battle of antita. and at 8:00 p.m., patrick allitt, emory university professor, talks about lectures in history. watch american history tv this weekend on c-span3. a panel of public historians talk about the history of african-american voting rights. they explain how their historic sites and organizations share this history in various ways. thf this was part of the association of african-american history and rights conference. they also provided the video. >> i wanted to start out by sharing with you all that the partnership between the national parks conservation association and the association for the study of african-american life and history began more than 20

years ago. it was then that irena webster and barbara spencer dunn joined with the woman who became my first boss at the aspca. they had the vision to get right to support the works the parks service was doing to protect the african-american experience. sadly, irena passed away at the start of this year, and i wanted to take a moment to talk about the preservation of the history to achieve black voting rights to remember my boss, my friend, and the true pioneer in the long and ongoing process to make conservation and preservation organizations like npca more inclusive. for our panel today, people will

understand that it is wide-ranging, multifaceted and current. it's still going on. what we want to do with this panel of experts and people who are my friends, folks that i admire, is to get their insights on this issue, but maybe in more specific and direct ways. we have one person, josephine bolling mccall, who actually lived through the struggle for voting rights. we'll hear from josephine about that, her family's experiences, her experiences, and what she's doing now to help protect and preserve that history. then we've got two other friends, again, people that i admire very much, nadette coleman robinson and gina austin who has helped with the experience and struggle for voting rights. without further ado, we'll get going. jo, we'll go to you first and have you do your presentation.

then we'll go to a question and answer session and we'll take questions from the audience. thank you all for being here. jo, we'll go to you now. thank you. >> thanks, alan. good afternoon. in our discussion today, i'm going to make three declarations regarding preserving the history of the voting rights struggle. number one, when the civil war ended in 1865, two years later in 1867, there were 4,000 black men registered voters in alabama. in 1965, though, out of 5,000 african-americans of voting age, there was not a single registered voter. number two, snic came into adams county, established a political party, and in may 1970, 2,500

african-americans participated in the democratic primary. number three, only the older history of the voting rights struggle is preserved inial lense county, alabama. one can get to montgomery from selma or selma from montgomery without traveling inial len ani county. in 1865, niles county legislators formed a proposal to franchise them, believing they could control their votes. however, in march 1967, when congress extended the franchise to black men through the reconstructive acts, it became clear the blacks intended to vote as they pleased. despite the use of terror

tactics, niles county whites failed to keep african-americans from the ballot box. by the summer of 1867, 4,000 black men added their names to the voting rolls. but dr. mansfield power was born a slave near augusta, georgia. in the civil war, he moved to alabama, and in 1969 he organized the first church for african-americans. he operated a school in that building. from 1870 up to 1872, mansfield himself searched as a niles county representative in the alabama house of representatives. in 1883, he sold property.

soon the mansborough school as a separate building. the 1870 church and the mansborough school are on the national register and still stand today. the african-americans, of course, supported the republican party, reagan's party, because that was the party that had delivered them from slavery. but then democrats seized control in 1870 and took that to the state house. democrats diluted the votes in the black electorate by gerry n gerrymandering the legislative ballot. the republican party crashed. in 1891, the state constitution

provisions required prospective voters to pay $1.50 cumulative tax, pass a literacy test and prove moral character. remember, in 1900, niles county had more than 5,000 registered black voters. six years later the county had only 57. niles county became known as the place against black to maintain segregation. the united states district attorney had been told if he valued his life, he better stay away from niles county. every black man, woman and child was a potential target of racial violence. they made it abundantly clear that public protest was foolishly dangerous. in 1905, they purchased a

plantation and divided it into small farms. that same year, 1905, three black men were lynched. it was clear that niles county remained too dangerous to challenge white power openly. in fact, in 1947, my father, elmer bolling, changed his economic status, plus that of many other blacks in niles county. he was lynched for his achievements. seven children were left fatherless as a result. my oldest brother was 15, and i was five. our father began with a mule and a wagon, and before he was 39 years of age, he had a private plantation, a store on highway 80, famous civil rights trail and he got to build that highway, and he was employing

about 40 people and had three tractor-trailer trucks. my father was shot six times with a pistol and once in the back with a shotgun. niles county made efforts to cover up the process so it wouldn't appear to be a lynching. i wrote a book detailing about it, and i titled it "the penalty: my father was lynched in niles county." my family established a foundation in my father's memory to keep his legacy of being an entrepreneur agoing. now we move forward to the 1960s. nick had been operating a black government since 1962. on march 7, 1965, john lewis, the chairman, led an infamous

march. the march finally reached montgomery on march 21. he was murdered transporting marches from montgomery back to salem. carmichael came back to niles county the day after his death and was joined by bob met and others in april. smic set up a black independent party. as they began to register black voters, white landowners evicted 75 families. to keep evictees from leaving the county, snik resurrected tent city. some residents of tent city lived there for more than 2 1/2 years. still today there is nothing on the landscape to show the snic or the community foot soldiers

