labored so hard for this moment, my warmest personal thanks. >> [speaking foreign language] >> [applause] >> to join the conversation like

history.ebook at cspan discussel of historians confederate monuments and their place in society. comments on whether the monuments should remain, be taken down, or contextualized. a 90 minute event in sacramento, california. >> good evening, everybody. extra credit for everybody who is coming here at night. your permanenton record that you were here tonight.

they imagined what would be most useful for the oah and they helped inspire this event and put it together. we are very gteful. our goal is to analyze the problem of memorialization, especially memorialization of the confederacy and to discuss what we as historians might do to help our communities and our nation bond forward. we are fortunate to have three people well qualified to talk about this issue. i would like them to introduce themselves and tell us how they have been working on this topic. would you like to begin? evening. is --e

the nationalu, park service is a federal agency primarily charged with preservation and stewardship of our nation's historic resources. we have 417 national parks that are under the care of the national park service. they illustrate american history within the national register. we have listed the net -- the national landmarks that are those historic resources that are nationally significant and have a high degree of integrity. and aly do we manage

stewart the national park sites we also provide technical assistance with preservation and interpretation of local historic sites through the national register and landmarks program. my name is christy s. coleman i am chief executive officer of the american civil war museum where i have served for 10 years now. we created this institution by the american civil war center with the museum of the confederacy. the -- in the midst of the bicentennial in 2013. by 2015 it really pushed us into

the conversation that just enrichment that starting to get calls first about the meaning of the confederate flag. what people refer to as the confederate flag. then, the murders in charleston really set things off. in a very short. period of time, we were thrust into a conversation of enrichment. this past summer, i was asked to richmondcochair for monument avenue commission to should how, could, and the city of richmond respond. mandates. -- simple

to consider what other historic ifures could be placed there the monuments were to be removed. after the events of charlottesville, the mandate expanded. alsoayor said you have to look at what removal would mean, enrichment -- in richmond. i will leave it there for now. [laughter] >> good evening. i am cofounder of museum of chinese in america. has had a disappeared history but also a history that aople seem to, for tourists, sense that people feel very familiar chinatown. ist what chinatown this -- look that is not what chinatown actually is.

at new york university. summer, the mayor's commissionset up a to look at public art monuments .nd markers he gave 90 days to do that. it was an impossible test that .as set up he immediately started talking about removing certain markers. that immediately caused a media fury. meaningsocess of those -- meetings it became clear columbia's -columbus therets state or not-,

was a deeper issue the city was not addressing. ,nless we had a larger context that actually would be free-floating discussions with nothing to anchor. dan walker asked us to serve in the organization. i will be happy to talk about the. -- that. i will be starting a new position and i have an asked to monumentars of america , which is right in the downtown square of downtown new york. many of you know he was the sculptor on rushmore. , i cans a longer history

see a lot of you nodding, he was associated with the kkk, and now the people developing the park want to in a very positive way think about how in their refurbishing of the monument, how to grapple with that history. the final point is i believe that a lot of the future is surveillancehe devices that we carry with us all the time. think it is something that the public and students can get deeply involved in if we then think about how to present this world in a provocative and effective way to get more people drawn into these questions and understand what the stakes are. >> thank you. we are well back to your with

people of expertise. i am christie's collaborator at the museum. i have been in the game as well. my job is to be moderator and restructure this conversation as meeting rather than a self-contained panel followed by q&a. -- we hope tow of hear from as many people as possible. most people know this history ,ut just to remind ourselves and all historians this debate -- and all historians, this debate has been going on for a while. it burst into visibility after the shooting in south carolina

in june of 2016. it feels like it has been forever we are now in 2018. the mayor of new orleans ordered for the removal of an obelisk you remembertatue, the crane removing lee's statue. the speech that was widely praised as the removal was announced by others. 2017, a rally focused right. and -- unite to the consequences of that group

spread, their violence, their the confederate statues in the national spotlight once again. protester from charlottesville was killed by a car driving into a crowd. there are over 700 other confederate monuments in the united states. communities have already removed these statues from los angeles to marilyn to wisconsin, ohio. the hundreds of statues still reminding mostly in the south -- still remaining, mostly in the in law andd tangled politics as well as in historical memory and identity. this is an opportunity to

discuss an issue among the historians that have a special role to play in thinking about the best way forward. in our discussion we will consider the meaning of the shooting of stuff on clark here in sec room and took might tell us about issues of justice. we will talk about other forms of memorialization and what kind of principles might guide is going forward and look at other bodies to have rested with this and put forward their general guideline. i would like to ask my colleagues here to try to understand the situation from the inside out. the monumentsink actually say to those that want to keep them as they are? what is so powerful about these monuments?

