oklahoma city bombing. memorial. talking with some of the people, some of the rescuers said, i could not come back to oklahoma city until today. this is the first time i have been able to be back because it

had such an effect on my life. i came back because this is a good thing they are doing. might i point to something like penn state university? photographs taken on the 40th anniversary. they have an annual vigil, a midnight walk all the way around campus that comes back to the site where students died. you see in the upper left-hand corner, the speakers in the afternoon sitting on the hill were a daffodil is planted for each soldier who died in the vietnam war. you can see the vigil there. those are members of her sorority singing in the parking lot. professor lewis was there. he was trying to deflect the national guard from leading people around. as we look into the future, there are other cities facing as many ghosts and skeletons as

salem is. honestly. recommend, if you have a chance to, listen to the full youtube video of the new orleans speech about the removal of the confederate monuments in new orleans. in new orleans, the controversy is removing memorials. in salem, it is the opposite. putting up memorials. he makes a stunning argument about how it is so important. he said that these wounds were so raw because they never healed right in the first place. this removal is about showing the whole world that we as a city and as a people are able to have knowledge, understand, recognize, and choose a better future for ourselves, making straight what has been crooked and making right what is wrong.

that very much applies to some of the debates we're having here in salem about addressing issues. they may have happened 325 years ago but i think, it is imperative for us to look ahead. in closing, i will point back to bridget bishop. we are meeting here to honor her memory today. i can point to so many sites in the united states where we have signs with people's names on them because they have been killed for various reasons. because they are gay or protecting muslims or they were african-americans. i think this is more than memorials. i think it really is, this involves engagement, education. what i find so exciting is there seems to be a commitment in trying to carry this forward. i really do believe that there is some imperative in making sure there is a way of representing the witchcraft

episode in terms of this history that can be engaging and educational and can keep the memory going for future generations. thank you very much. [applause] thank you very much. do we have time for a couple of questions? >> [inaudible] dr. foote: yes? >> i was wondering, we have heard a lot of this taste for the salem halloween celebrations. -- this taste. it seems to me there is an element that is similar to what has become of the memorializing of stonewall in new york. there was a culture of

oppression and an event that was an attack on people by repressive culture and the response has been a parade of in-your-face defiance. in a sense, we in salem are seeing a parade of defiance of sinning and witchcraft in the face of a puritan attack on decency and morals. i was wondering if there is there any way in which the haunted happenings could be considered a sort of recognition? dr. foote: i do not know if i would draw a parallel to stonewall. stonewall is important and the idea of in your face protest which have happened in new york and other cities is a way of raising the issues. in working on this lecture, i could not think of any city quite like salem that has gained so much from developing.

it is not possible to change that because it is so important to the tourism industry. there is a need to follow a separate path. like the discussion today about of the ethics institute or thinking of some other way. you cannot displace that tourism. you have to find another path that allows people to learn more about the event. it is a good possible comparison. there was another -- >> the parallel i keep thinking of because of the work i do, the plantation museums around the south. you do see sites whose tourism for the last 100 years has been based on this nostalgic, genteel image of the antebellum south. unlike salem, they have not dealt with slavery at all.

it is a very uncomfortable fit where you end up seeing either sites who give themselves over or itistory of slavery becomes this sort of alternative experience. the antebellum culture piece and the slavery piece never really meet up. i am struck by your discussion of shrines, mount vernon, monticello. these early sites were created as shrines. that is where i keep going but that is where my mind always goes. dr. foote: those are really good examples. i could bring up some examples of contested places. with slavery. there are a lot of the same tensions. you're absolutely right.

what is happening with these plantations. my only hope is that what is beginning to happen, people are using those plantation museums in a few cases to posit a different sort of narrative. it is not happening all over. if you like in louisiana. it does not affect places like washington, jefferson. they're still has been only a modest change in that. >> you see there is a real reluctance to engage. that is not why people come there. as i was doing my research, visitors and their comments and they want to come to meet scarlett o'hara. [laughter] -- the do not want to go there to see mammy. that is not the experience they want. that is what we are dealing with in salem. they want to come for the revelry.

dr. foote: we could look more generally at african-american history. the examples i gave from the race riots, people do not want to talk about that episode. they have been he that was a brutal period. people do not want to be reminded that they were people involved. thank you. yes? >> what if a site has been sanctified but people are not treating it that way? that is what is happening to our witch trials memorial. dr. foote: you need to set some rules. [laughter] uckily -- [inaudible]

dr. foote: that is an interesting point because a lot of these sites, the behavior is patrolled. they say this is acceptable and this is not. i think the site for the memorial at the cemetery is very striking. in it is hard to enforce that now. i made a special trip to see that when it was finally dedicated. it is a very appropriate site and a wonderful design that is contemplative. because it is in the middle of town and because there is no way to mark it off and control that behavior, it is a constant problem. you are right, the the graveyard has become -- it is not a good situation.