were even there. >> jo, thank you very much. very powerful presentation, very personal history. gina, we're going to go to you next, please. take it away. >> thank you, al. and, jo, i want to say thank you for sharing your story there. it's those kinds of stories, those oral histories, that really make this relevant and real for us. to tell these stories brings forward the cultural outreach that's so necessary for us to have and connect with. in fact, that's part of the mission of the national parks service, to preserve and protect the natural and historical, but also the cultural values of

places like lans county in the summary to the montgomery trail. that actually was the underpinning of the commemoration that we had for the 19th amendment this year, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment that granted suffrage for women in through the constitution. we also, though, in our commemoration wanted to keep in mind two things. that the national parks service must communicate to all that not all women achieved a right to vote with the passage of the 19th amendment. and, second, that the struggle was very much defined by class and race and religion. those are the things that we wanted to make sure that we put

forward in any commemorative events that we did. so we kept the first point in mind, that not all were to get the right to vote because of the passage of the 19th amendment. because history is not pretty. it's not clean. it's not clearcut. when we try to tell it, the stories we must compel them in all their complexity. i want everyone to think for a moment. in your school days, when you were learning about it is women's suffrage movement, think about the movements that were used to tell the stories. you may recall some memories of elizabeth katie stanton and susan b. anthony looking over some papers to push forward for the suffrage rights. the silent sentinels who were standing out in front of the white house in lincoln park.

significant even today in protest. but they were there petitioning against woodrow wilson. or the women who were jailed during these movements. when you think of those images, do you see black women present in those images? more often than not, you don't, because those images were refle reflective of how they were told, who was in charge of those stories. the black women who were, as hard as anyone else, working toward suffrage, who were always there, were not being able to be represented in a full way. they were often marginalized and their stories were marginalized. but now this body knows very well after the conference we went through in the last month

the stories of ida b. welles barnett and mary church terrill, and my favorite margaret walker. perhaps we can use her as an example to open up these stories that we were telling in the commemoration this year. that intersection of race and gender is very critical to talk about when we're talking about suffrage, that the move for suffrage involved civil rights as well as political rights. the second point we wanted to make sure we got across was that the struggle, which continued for decades, after the 1920 amendment was passed, it was guided by class and race and religion, as i mentioned.

the right to vote, as you mentioned, josephine, was restricted by white women and black men as well for others outside of that. it was just a question of whether you were a citizen or not. these were part of the stories that the park service wanted to make sure we told in our commemoration this year. we also knew that we had to use a variety of means for getting those stories across. you can still go to nps.gov and see the website about the 19th amendment and women's history. you'll be pleasantly surprised, i'm sure, about the variety of people who were represented on that page. and then using a program. our programming we were sort of planning as an agency two years

before the event itself, and, of course, when coronavirus comes in, we have to pivot, pivot, pivot. but that, i think, made our programming even more relevant, because we were going to a lot of the virtual platforms. so the things that we were doing that might have just reached a group of people right there at these individual communities were put on virtual platforms and had a wider reach, and you can still pull them up and see those events today. i'm thinking particularly of the one that was done by women's rights where they were -- had an equality day and invited descendants of those pioneering suffragists and people fighting for suffrage, including descendants of elizabeth katie stanton and frederick douglas and magdalena walker. it's these types of programs that we were able to experiment with and still have something

very effective today. and, finally, we also made a point to create partnerships, reach out to other organizations. we realize we are not completely all alone, the only expert, the last word, the final check of what was happening. we need to work with other groups, other museums, other organizations to bring out these stories that we wanted to make sure were told. and that also involved making sure it was an interventinovati approach, tapping into the energy of young professionals who had new ideas and fresh ways of reaching a larger audience. at the same time reaching back to get those oral histories and presentations brought in to make the connections so that we were reaching a wide group of people.

with this year's commemoration, which doesn't end -- didn't end in august and will not end, the struggle continues and the stories must continue. we want to bring out the stories that were always there to put a different lens on the stories that had been told, to bring a better focus to what happened before so that we can see what happened in the past a little better, so that we can see better going forward. >> ajena, thank you for that. it's a great segue. it's almost like we planned it. i'll hand it over to yvette coleman now. yvette, please share your thoughts.

>> thank you so much, alan, and jo and ajena, thank you so much for everything you just said. when i -- when we had our preview meeting, i made sure to tell both of you that i was very thankful to be on this panel with you. it's kind of like alan was just like, hmm, let me figure out and just make this recipe that was just absolutely beautiful, but to hear you guys speak today, ajena, i've heard you several times coming from the park service -- sorry, it's like i've been out of park service for a year and a half, and all of a sudden i can't even say what it is. but just coming from the park service, i've heard you speak about the maggie walker site, and it's just always so exhilera exhilerating, and jo, thank you so much for sharing your family's history. to me, as a museum professional,

and also historian, the thing that always attacks at my soul was just being able to hear oral histories, right? but also being able to hear it from the family. i feel that that's something that's very, very unique to what we had in our field as african-americans. you know, we really do make sure to reach out to the community to get those stories, and it's -- thank you, thank you. i'm just overwhelmed, so that was totally off script, but thank you both and thank you all. thank you for having me here today at a asolis conference. i feel like i'm back home here at asolis, so thank you for having me. i'm vedet coleman robinson and