>> since we began this process enrichment we have received letters that have put on -- been put onto our website, we have held meetings both large and small, and there is essentially three key themes that repeat in those meetings. they are all fascinating to me. the first is one of the idea of an honorable man. theirought to defend version of the constitution. they fought to defend their homes and their neighbors, right? and we also hear things about them individually. people loved to say lee taught his slaves to read, so it could not have been about slavery.

lee freed his slaves, and then jackson teaches them to read in sunday school, so there is this whole piece around this. then there is the other thing we -- thist there is a syndication -- vin familia that is the part that gets really messyl connection. -- and familial connection. you can love your uncle but you cannot pretend that he was not

an alcoholic. they are embodying their ancestor and these figures. these figures sort of become the over arching familial relationship. familial sacrifice. int is how those that are support of these monuments and leaving them as they are feel. that is what we have blamed -- commentfrom the public both written and in person. they are very powerful. people are really adamant about these sentiments and i think that is part of an example of the enduring trauma. we do not really talk about it as historians. we talk about in the. period, but we do not

talk about the stages of grief and what they do to rebuild themselves. that is what we are tackling. what those of us ares contending with every time someone walks through our doors. they are bringing that with them. it is a real challenge, because obviously the passions on the other side are just as profound. just as profound. these two sides do not hear each other because they are expressing through places of pain. i will stop there. of course there is the myth of somehow the north is much better than the south. so from the vantage of new york newark, itw york --

is a real challenge to see immigrants in the north have really embraced certain kinds of narratives about what the civil war is about the have also really in some ways denied a deeper complicity and implication of what it meant to be a citizen of new york city or of no work -- newark. with ericen working mapped thehe has five boroughs from the vantage of 1609, if we were to look at the treaties and the transfers of land from native american andossession to the dutch the early puritan settlers, we begin to see the large tracts that were transferred through

various devices of trickery and otherwise. they immediately brought in slaves and enslaved people, then quickly transferred into the landlord business. he subdivided that to 600 lots. in many ways you can see how the wealth is being built. to map this, to show it in clear thes helps to displace value of the $24 but also the extraction that the north was not involved. myth which is very much a presently held myth needs to be challenged. it does get back to the initial trauma and unresolved trauma.

there is a concept of post memory. kind of reach him at ties in but constantly dealing with this post memory which in many ways generations after trying to come to terms with unresolved issues. multiplelking about generations over a long. of time. that is ays particular challenge for public historians who are not so much mainly focus on their own monographs but really trying to engage with the public. the deeper questions that deep cultural and cross-cultural understandings spacescreate stasis -- where that can happen, are matters we are grappling with often times in the concept of commission.

there is actually no time for the process to have been. no time for the process to happen. how do we then the this? deal with this? how do we understand the similarity across different and the particular configurations in which these issues are embedded? the fact that italian-americans organized very strongly to protect their identification with columbus, is not so different in many ways then the other kinds of investment that people have made. i think we need to understand those deeper into her dynamics that may appear to be totally different from one region to another but in fact are deeply similar. of thinking about

how the memorials are viewed within the national park service, we are thinking of them sites and places of expression of memories and the time and place where they were placed there. not only is it about identity, which you alluded to, it is also about artistic expression. as well as a political moment in which the monuments were placed in and of themselves. we grapple with the multiple perspectives by which the monuments express themselves. not only as the event themselves but also as the re-creation of the events. the imagining of the events. we grapple with that issue as well.

what is one person's artist is another person's violence. agency that is invested in preserving all of those multiple perspectives, we have to take into account and consideration those multiples meanings and what they mean. enrichment to means that these statues have accrued meaning over the years. we find some people saying they love the monument because it is so beautiful. we have the 10k run their -- the re, or those kinds of things. there are other intentions pulling these things apart as one of the challenges.

