2/8: Reading: Denise Meringolo, Radical Roots : Public History and a Tradition of Social Justice Activism

 Radical Roots: Public History and a Tradition of Social Justice Activism seeks to analyze the history of public history, and specifically argue how it evolved as an effort by activists to push their narrative. Although all histories are political, this book asserts that public history is particularly political. The book focuses in on radical public history, “which we define as public history that is future-focused, committed to the advancement of social justice, and engaged in the creation of a more inclusive material record” (Radical Roots 2). The collection of essays in the book primarily seek to bring public history away from the objective, professional field and back towards its roots of activism.

 

In his essay, Reflections on Black Public History: Past, Present, Future Pero Gaglo Dagbovie explained the state of Black Public History by studying the current state of the field. The lack of development in the field caused Dr. Dagbovie to take interest in it since he seeks to “make the study of history, specifically African American history, relevant to the past and accessible to and digestible by non-academic audiences, especially millennials ... and Gen Y and Z” (Radical Roots 525). Beginning by looking at the past, the author notes that there aren’t Black public historians like other fields. He states that those who would qualify simply referred to themselves as Black or Afro-American historians. This stems from Black history being largely disconnected from academia as a whole for the longest time since White narratives dominated the field and sought to downplay Black people’s role in America. As a result, Black historians worked to uplift their people by highlighting their history to each other. Since they were often not traditional academics, Black historians worked like regular public historians by teaching and creating material for the Black public. Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) created school material for teachers to incorporate into their teaching of Black kids who would have otherwise only received the White, state-approved education. The end of segregation and the reincorporation of Black history into academia led to an unexpected result when it came to Black public history. Many Black historians began to focus on more academic literature and writing. On top of that, the end of segregation meant that these Black-focused public projects now needed to tell a story that appealed to a broader, Whiter, general audience. Dr. Dagbovie, being an academic historian himself, calls upon Black historians to turn back towards public history efforts in order to help bring Black history out of the ivory towers and back to the people it was meant to educate and inspire.

 

I gleamed quite a bit from this essay. I never considered creating academic material for schools as public history. I had always thought of public history as something that came out of a museum or a historical site, or as something that occurred in direct engagement. I was surprised to learn how desegregation caused issues for Black public history. Dagbovie does not argue it was a bad thing, in fact quite the opposite, but it was interesting to see the professionalization of the field pull Black scholars away from public engagement and into the ivory towers. By stepping away from the public, Black history began to be more inaccessible and distant to Black folks today. Dagbovie quotes Elizabeth Clark-Lewis about Black public history to which she says “some time in their careers, most academic historians reach a point where they stop and worry whether anyone outside of a very small circle of scholars and graduate students will ever really care about their articles or publications. However, when you meet a family who has driven miles to visit a museum exhibit for the third time because it has a photo of their great-uncle, you realize that public history really can touch ordinary people’s lives” (Radical Roots 539). Her quote here encapsulates why I have an interest in public history and want to work in the field on some level.

The second article I read was What Happens Next? Institutionalizing Grassroots Success in Selma, Alabama. In this essay, Abigail Gautreau seeks to deconstruct the history of public history be focusing on the history of “a grassroots preservation project that became an institution (the Alabama Black Heritage Council) and that institution’s ongoing role” (Radical Roots 542). The story focuses on the First Baptist (Colored) Church, which was heavily damaged by a tornado. The church represented the history of Black people in the South. Not only had it been a Black congregation since the 1840s, but the church would also evolve into a source of education and public activism for by the 1960s. After the tornado, lifelong member Louretta Wimberly rallied the congregation and got help from the Alabama Historical Commission. What I found most interesting; however, was the long discussion on how preserving historic sites has become much harder as public history became more professional. In addition to funding becoming more difficult to track down as you need to reach out to many different groups, the requirements to become an officially recognized historic site have become more stringent. Due to the difficulties in the traditional fields of historic sites, the author calls for more non-traditional ways to preserve historic sites. These non-traditional preservation methods would also allow these sites to tell narratives that are not acceptable to the dominant narratives, which would normally have to be rewritten for traditional funding.

I never considered that there could be other ways to start funding and finding historic sites. I would have considered those alternatives to be unsafe due to the lack of security they would have when compared to the traditional sources. After hearing about the success of the grassroots movements like Mrs. Gautreau’s, I have reconsidered my position about grassroots efforts. I saw grassroots efforts as something that was meant to attract professional attention in order to receive a permanent source of support. Instead, this essay has convinced me that there could be a more independently owed operation meant to assist these efforts over more traditional avenues.