i'm executive director for association of african-american museums. i was stumbling because, oh, yeah, park service, i used to be there. i was at park service for 11 years as a grant management specialist for hbcu grants and also the african-american civil rights grants and underrepresented communities grants. so i'm sure a lot of you out there outside of this little box that i'm in had, in some way, shape or form, had had some connections with me through asolis, just having those conversations, and now being in this position, i am always reaching back out to make sure that all my folks are still doing well. the association of african-american museums has been around for 42 years now, and we are the organization that

protects african-american history and african-american culture, not only in the united states but also nationally. the thing i always love saying about aaam members, when we collect, we do it legally and we also do it respectfully. the reason i say legally is because nobody has knocked on any of our doors and said, hey, man, you stole that from us, can you make sure you give it back? everything is legal. there is always a document that's being signed, and we are, like i said to jo earlier, we really just make sure that we are in the community. a majority of our museums are formed in the community and are of the community. so what does that mean? that when we are doing our collecting, when we're collecting oral histories, all of that is in the communities in which we serve. the other thing that's really important about that is sometimes you can have a

building, you can have a museum that's in a community and those folks don't come out. we don't have those problems. our folks do come out because they see themselves in our museums. and then, as a matter of fact, something i can share with you as an example, in memphis there was a protest right after george floyd was murdered. there was a protest. this protest started at city hall and it ended at the national civil rights museum. to me that speaks volumes, because those protesters could have chosen anywhere to end their journey, but they decided to end at the national civil rights museum. that's happening all over the country in washingt washington,

americans were gathering and going to the smithsonian museum in a costume. this is just happening all over the country, and to me, it's heartwarming, right, that folks who are out doing the work, trying to make sure that our liberties and trying to make sure we still have some equality that we're still reaching for after all of these years see fit to come to our museums and use them as beacons of hope. something else, just like ajena mentioned, we make sure to work through partnerships. we know we can't do this work alone. nobody can do work alone. i guess you could, but, you

know, the more the merrier, and the more you can get done if you're working in groups, right? just like this panel. i'm sure you guys would love to hear from me for hon hour, but aft after an hour, you're going to get tired of my voice. i say that to say groups are important to park service as well as aaam as well as asolis. we partner with the maggie walker center, we partner with the fort monroe authority and the fort monroe site, also the charles young museum -- i mean, site. it's a museum to me. once they come to aaam, they turn into museums. also we've partnered with waso, that's the washington, d.c. office, and this is all just making sure park service, as

they need help figuring out how to do things and how to expand their reach. we make sure we're doing that correctly with our museums. so ajena knows that very well because i've tapped her on the shoulder a few times saying, ajena, i have this idea for maggie walker, are you tired of my ideas? she shook her head no, and i'm thankful for it, because we have to do this work together. as i think about the 19th amendment and how our museums interpret and protect that history, you know, we don't really have the problem in aaam museums preserving the history of the untold. so something that's important to us is you will always see suffrage -- the suffrage movement of african-american women in our museums. it's just a matter of making

sure that folks understand it, right, and are coming to our museums to get that information. you know, something that we also work to do with our museums is there is inner museum exchanges and folks are always doing a lot of virtual things now. so we've had to pivot just as asola had to pivot. aaam did our whole conference in august virtually. and our museums are doing programming virtually. so this is really just the time for us to partner and to make sure that we are doing right by our ancestors. i think that it is very telling that our panel is right after the presidential election. yay, us! so we get to talk about all the things that, you know, should have happened, could have

happened, and i'm not going to lea lead that charge, i'm going to let alan do it, but we are the folks who can basically be the change that we want to see, and i'm thankful for that. >> vedet, thank you all for your introductions. i want to get into some questions right now and just remind folks that if you are listening to this presentation, if you have any questions submit those in the chat function and we will get to those as we're able. jo, i wanted to go back to you. one of the things i've learned in becoming more and more familiar with the african-american experience and racial violence in this country is oftentimes lynching and racial violence are thought to be random things, just someone was in the wrong place at the wrong time and something was done to this person.

what your father's murder reminds us all of or should remind us all of is that in many instances, most instances, violence that was frequented upon african-americans was not random, it was actually meant to attack and target the people who were the most successful because there were people in white communities who didn't like symbols of success like your father. how does that play into the story of your father, elmore, and the book that you wrote, which has been put on the screen for all to see, "the penalty for success: my father was lynched in niles county, alabama"? >> it makes us aware that these things are still happening. in fact, when the lynchings occurred in niles county, whites did not even try to hide their

faces or make people not know who they were. many times they were being led by a sheriff and other officials, so it just appears that the same kind of thing was going on right now, and i don't want people to think this is something that happened in the past, because it's still going on. >> and we had the funeral service for john lewis several weeks ago, and we lost a great man in that one of the things -- one of the comments that was shared by former president bill clinton was kind of an off the cuff remark about stokely carmichael and about the student nonviolating coordinant committee maybe going in the wrong direction. you had mentioned stokely in