>> one of the things that for a lot of the cities and communities that are looking at this question things are not in spaces where they are interpreted as they are in battlefield parks. ok? these are in public squares, in courthouses. in ais centered neighborhood, a wealthy neighborhood, it was built to be that. at there has not yet been larger conversation about what we can do with all the other confederate statuary that is throughout richmond, that is not in a cemetery or in a battlefield. there is quite a bit of it. there may be a

solution with this concept, with the park, where things are within the confines where they can be interpreted by seasoned staff and historians versus what does a city do when it is trying to consider all of the moments that make the city the city. that becomes a bit trickier. far trickier. [laughter] to pick up on the trickier part. [laughter] always going to be tension between the work of historians, which have to be bolder and taking up the challenges not defined by the way civic history or civic virtues define.

we have two of knowledge the history of wealth and power and the constitution of these spaces. in our deliberations in ark, there is always going to be that tension being played out. part of what the north and south end east and west all share is the necessity to both question what has become the norm of that local regional area, what has become commonly accepted, to displace the, and moments such as these do that. it is an opportunity for historians to then do that necessarily -- necessary groundwork, engaging with our public in various ways. become academics have little too comfortable in staying within the university

parameters. many of us have been doing work we in somes, but ways have to do so much more than that now. of do normal ties enorma we also have to betizing, -- >> we could pause and see if people who are with us would like to answer the one question that we addressed so far. what do the people that want to maintain the statues mean by them? i am counting on our collective self-discipline to do that. we will turn after that to the critique that we have of it.

there are still some seats in the front for those of you are standing in the back. it looks good on c-span if all the seats are filled. you would speak -- you would be serving a public purpose. >> thank you. evening, panel. i am a former marine corps officer doing much more difficult work as a high school teacher. [laughter] [applause]

but, to me, having been assigned to quantico, to richmond, visited the museum in richmond, i see these monuments not on , thoseield parks monuments present opportunities to teach. i do not see them as garish , usually theyook think theys, i also are teaching opportunities when you see these and many of these many of decent men, them were not so decent. i also know that there comes a point as when do you stop taking a 21st century value and apply

conflict.th century i was looking at my phone and i could not remember the number of japanese that wereilled in the battle of the regime a- -- hirojima. marines. lost sailors in that battle. we going to tear that monument down? those 19,000 japanese soldiers and sailors who lost their lives, they were parents, they were sons, they were part of when does iture, stop? enough ofe have

intellectual armor to say this was a war that essentially shaped the american psyche for a very long time. it was our most costly war. more costly than vietnam, the war that i fought in, more costly than world war i. the american civil war was our bloodiest battle. i as a teacher do not want to have opportunities and visual reminders that i can teach my students about this very horrible but necessary part of the high school curriculum. thank you. >> any other people who would like to speak? -- yes, sir. sometimes as a historian i think back on monuments that

people from long ago tore down of the regime that was there before than -- them. and i would think how horrible we would get to know them during that type. -- time period. i can certainly understand. i can see because those people from thousands of historian, a disaffected historian. i can be curious about their stories and what happened. it takes on a very different feeling when i bring in my own self-interest into this conversation. difficult a lot more to say leave these alone as they

are. perhaps the biggest is saying i have, take them down or leave them up. the reasoning issue, why these monuments were put up, the reason why this war was fought, the reason why people feel strongly on one side or the other, is the real issue that we need to tear down. that is the real thing that needs to be confronted in this country. if we can do that in this country i think we will be able to have an easier time with those monuments where they are, how they are, perhaps even without any modification. thethe underlying issue, underlying reason why those

whethers were put up, just simply as a war commemoration which i am not the whole is why reason thewere put up, but if we do not deal with the underlying reason for that, we are just covering this issue with a band-aid, but we are not dealing with the wound. >> two great comments. [applause] any others? i will start with you christy. the topology of the rationale? christy: one is they are not