addressing some of those issues may be necessary. there are some places where it is -- for example, the cemetery is closed off. it is only open at a particular time. i hate to do that, but it does set the tone for interpretation. other questions before we finish? do we need a microphone? >> i was struck when you were talking about gettysburg. a friend of mine used to work for the national park service. we have had discussions about this, but i see a lot of similarities between gettysburg and salem. these places have this one huge horrible event happen in the town that changed the course of american history and the course of that town's history and how people think about the town and how the town things about

-- thinks about itself. the two places make their living off of people who come to the city because of that event. despite a wonderful college, gettysburg would dry up and blow away if it were not for the battlefield. i also think, the one way gettysburg treats itself differently -- the first time i went to gettysburg, i was struck. before i got to the cemetery, i felt like i had been on a cemetery the whole day. you have the monuments and memorials throughout the city. even as you enter the town, they are everywhere. it puts you in this mood as you enter the city, reverence and respect of hallowed ground. that unfortunately i think is

the piece that is lacking in salem. dr. foote: in gettysburg, you can go on haunted tours. out there on the battlefield, i have seen visitors policing other visitors. they think this is an are allowed inu certain areas, you are not allowed in certain areas and people are conscious of that. there has not been a problem of vandalism at gettysburg and people are respectful. in town, they can have other entertainment. it is a very close comparison but it is treated very differently. >> you do not have the problem we had, where within several months of the announcement, someone showed up and asked for permission to dig in their backyard. at which point, the resident said i am sorry you cannot do that. the person said, i will just go next door and dig there.

at which point, he was told, he will not do that as long as there is a police force and salem. for reasons it is hard to fathom, we have an uphill battle. dr. foote: i have seen some sites where they are guarded. there is controversy. sites in hungary, germany are guarded because of the friction over the memorialization. i would hate to see that happen here. one more question. >> i would like to ask you, you are talking about the removal of the statues of jefferson davis and robert e. lee from new orleans.

the thing about that, it seems the thing about that, it seems to be the city of new orleans, because it is heavily african-american city, they could do more to promote african americans. my concern is we could go to every major southern city and remove statues, but they were people who fought for a cause. the culture of slavery predates them. robert e. lee was considered a model student and teacher at west point. i wonder how we address this issue. dr. foote: there has been tremendous change since the time i wrote shadowed ground in terms of recognizing american history and municipal's right movement -- on the civil rights movement. one of the things i wrote about in the last chapter was how little was done in that area because we were not recognizing those great individuals. that has changed substantially over the last 20 years. we are seeing it more in naming

dedicated tosites civil rights heroes. i think the battle for martin luther king was incredibly important. in terms of setting precedents in the united states, and now many names and buildings and a number of institutions. it has started but it has not gone far enough. my hope is that it will continue long into the future to recognize and more representation of who contributed to the building of the united states. thank you. [applause] >> i have a few closing thoughts. i am full of gratitude. i am full of gratitude to my fellow committee members.

all of my wonderful colleagues. all of the brilliant presenters. i am full of gratitude to all of you. the spirit and energy and curiosity and concern was very evident throughout this day. it was a wonderful day for all of us. a nice, respectful day to pay tribute to the victims. i also want to go forward, we do have an event scheduled, sponsored by salem state in collaboration with the maritime national park at their visitor

center on july 20. the whole proctors ledge group, gang -- what do you call them? >> team. >> team. thank you. the end of the day. [laughter] will be there, it will be a forum on the whole process. that will be a nice corollary to this event. let me tell you about the salem awards event tomorrow. it will mark their 25th anniversary on charter street from 12:00 until 3:00. >> [inaudible] [laughter] >> a lot to think about, and i look forward to seeing you all at future events and thank you for coming. [applause]

>> coming up on c-span3, tonight at 10:00 p.m. eastern, the u.s. office of war film, why we fight, the battle of china. >> three fax must never be forgotten. , china is land, china is people. >> on sunday at 11:30 a.m. eastern, political economy professor on alexander hamilton's views of the national debt. >> hamilton advised the creation of an energetic, efficient government. one that did one thing well for us little money as possible, and that was to protect american lives, liberty and property from tyrants, foreign and domestic. >> new jersey residents and

activists will discuss the newark rebellion. reports ofre 268 sniper fire. zero snipers were ever found. no evidence of snipers, no gun footprints, no fingerprints, nothing was found, and yet, 26 people were killed. -- policeman, when firemen, one firemen, the rest citizens. >> american history tv only on c-span3. c-span, where history unfolds daily. created as aan was public service by america's television companies and is brought to today by your cable

or satellite provider. tour, togetheres with cable partners, travels the country to learn about american history. twice a month, we select a city to feature. this weekend, we are airing highlights from our 2017 tour. for more information, visit www.c-span.org/citiestour. this is american history to be on c-span3. is 602 feet tall, one third of a mile from one end to the other, so it is thicker than it is tall, so when we look at the dam, we get the idea of how massive shasta dam is. it weighs 16 million tons. to