alabama, and it was a different kind of organizing that you got from other civil rights organizers who were working in alabama or elsewhere at that time and something very different from the nonviolent philosophy that was being espoused by martin luther king. can you spoke to that? >> yes. the kind of nonviolence that was spoken of and worked through with dr. king could not, would not have worked in niles county. these people had to know that once you strike us, we are going to strike back. so stokely actually started with black power, and he said he didn't want people to think that he was thinking black power as the whites had white power, he was thinking in terms of the masses being able to get

together and use their numbers as strength. that's what he thought was black power. in dr. jeffrey's book, you will see a lady sitting down with a shotgun. because these people were in these pits, and at night people would just shoot them in tents until they found out they were actually going to protect themselves and shoot back. so the kind of nonviolence and the hate that was being perpetuated by scls would not have solved anything in niles county. >> and niles county played a particular role in the voting rights struggle, because you've got selma to the west, montgomery to the east, lyons county became the county where

if you were a snic, you didn't want to be out after dark. lyons county became a place you could seek shelter in the community. can you tell a little about that, the role that lans county played in voting rights and others? >> there were several who owned their own farms, and they could afford to participate in civil rights actively without having a lot of repercussion. they lost businesses and all of that, but because they all owned homes, they could help out in the movement more. there was a man named john jackson who owned property, and he knew that if these young men kept moving, they were going to get killed. he let these snic workers live in their house. it is called the freedom house now, and it is still standing.

that was one of the way that the lowndes county people helped to protect the snic workers coming in. >> we just saw up on the screen the cover for dr. jeffrey's book and the sort of sandwich board that the organizer was wearing with the picture of the black panther. thank you for bringing that back up again. "move on over or we'll move on over you." that is a little bit of a different sentiment than "we shall overcome." it's unfortunate that this portion of history is a little less well known than other elements, but also the interesting story is these folks in lowndes county, they are the black panthers. because after their organization was formed and this symbol as their political symbol, they got a call from some of the bay area men in san francisco or in

oakland asking if they could adopt that symbol for their use in something they were going to call the black party. we'll have everyone back at some point in time to talk about that history. ajena, i want to go to you, please. we're talking about the 19th amendment, women's suffrage, and wanted to get your thoughts on a women's suffrage march that took place in washington, d.c. on pennsylvania avenue in march of 1913. and it was a march, really, to press for the ratification of the right for women to vote, but it was a segregated march. so what role did african-american women play, or what role were they forced to play in that event? >> yeah, so the march was organized by a young organizer at the time, alice ball, who had witnessed the suffrage movement in england, which was much more

in your face and radical than it was over here in the united states, so she was all geared up to make sure that the women would come from all over the country to gather in washington, d.c. to gather for this march. and there was a delegation from where ida b. welles lived, and she came along, and she was all prepared to march with them, but washington, d.c. is in a southern part of the country, and so the organizers approached and said to the black women who were going to be part of it, including mary church terrill and the newly formed delta sigma theta sorority that they would not be able to walk alongside, that they would have to march in the back behind the parade, and it was a segregated

parade, so they would not offend those legislators, those people in washington, d.c. who could not fathom having an interracial march. because jim crow was still very much in force. so ida b. welles was not -- didn't go with that. she was not going to be marching towards the back. she didn't join the march when the delegation of her state moved out at first, but when they came by, she slipped on in and marched right along with them. and mary church terrill took another route of compliance. they did march in the back of the parade. but what that story shows, and i hope it shows to all of us, that there are individual and

different approaches to segregation and issue. we're not a monolith when we react. josephine, you were talking about snic and sclc. different approaches to try to reach the same goal. sometimes we have to look at how it is and how to work with those things together, not to condemn one way and uplift another way just because you have to take in the full context to understand what was happening. these stories will help us see that when we're in our own situation today, it's all right to take different approaches depending on what's happening at the time. >> thank you for that. i wanted to follow up with another question. first, could you give us just a

good 27 1/2 seconds on who magdalena walker was? also i noted she was the first african-american woman registered to vote after the 19th amendment was ratified. i think it was december 14, 1920, if i've got the date correct. tell us a little bit about who magdalena walker was, and then also, is there any correspondence, anything in her personal papers? clearly this was a big deal for her, but is there anything she wrote or said that really gives us some insight into how she felt? clearly she thought this was important, but what was she really thinking? what was in her heart as well as on her mind? >> well, just a thumbnail sketch of maggie walker. she was born in 1864 in richmond, virginia and grew up in the time as reconstruction was ending. she saw the 15th amendment being passed when she was just a little girl, so she knew what

the rights were. but she also was coming up as a young woman during the time that jim crow was settling in, that rights to vote were being stripped away from black men. and women like her, who were from black men, and women like her had limited opportunities. when she got the opportunity to be the leader of an organization called the independent order of st. luke, she looked at the organization as a way to expand rights and opportunities for her community, for people all across the way, so she was a very powerful leader, community leader and civil rights activist through the independent order of st. luke, and becomes nationally known for starting a bank in 1903. she used the newspapers to speak out against civil rights -- excuse me, speak out for civil rights and against jim crow