just a symbol of a past, but they are a symbol of an ongoing mentality and behavior of a nation and of the city that has perpetually disenfranchised its people of color. it is a continual reminder of .hat injustice that is one part of it. thisther part of it is other argument which i am sure you have heard and whether you think it is valid or not it is really irrelevant, it is what people are feeling. it is that we have allowed aitors in our landscape. thesect that we allow statues to go up is a reflection of white privilege and white

supremacy. that is the other argument we hear. say, this one is less common but nonetheless extraordinarily heartfelt. attended ae community gathering and a young man got up and was extremely eloquent and told a story of his ancestor who was among the first africaamerican's -- african-americans boated to the legislation in virginia. he told the story proudly. but in the same year that the virginia legislature was signing revenue to support putting up the statues, they were also putting in-laws to roll back things that happened in terms of reconstruction.

the exact same day. he had the material right there. the exact same day. for him, it was powerful in another way. people could relate to that. people could relate to the fact that so many, the promise of freedom was stripped. the more of that stripping that took place the more monuments one up. --monuments went up. schools were named after these confederates in defiance of brown v. board of education. people'sot imagination. this is lived experience. for them, simply, it is not about military leadership. you will hear them time and time andn tell those two stories

ask the questions why do we you do not go to germany and seat nazi statues. there is a very different dynamic. those emotions are very real and raw. [applause] one of the critiques of the often they areat not rooted in historical fact. in terms of the placement of the thement, in terms of inscription included in the monument. we have to continually

remind ourselves and the park service that we are telling the whole story that we are contextualizing with historical facts from primary source research and the sources. to bring value judgment or a political debate but to bring the facts to the source. contextualizeto was placednument we -- why it was placed and the historical moment in which they are placed. role of the historian there is to do the research and order to ensure that historical fact is brought to bear on monuments and contextualizing why the monuments are placed there and aware -- and where.

we also have to ensure that the , as the natiol park service has determined, we will not remove or obscure or alter monuments within our national parks unless directed by congress, but that we would be committed to preserving the monuments that are telling the entire story from multiple perspectives with multiple meanings. and that is how we bring to bear those thoughts, those various meanings, the typologies of why removal for some is the option not an for others it is option for them.

john: i would talk about the larger context in which monuments exist. certainly if we work to think about the civics here in the monumentsere, which public art and mark is exist -- markets exist with them. going to the railroad museum i was struck by the fact that in the 1850's, before the big four there was a four,

horrendous fire that wiped out the chinese section. it turns out that the railroad museum is literally on top of that site. there is a double erasure of what happened. on the one hand we are of course talking about the disappearance of multiple histories and the contemporary dominance of a certain kind of civic story or storycial story or city of the origins of that place. about is hard to talk iting away and putting back, is tough to talk about adding things to the space, because unless we really reckoned with the underlying dynamics of our and wealth and how they have always impact on our public spaces, the debate that happens today is also governed by those

kinds of influences and power. we have to reckon with those questions. the definition of a monument is more than man on horseback. >> the very design of our urban spaces are a certain kind of monument to a certain development. >> who would like to talk about the critique of the monument? saying something beyond the typology. to discusswould like an element that we have not discussed before the group?

>> there is a cholera very -- collorary as to what we have been talking about. the collorary is how to address and memorialize and bring back into our consciousness that which has been erased. if we are talking concentrating here just on the civil war, there is plenty. not long ago i was in fort as iw in tennessee which am sure was the scene of the absolute worst massacre of black and federal and white federal troops. there is a small state museum on the site that refers to this as a controversial event. if there is any place in the

country that cries to be memorials to black troops is fort pillow. thaddeus stevens'house was almost erased to be replaced by convention center and only drew a local effort where people were save a piece of it. it was woefully underfunded. landscape, thehe geography of the draft riots in new york city, the worst riots in american history, hundreds and hundreds dead, mass lynchings of african-americans, i would love to see as part of this whole larger discussion

more focus on how to creatively interpret and memorialize events like this that are troubling in different ways. restore toto add a our consciousness, the history that is gone from public memory. it helps to readdress the balance that is now waited understandably by these hundreds of confederate monuments that we are rightly concerned about. >> we hear a lot of people talking about the center of the slave trade, it may be that the struggle is having a catalytic effect to bring more to the surface >. i found widespread belief that we need more history rather than less.