segregation and injustice. with this she was also a member of national organizations, such as the national association of colored women, which had formed to have a platform to speak out against lynching, to speak out for suffrage, to speak out for civil rights for women, and they were also involved in trying to make sure that the right to vote was -- when you had rights granted to black men through the 15th amendment stripped away, maggie walker and members of the nacw knew they had to use their platform the best they could to try and get rights back, returned. so she starts out and by 1920

she is very much advocating for women suffrage. as soon as she could after the passage of the 19th amendment she went right down to city hall and registered to vote. she was also a woman who had lifted herself up to be quite privileged, so she has a nice home as a bank president, as the leader of the order of st. luke, yet she did not forget those who had less, those who did not have what she had and would use her position to help educate and enroll black women to register to vote. that was the challenge, though. remember, we're in the south, in richmond, virginia, so the registration for women was segregated, and you had more

registrars working to register white women than for the black women, and she was out there saying let me do it, and they didn't let her do that, but through the course of three days despite all the obstacles they had facing them, ms. walker was able to get 350 black women to vote. they continued to get people prepared for the literacy test, to help them pay the poll taxes. she would continue those through -- until she passes away in 1934 right at the beginning of the modern civil rights movement. showing there's a reason -- even if you are not going to see the benefits of it for yourself, it

is important to lay the ground work for the next generation to keep on building on it. >> ajena, thank you for that. there's a slogan on the website that reads hands that pick cotton can pick our presidents. that's a pretty powerful slogan. can you please share more about how that museum or other museums in the aaam universe fatackle t issue of voting rights. >> i would have to to say first, for all my sorority sisters out there, i know this is a time we are just beaming. back to the question, yeah, i

can definitely answer that. all of our museums for the most part -- i should not say for the most part, all of our museums are convening to start really a revolution. it's a quiet revolution but it is a revolution of voting rights. basically making sure that people are registered to vote, making sure that in the community they are getting out in the communities to which they serve to make sure people understand the gravity of what it is to not vote and to vote. so what i am learning is a lot of our museums are trying to address a generation of folks who kind of don't understand how important it is to vote, because they don't see the person they want on a ticket, they are just,

like, nobody moves me so i don't want to vote, and i told you all before that, one phone is connected to every device in my house since we started -- since we started having to, you know, social distance. but one of my members has told me that folks are so woke that they are asleep. that's what everybody is combating, trying to just wake up, like in spike lee's movie, school days, where at the end it's like wake up, and it's important that people understand really what is going to happen if we don't vote. what it looks like when we don't go out and vote. the trends of what has happened

in the past, the trends of why it's important for black people to get out and vote. people have lost their lives to vote, right? the thing that always sticks with me is just thinking about how long african-americans -- i always heard stories growing up about how my great grandparents had to walk five country miles or 15,000 country miles to get to a polling place, and it's real. i mean, when i visited, i was like, you guys are right, this is the country. but it's serious. there are people who died. there are people whose blood, sweat and tears went into making sure we could vote, and we just can't sit back. it's not a time for us to be quiet. it's not a time for us to sit back and allow things to happen to us. we have to be the change that we want to see. i feel like we have enough

members who have actually done the work, right, and are still here and can tell us about what it was like just trying to make sure that people could vote. joe told us a whole story about her dad and making sure that in his county folks could vote. this happened all over the country, and it doesn't matter where you are. i think it's so funny that people think the same problems were not happening in the north. i am from jersey, so i can tell you that these things were happening, right? so in summary, allen, because i know you will throw another question at me, and just to summarize, i can say that our museums are out in the communities even when it's not something that we are supposed to be doing because of covid. now, we are doing it safely but

we have to be out in the face of folks and just letting them know that it's important. like i said, it's just not a time for us to be quiet and not do. we have to act. >> to follow-up on that, i wanted to ask you, what are some of the best examples you have from some of the museums in your association about the way that they are interpreting the voting rights story? we have oral history, video interpretation, other things like that. what are some of the more innovative practices you are seeing coming out of museums, protecting and observing this history? >> definitely, as you said oral histories and exhibits and exhibit designs, and so in the day of covid everything has to be virtual. we have a bunch of museums

putting artifacts on their website, and having robots in their museums to just show, you know, certain parts of their exhibit, having dough supbs that would read the exhibit, and they are actually doing it for folks that just want to be able to visit their museums while they are temporarily closed. these museums -- actually a lot of our museums are slowly opening and doing it responsibly based on the guidelines of their city and or their state for covid. i think what ajena did, she used a robot, right, and that's something our museums did as well, and ajena, you don't know but people will start calling

you and ask you how you got that robot because i used them all the time, it spoke to me, and now we see that we need to be a little more nimble, right? we have to think of creative ways to get in peoples' faces. a lot of folks are also making sure their facebook pages are way more pronounced, their social media presence is way more pronounced than it has been in the past. that's something else that is happening as well. >> okay -- >> i am so sorry. with the public programming, you can go to any of the museums' websites, and there's a program that will talk about voting rights, and then it will say to vote and very aggressively, so -- >> if i can add to what you just said, vedet, about the