raising -- also a rising interest in the arts community, which i am delighted to see. to take away some of the power creatively. statuary,y adding new but how do you even address what is there? context, it say could mean many, many things. it could be expressed in some pretty provocative ways that do the do notfacing, mean anything else other than there is another way, what if we put another lens on this for you to see it. circles, among folks that have been talking freely about this, enrichment -- in

richmond, there is this interesting mix of people that have been talking about it and this idea of what if we met -- we made richmond a monumental city? it is not the only thing. we have the untold stories of the slave trade. we have freedom trails. we have really significant sites that still exist. is placed on the landscape that commemorates other events that are of equal individuals of considerable note, what if we took the view of our city and

just pulled all of this nuance? what if we did that? this idea of engaging the arts community is critical. it is an academic exercise. they have power because they strike emotionally. try as we might, we do not always do that as historians. >> i would agree with that. examples ofny great what we can now call creative nonfiction or creative engagement with history. in new yorks ago city some people did amazing, fantastic work by putting up temporary signage, talking about the disappeared history of certain locations. the monument lab in

philadelphia has been doing amazing work with artists around the city. these are ephemeral engagements but also documented and written about which is helpful. it also speaks to what dolores has talked about in the power of place. one of the problems with the work we do and monographs and how we write history is that we the specifice places in which people live and in which these same events were happening. to be able to map those and have people understand where they are in relationship to these events is a very powerful and uncanny slippage between the present and the past and the future. i really think the power of that kind of mapping speaks to having

all of richmond and new york city become those historical places. giving the opportunity to people to discover what had happened, have it literally haunting us in the present. it would be helpful to show the slides that you have about .he generalized principles >> i am not sure. we asked that some material go out.

the advisory council on historic preservation, which is the independent federal agency responsible for advising the president and congress on historic preservation matters, they just came out with their statement, their policy statement on commemorative works. i was hoping to provide a copy andyou as pre-reading thought it would be linked to the site but i do not think we were able to do that. the advisory council released to adviseiples communities on how to begin thinking about and grappling with the issue of commemorative offensive andre controversial. in to engage the public

determining what would be the right -- what would be right for their communities. this is not only a national issue, it is a local issue. the context on how a my name is placed in a local level may determine a different course than a national policy. but it reconfirmed a commitment thehe a chp commitment, stewardship to these commemorative works, understanding that values do change, the values by which the memorials were placed change through time and overtime. and that there has to be historical context developed on why the monument is placed there as well as the historical facts. they also recognize that not every monument that is placed is historic in nature.

we have to determine that historians engage in that process. is this monument significant? is it deserving of preservation? if it is not, what then does that mean? what are the possibilities? they also determined that no action moving forward can occur without consultation without communities with those affected. withgovernment agencies, descendent communities, with individuals. madeese decisions are not without the deep connections that communities and individuals have to these monuments. finally, that there are altiple alternatives to how

commemorative work or monument can be treated and that no option fits all. it is the responsibility of each of us, communities, government officials, to determine which is the best treatment alternative for that. they held the position that these debates, the consultation, is a moment for public education. it is a moment to discuss the history of the united states and to learn the lessons and resolve to move forward in whatever way we want to determine as a nation that we need to move forward. that is a change from what people might have thoughts five years ago. five years ago, i believe,

and i am taking off my hat here, i believe the belief that these monuments exist, there was no thoughtful conversation or dialogue about why they exist, or what should be done. the monuments themselves were rooted in this place where people passed by them without really understanding or necessarily questioning their existence until the events which you enumerated happened, which forced us as a nation, as individuals, to then think about what it means. >> thank you. >> it is critical that we as a

historical profession realize that people do not learn their history from the books we write. they actually learn their history from what we tell them is important. name buildings for, and those monuments. we thought we didn't need heroes in history so we looked at decided, hend we might have written these words but in reality if genetic testing is right, he probably took advantage of a young african american woman. we disavowed all of this. this came to me after doing graduate work at princeton i was anti-jefferson.