programming and the turn that we have done. with the google street news we use, that was a program we did a long time ago, a few years back. it was several -- about 14 different sites within the park service that google approached to do these different tours, but it was on our website. people would go to it and go on their own. with having to be creative and innovative, we started using that with ranger-guided tours showing that we can have a ranger on a zoom call, a team call and take people to the site. what is cool, though, technology has advanced even further, because when you look in the mirrors at maggie walker's house, sometimes when you go into the google tour you can see the machinery reflected in the mirrors, and it was so humongous

and we could not take it upstairs to do the upper floors. so technology now is such that you can take a cell phone and record or an ipod and record those tours. that's another option. it is a way to get our stories told beyond the walls of the museum itself. it's been incredibly -- an incredible tool. >> absolutely. i can say that when i was speaking to a few of my museums when covid first hit, we were just trying to figure out what is next, what can we do and what can we do quickly. a lot of museums were temporarily closing, and i have to say that, and i would say, our museums are closed, and i would say, temporarily, and folks are -- professionals were

picking up cell phones and taking pictures of a piece of the collection, and just pushing it out on social media. ajena, you are correct, that machine is huge. again, just being nimble. you can't take it up the stairs and it can't get on a lift and go to the second floor, and it was not designed for that, and i don't think rosie robot was designed for that. just to be able to live in 2020, as crazy as 2020 is, we were able to just shift. i mean, if this was 1990 or in the early 2000s with the dial-up, so as crazy as 2020 is

i am thankful for the technology we have so we can keep moving and keep making sure that we are in the communities in which we serve. >> i am going to go now to questions we are picking up from our viewers. i want to start with one from betty picket. it looks like she writes, nelly kwander wrote a letter stating the college women should be allowed to walk with white women in the parade. black suffragist were allowed to walk with white suffragists. thoughts on that? more of a statement than a question. >> i did notice in the chat, and see, i am learning as well because when you go to some of the -- some of the documentaries that are out now, the way the story is told is that it was

completely segregated. when you see the pictures of the march, it has the powered university students marching in a group in the back of the parade. so i would love to look even further to see how they were allowed to -- or that part of it, from another perspective. these are the kinds of things we need to have to hear all of the different angles or views so that we can have the fullest picture that we can portray. >> yeah, and so in particular for ida b. wells, she waited on the side for the illinois delegation to walk past and she was warmly welcomed by her white colleagues. >> that is true. >> alice paul was dealing with what i think she felt would be a poor response, especially from

southern elected officials in congress who had the responsibility for ratifying the women suffrage amendment, and that was in her mind in how she responded to the presence of the african-american women in march. >> the choices made in a moment. >> the choice was made in a moment. beatrice jones, a permanent fixture in all aaam museums. do you have black flag vendors to maintain your flag needs over time? that's a question both for vedet and ajena. >> i would need to ask our members. there's a permanent collection and then there's temporary collections. i would need to ask them if it's up, and then also how it's being

preserved and i can get that back to you, but i do not have the answer right now because each collection is specific to our members. >> as for me, well, with the national park service sites we just have our united states flag being part -- and the states flags that we are part of, and so as far as i know those are the only restrictions that we have. >> okay. thank you for that. jo, i want to go back to you, if i might, and we are both a integral part of the people seeking designation of the alabama black heritage area. i want to find out how you are supporting that cause and how you might protect and preserve the history of the voting rights

struggle in louds county. >> we know we need more funds, because our counties are the poorest counties in the nation, and i am particularly interested because as i mentioned, all of the work done in louds county, there's nothing to show for it. people talk about the wilma and montgomery march and they skip over what happened in alabama. with all of the work that was done there with the workshops, teaching people how to run political offices, we need something to recognize them, so with the legislation i am assuming and hopeful it will recognize the work that was done by snit, and i also want to

recognize a school that was built in 1883, and it's still standing. most people have not even heard of it. most people have not heard of mansfield tyler who was a legislature. we will focus attention on an area that has done a lot of work but has not been recognized. >> while we have you, for those audience members who have not been to the county or the borough, can you give us what it looked like now and what it was like, so they can get a sense of what it was like in that area? >> we have brick homes rather

than shacks. people had been kept on plantations, and most of them did not have their own property. most of them had gone from mostly shack houses to some houses now that are brick homes, and there are still people living in mobile homes. they there's still not a lot of running water in some places, and we have environmental problems, sewage problems and things like that, so the county is still in dire need and still one of the poorest counties in the nation. >> even maybe more proof that we need to get back on the voting rights track, and make sure we have the representation necessary. ajena, i want to come to you. so we had a conversation about women suffrage, the passage of

the ratification of the 19th amendment and we had the updating statement from our colleague here, betty picket, rounding out that story, do you think there's been enough of a conversation nationally about women -- the women's suffrage movement and the racial component of that, the racism in the movement, and the properties for alliance across racism and also the incidents and the idea of trying to keep black women in a segregated position for a variety of reasons, has there been enough awareness and if so what are the next steps, and how do we continue to generate and highlight that story? >> well, i don't feel that there has been enough of a conversation though we are making great strides in trying to bring it forward because as i

mentioned there have been several documentaries that have been premiered and in recognition of the centennial one about -- that was put out by tennessee public -- public tv station. what was pleasing to me was they made an effort, a great effort to inagreat the story about what was happening with the white women and the majority suffrage organizations. so we are seeing progress in how the story is being woven together. it is bringing women of other ethnic backgrounds, racial backgrounds, too, into the stories. it is not done. it is not finished, because from

the comment there, there are different ways -- more things to look at, documents to come out, and i was not familiar with the letter that was referred to there that puts another twist on what that pick toerl, the picture showed. we need to have people come forward with these stories so we can make it a richer presentation, and we can get the conversations going. real quick, when i mentioned about the women's rights program, and that will be rebroadcast on october 24th through the public station in new york. very interesting conversation about the legacies. that is that what is really important us to look at those who are descendants.

we essentially are all descendants and benefited from what these things were. we still need to have the conversations. >> we have got a comment from dr. renee torres. i hopefully pronounced that close to right. the letter referenced by nelly from the alpha kappa sorority incorporated written in 1917, and the way to right wrongs was to turn the truth upon them, ida b. wells, so more information related to that. put that in your notebook. coming back to you, vedet, i want to say i see similarities to what you are doing right now with the association of african-american museums and the work that was done in terms of

establishing asala. what is -- what are your priorities for using the museum community to really help highlight african-american history a history and african-american culture and the experience. where are you going from here, and tie that to voting rights and what are you working on to make people more aware, because you all have a moment right now. >> thank you, allen. for us it's really about education, right and much like dr. woodson, and making sure people know their story. as much as as scholars we would love to say, did you read that

book, but people want to do tangible things and go to the museum. some people say i didn't know that until i went to x, y and z museum, and sometimes i am astonished and then other times i think that's what we are here for, we are here to educate. i went to virginia state university, and that's not too far from ajena's site, i never went to the maggie walker site until i was in grad school at howard, and i didn't know they existed. it's really just about making sure that folks are educated and they know that our sites and our museums are places of knowledge and we have a breath of so by as well. usually you will see the wall

tacks and a under there are a bunch of scholars that help put that wall text together, and then under there is reading aids about where the information came from, and it was not just out of somebody's mind, it was something that was researched and folks put in a great deal of work to do it. jo's father's information, if they are not getting the book on the shelf they are commemorating the story, and if they are not, jo, you and i need to have a conversation afterwards to make sure this is done and done correctly. as far as, you know, voting rights are concerned and what we are doing there, we just really make it a point to -- you know, when you go through our museums, you will see artifacts about

what has happened throughout history for voting. what has happened in these communities throughout voting, so something that is really simple -- what's happening right now, right? there are tons of something that we would call just paraphernalia out there, signs going up of who people are supporting and things of that nature, you know, and kamala harris is the first african-american vp. i am not -- i would not be surprised and i am not even going to say it is a surprised, and i know my folks in the museum are running around and saying i need that, i need that, because i will need that -- again, legally, nobody is stealing it off of peoples' lawns, and they are not going around at the end of the night when everybody is asleep just grabbing these signs, but -- i

know they are gathering this information and putting it in their exhibits and in their collections. doing the same thing with all of the protests, whether it's a national protest or something that is happening in their states, they are grabbing that information. these protests, all of the movements that have been happening throughout the year -- it seems like it has been going on for at least ten years with black lives matter, but i know it hasn't. i do know for a fact our race for equality has been going on since -- i feel like we came here, so way over 400 years where we have been struggling to gain equality. i say all of that to say that over 400 years, and i always

make sure to say over because everything did not just happen in virginia. i am not -- i have to say this disclaimer because i don't want anybody to come after me after this, not saying anything to take the research away, but people have to know that african-americans were here before then. and saying that, collections are in the museums and what is happening now is also going to be part of what our museums are doing. again, it's going to be virtual for a little bit, but you are absolutely right. i should say that we have what you guys have. >> we have a question now, and it's a question for jo coming from laura atorly.

i have done one pilgrimage thing in from a murder in 1966. are the people organized with that connected to the black belt effort. what is the potential role of public/private partnerships to get the money to sustain this kind of work beyond anniversaries? my students in history believe the government should lead but the resources are usually not there. jo, do you want to take the first part of that? >> yes, jonathan daniels pilgrimages is sponsored by the mi

mi amiss kau palen church. ami amiss kau >> for just general information, and just have to turn a little bit to look it up, the congresswoman from alabama is our champion in the house of representatives and introduced the alabama black belt designation act. we are hoping for passage of that bill this year. if circumstances lead us to have to reproduce and restart the effort we will be up again in 2021, so please stay tuned. if you have any interest in that -- yes, exactly, you can go right there, congress.gov.