said he waslleagues anti-jefferson because he was a monarchist. i realized then it was more obligated than that. heroes,ot actually need but what people see in monuments are role models. and i think that is important. there are so many role models there besides these confederates. there are those white southerners as well as african-americans who fought for the union. >> but there are no monuments to them. >> we need to recognize them. this is the point i am trying to make. it is not just using augmented reality. we can raise monuments. hometown in south he was a longtime

president of morehouse college and mentor. many people see him as an intellectual work the grandfather of the civil rights movement. that little community of greenwood erected the first statue to a person, to this great theologian, this man who saw humanity and its oppressors. we need those alternative role models, not necessarily heroes, we did a good job at saying it is more complicated than that. what you folks have done with 10 raise an buford and monument for reconstruction. forne is calling commemoration of reconstruction,

but the national parks service has done something. it is important to talk about those unsung heroes. there are so many of those. these are extraordinary heroes, black and white, who stood against the grain. i think we need to do those. we have historians need to understand that we have be engaged with public history. that is where people are learning their history. some names, change but you can rename them. progress, we can move forward, we can accept our history and build upon it and do what is right in terms of making a better america. i want to call upon all

historians to be involved. we write in our books but only our children and relatives read them. so let's do more. thank you to all and all the people that work so hard. community, i have never seen a community where you do not find those role models the matter where you are. those who stood for the right things. [applause] >> i am a historian but i do not write monographs. i also live in new orleans and i pedestal,by the empty

the damaged plants, and i see openopen once, -- wounds, but ien do not see talk about them. i do not see talk with one another. i see my role as talking to other people and countering difference. two things that came up that i -- we will spend more time thinking about in terms of context is the parks are protected places. the fact that they are public sense ofere there is a normalized. of

these symmetries that we see is the impermanence how that giant experience may lead to more authentic conversations. we should think about this whole notion of stepping out of what seems normal to us both as professionals and experts and as citizens, where we can encounter one another and have these conversations. i do not know if the public spaces as we are thinking about them are the places to have these conversations right now. >> i am new to memphis. that is my home and where i do my work.

a few like there is things we have not touched on. the system that allows this racism and these things to be perpetuated that these monuments are only a symbol of. saying weissue with should have these discussions and not dealing with the issue on the ground. not valued asre human beings, us glossing on jumping to the confederate conversation without really dwelling in that space. it is really important. as historians. we are here to make connections between past and present. i get to do that every day. but those of you who are more academics dollars have really take some time and look at that.

worked on memorializing the memphis massacre of 1866, but that memorialization happened before shootings in baton rouge and in other areas and before activists in memphis closed down by 40 -- i-40. there is a direct value and relationship between that and 1968 memphis and sanitation workers and the riots that happened. i think it is great that we want to say the -- that we want to say let's have these conversations but there are some very on the ground realities that us working in the field of history and those historians were parss in these challenges are encountering. down thiss were taken year, but a few days later, we

workrequired to go into because we had threats against our building because on a twitter and facebook feed which they did not make private, they actually said they took down our monuments, let's take down their monuments. that is a psychological thing that happens working in a place that you value where there is a thought out in the space that is personal, thiss means that i have the right to do file and against another community -- to do violence community.ther they serve as a motivation for people to do harm and seek to do harm. i think we have to dwell with that. institution that has

to have active shooter training now. a lot of us are in those museums,ons, schools, that means something. i have friends writing articles that have death threats. let's not pretend that there are not people seeking to do harm. it is more of a reality for all of us. disservice to this dialog when we skip over these things and do not really invoke the fact that these premises and he sings we are talking about in this room are fine here, but it serves as motivation for people real threatsrm and against those were working in this work. thank you. [applause] out this wasint the intention of this sort of comment all along.