ajena, i want to ask each of you to take a moment and talk to us about what voting rights means to you. we have had a little bit of a history and a little bit about the interpretation and presser investigation of the voting rights struggle, but as a concept when somebody mentions the idea of voting rights, here on 5/19/2020, what do voting rights mean to you? we will start with jo. >> i have a lot of heartache when i think of voting rights, simply because america was supposed to be founded on the

gospel, and it seems like that would be according to everyone, and there would not be efforts to suppress anybody from voting, yet everywhere we go the efforts exist. the other thing that concerns me is that -- then i want to refer back to hroudz county for a minute, and then tent city, where that was located, that building has one little room recognizing tent city but it does not have any of the names of the people or coordinators or the people who lived in tent city, none of those people were recognized, therefore that history is not being taught to our children. they need to know what they went through there to get the

privilege to vote. that's a big concern of mine. i think every black should be making his or her way to the polls every time the polling station opens for any election. we always should have some interests in what is going on, so those are my concerns that we have history that's not being recorded and nothing tangible that our children can see to recognize what happened. the other thing is when will the people in america decide to honor its commitment to the principles upon which it was founded? >> following up on that, a comment from dr. laurena from martha's vineyard, massachusetts. we need to keep educating in all schools, so following that up on

your point. ajena, your thoughts? what do voting rights mean to you? >> voting rights to me means so much because of our own family history included. when i was just five years old, my big cousin, steve, started telling me you need to vote, you need to make sure when you grow up, vote, and you might think that might have been lost on a little kid but it wasn't. i brought my son with me when he was about six to the polls, and now my son is running for city council here in richmond. he drew a picture of us going to the polls when he was just in fourth grade. as i have also studied to create programs with the park service, i started delving into my

ancestors history, and found out one of my ancestors was killed because they were trying to suppress the vote in the area of newport, so i know deeply that the power and the right to vote is critical to exercise that. it is so important for us to exercise that right to vote, to make sure that we can change things. maggie walker was saying things economically will not change unless women got the right to vote. that's in one of her speeches from 1912. it was identified way back then, and identified as soon as the right was granted constitutionally. we cannot sit down and sit back. it's too important.

>> thank you. vedet, voting rights, what does it mean to you? >> such a loaded question. but i just have one word. it's mandatory, right? much like ajena, when i was little, much like your mom she said we're going to vote, and i don't care who you vote for but you are going to vote. all my life she told me what to do but this time she couldn't tell me who will to vote for. what she was showing me was your right to vote is your personal decision, but you have to vote. then we went to the polls as san as i turned 18 and i was able to do it, and we stood in line and the lines are not as long as they are now but we stood in line and i casted my vote and

the rest is history. you know, i make it a point to tell everybody who can listen that it's mandatory, people literally died for us to have this right. people are still dying for us to have this right. it might not look like that, it might not look like folks are dying because of, you know, not being -- because of voters' rights, but that's really to me what it is. if you are locking people up and, you know, giving them the death sentence or locking people up and taking away their rights to vote, you know, it's just mandatory. i kind of -- you know, i also teach part time and i make sure to tell my students, hey, you have to -- this is your right, this is your right, please, you

know, it's one of those things, like, you know, you have a right and then you abuse it or you have a right and you don't use it. abuse this one. please. please. on the good side, right? just abuse it. go to the polls and don't abuse people but abuse the right to vote. we need that. again, it's just mandatory. just one word. i know i put a whole bunch of words after that, but, allen wants a good panel so i will try and make sure to give you guys and allen what he wants so i can be invited back. >> well, all of you came under your word count and we are in under our time count as well, so thank you for that. one of the things that the voting rights issue strikes in me is this notion that history is actually going on today. maybe this summer, maybe this odd year that we are going through with the racial reckoning that we have got with

black lives matter, it's making it abundantly clear that history is not something that was in 1893 or so it was about five minutes ago and being here in washington, d.c. and the nation's capital and the things we have seen the last couple of months since the murder of george floyd has made us abundantly aware of the fact that as we continue to protect the historical resources, that it's not all about the civil war and it didn't stop in 1878, so we are looking to continuing to be good partners in that regard with our community partners and museum partners and with our friends and colleagues and peers in the association of the african-american life and history. i want to thank -- now that the

conference is over she might be able to get sleep, and this is a woman who has been answering e-mails at 3:30 in the morning and 4:30 in the afternoon, and just be aggregate stewart and partner. and sylvia silas, thank you. of course, the great president of the association, dr. evelyn brooks who continues to do great service in the promotion and protection of the african-american experience. please look us up at npca, and make sure you get the right npca when you are looking us up. i will turn it back over to you,

and thank you to jo, vedet and ajena. tonight we look into pandemics and diseases. the 1918 flu pandemic altered american life in ways those familiar in the 2020 pandemic. the history of the southern methodist university in dallas recounts how the country recounts the events of a century ago. that's at 8:00 tonight eastern. >> american history tv on c-span 3, exploring people and events that tell the american story. coming up on saturday at 2:00 p.m. eastern, best-selling authors kathleen rooney and

miles harvey talk about their fiction and nonfiction wurg. and author and former gettysburg national military park historian talks about his research on the history of antifa. and then henry kissinger and the key foreign policy initiatives. on sunday at 2:00 p.m. senator, former senator talks about the cold war 75 years later, and watch american history tv this weekend on c-span 3. author brandon hereford discusses his work with a panel of scholars. through his position as the president of mechanics and farmer's bank