thank you for that. >> thank you for that. i will make two quick points. one, i absolutely agree with what you are saying. there is a fallacy in the historical profession in which somehow, even if we acknowledge the new questions that emerged somehow byent, that strictly striving for a certain kind of conventional rigor, people are constantly engaging with it on the ground today. unless we can grapple with that, that conceit, that conceit of the profession, public history will also be perceived as a

lesser form of history or as a history that is like the educators at a museum who deal with the public. it is really through those engagements through those deep engagements in which people are with the public and a variety of ways. not always agree and, at often times in the front line of real that it, that they -- actually forces us to deal with the questions and the archives all the more sharply. eruptionsthere are that ripple across national conscience and then we try to deal with them but every day in all localities or are these eruptions going on and it is easy to not quite grapple with them. the other thing i wanted to say i do feel it is important to acknowledge the ongoing impacts of eugenics and scientific

racism. that continues to haunt us today and continues to reappear and smack us around. that, thegrapple with irony for example of not just of course the dispossession of longer history, but of exclusion, japanese, chinese exclusion, but italian-americans, and jewish-americans, mediterranean-europeans, being disappeared from 1924 to 1968. for that not to be understood and known i those communities -- by those committees and then have them take on the positions

of taking the side of a history that actually denies their own history. but howfairly basic, are we grappling with that? violente clearly deeply and violating. your bringing that very real question up. >> she is right. therein lies the problem, the element of this that defenders of these monuments often miss, they do not hear that. they do not hear that these are symbols of violence against our

communities, against fellow americans. see, whatly, what we is so fascinating to me, we are seeing as these public spears -- sphere monuments are being questioned, we are seeing not only this rise, is continuing this continuing rise of these movements, but the threats. they are going on to public property and erecting these 30, upfoot tall poles, putting confederate battle flag's along

the interstate. they are just symbols of our pride and our flag, but they are also symbols of terrorism. i don't care where it's from. as a tell you that because child traveling with my family, those flags were warnings to my family about where we could and could not go. even if i intellectually ow, and i can, distinguish them, there is an toerent emotional response those things along my drive that i now have to explain to my children. arefact that those statuary representative of that, you , yes, violence can be

bestowed on you at any time and the mentality that white americans told themselves about black and brown bodies are what perpetuate the crimes against black and brown bodies today. it seems to me as historians, we need you. those of you in the public sphere. we are having these conversations with our audience every day. i will tell you for our institution, we do not have the luxury of spending five or 10 or 12 years putting up a museum or a gallery. whichd to do it now, means we have to be engaged with you constantly to make sure the questions we are bringing our questions you can respond to to help us have these morning nuanced conversations that you want on the field. because they are not happening. not in this day and age of self

curated content. [applause] i am telling you right now the discipline, we see it on twitter all the time, these folks think that before we have digitized these archives that they can go in and find exactly what they want to refute your years of work. that is what we deal with on the frontline constantly. so, to get folks in this sort of multi-disciplinary conversation around the meaning in the american lexicon is really a challenge. at the same time, i want to come back to the comment that the gentleman made about we need heroes. i am not sure we need heroes, oh, role models, we need role

models. what we need is a truth. truth, but the ability to understand that greatness is within us even if we are not great. that for me, is why jefferson will always be a hero to me. i know that sounds really weird. [laughter] cycle with this man. he put his hands on that baby! i went through all of that. at the end of the day, he gave a value of other -- two other americans that were denied this principle in the things that he wrote. that we as americans pushed the meanings of those words. for me, he does not fall into the same pot as the guy who wrote the articles of secession

or the guy who wrote the very distinct notations in the confederate constitution. what they are advocating in their language is not something that brings about our better nature, in my view. people doat a lot of understand and can appreciate nuance like that. we just have to continue the conversation and we have to understand that we have to restructure, at least what i am and i sawthe ground, it in detroit, what we are wantings people really to understand their place.

they are real and valid connections about what these things mean. they are questioning be things and they are not questioning them because of what they believed at the time, they are questioning what they have continued to symbolize in their lives. i think that is a very valid thing to do. that just makes our jobs that much harder. ofy in the game, come out the archives, come talk to us, and engage with these folks. it is a wonder. i can guarantee when you do that it will change the way you think about teaching but the way you think about writing your work when you engage the public. there is proof of that in the studies we are doing. you have to get out there.

sorry. [laughter] much. thank you so this has been an incredible conversation. i wanto push back against the last comment. i hear you saying in the perspective of a public historian, we need you. i hear you making this compelling taste that historians will benefit from reaching out to the public. i want to flip that. i kind of think that we need to talk about the moral and ethical responsibility of academic historians to reach out to public historians. i do not think you should be in the position of having to sell us on white we should do this for our own self-interest or the prestige of the profession or how are -- how writing were our writing- how

will benefit. i do not think we talk about the ethics of what comes from the knowledge we accrue and the research we do. respectfully, i disagree. >> thank you. >> no rush. >> i am a california historian. i want to talk about public art in the city of san jose. a very interesting town. san jose decayed after world war ii as a subdivision or live as ahted, and jackson ==

proliferated. when the mayor tried to erect a antue of his ancestors, of san jose,or this panic committee would not put up with it. hispanic community would not put up with it. so, because it is a new downtown, the mobilized power of color,and cover -- of

there is a lot of economic inequality. has a release that commemorates the japanese-american experience. reflectsost public art the character of the community in a very positive way. i think it is a tribute of what mobilized communities of color can do. >> thank you. bodyf these statues and the structure of power at the time they were put up. and the structure of power is changing. these are conversations we will have. people did not have these conversations, they will have them now. since to use this moment

we have write this report very soon. the idea of a cruel or addition, addition, or displacement or disappearance, some people think as long as a confederate statue exists that no other additions can possibly counter them. and yet, we hear historians also believing that maybe the statues standxist can be -- can to be taught people about the injustice that they embody. that is the thing that i do not really know what to think about. whate let people see previous generations did and explain why? or do you think they radiate

such a kind of message of injustice that they need to be remote? to be removed? do we have to remove things in order to have a better system? >> it is my feeling that if new in the stories that it tells through its parks and the context of the monuments in the city parks, and the way it thinks about landmarks, and the stories it tells about not just the immigration story which is what new york city likes to say met. about, but also slave slavement. if that is the public spirit we

are working with my question changes of keeping it there. how do that being there, we then take sure the context was really there? the scholarship is largely there, and it is getting better because of the new social history, the new social history, the new labor history. the scholarship is getting better because american history is being internationalized, from the corollary to the san jose example. pulls of what happens in that town square. scholarship has gotten better because we are no longer simply talking about not just an anglo-american history, the more caribbean scholars for

power, and the making of history, the more you get historyorous relational about america and the caribbean, that forces american historians of how more rigorous our history has to be. , just in the context of latinos and patience -- haitians, the foreign part of it and the war part of it it's dropped out and we focus on that domestic agenda. that is not where dr. king was going, he was aware of more

global policies. from the vietnam to the wars that we are fighting now. the questions of violence have sort of disappeared. in the same way we knew the violence was there during the vietnam war, we were constantly reminded during the vietnam war, now, there are policies that have tipped it farther from our consciousness. the two means we are not understanding the phenomenon of orientalism for example. that is still such a powerful force in the way contemporary american foreign-policy is being waged right now. >> --

>> i would encourage you to look online. i will quickly show you what i am talking about. there are some values and guidelines that we came up with that are a little different than how the national park service did them. i feel this was the best part of what came out of our deliberation. we talked about these five values that need to be part of the criteria of evaluating markers, andents, futurearts, but all monuments and markers. definition. its own see, kind of will builds on the other.

it actively tries to grapple with this additive language. monuments, that might address these questions, but it does not deal with them. andquestion of power complexity and relationality and intersectional natures of how power operates, these are all things that as historians, now with the women's march, it comes -- through feminism decades ago. these are the criteria. we are proud of the criteria we came up with. but how to operationalize them, especially with a $6 million capital fund, that is not going to build enough additional

monuments to begin to counter what is already there, to be able to balance them out. that is a deeper challenge. i do not think augmented reality is a solution but i do believe we have to democratize and have far more perspectives that are rigorous out there. now, as opposed to spending $6 million on two monuments i think there can be more stories that are facilitated i these other social media platforms. i do not think it should be [applause] >> thanks everyone. i think that we embodied the theme of the conference.

i think one thing we have seen is that we all need each other to make each other as good as we can be. good evening, and i look forward to seeing everybody tomorrow. >> you are watching american history tv, all weekend every weekend on c-span3. to join the conversation, like us on facebook. washington university in st. louis professors teach a class about the development of skyscrapers in the late 19th century. -- ga professor gardner behindmines the forces the boom and their construion. att, professor mumford looks the