A key part of public program was the viewing of the movie “An Outrage”. See NowComment mash-up document: https://nowcomment.com/documents/90096/combined

Dan perspectives:

As mentioned, mostly military history from the perspective of the Southern army, very little mention about local slave population. Gift shop featured lots of Confederate memorabiliia. There was discussion afterwards among our bus of the important role of the national parks/Park Service in helping shape the historical narrative, e.g. focusing just on “Lost Cause” or diversity of perspectives.

Dan perspectives

We made one stop at the Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History and received two very different presentations/experiences:

1. short film on the history of Sutherlin House, the mansion that now houses the museum. The film glorifies the home’s builder as a genius and pillar of the community character of the home’s owner, but hardly mentions that he was a slave owner and how much of his financial success was based on the (unpaid) work of the enslaved people. City Councilman Wes Bellamy challenged this narrative and he and a few others walked out of the presentation. A few minutes of tenseness ensued (the only experience whatsoever like this on the trip): https://www.facebook.com/beinspired434/videos/2052677264744877/UzpfSTk5NzEwOTk3Mzc5NDI1Mzo5OTc2Njk1MzA0MDQ5NjQ/

But the next presentation on the history of the Civil Rights Movement in Danville, from living participants, was very well received. I was making press phone calls and didn’t catch any of it.

Dan perspectives

The discussion at the Beloved Community Center of Greensboro with civil right leaders Joyce and Nelson Johnson about the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission, was one of the hightpoints of the trip for many participants.

Background from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensboro_massacre

The Greensboro massacre is the term for an event which took place on November 3, 1979, when members of the Communist Workers’ Party and others demonstrated in a “Death to the Klan” march in Greensboro, North Carolina, United States. The CWP, which advocated that Klan members should be “physically beaten and chased out of town”, engaged in a shootout with members of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party.¹ Four members of the Communist Workers’ Party and one other individual were killed, and eleven other demonstrators and a Klansman were wounded. The CWP supported workers’ rights activism among mostly black textile industrial workers in the area….On November 3, 2004, marking the 25th anniversary of the killings, about 700 people marched through Greensboro to city hall, on the original route. That year, private citizens organized a Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission, modeled after commissions in South Africa and elsewhere. The intention was to investigate and hear testimony concerning the events of 1979. The organization failed to secure authority or local sanction when the mayor and most of the City Council voted against endorsing the undertaking. It lacked both subpoena power to compel testimony, and the ability to invoke the punishment of perjury for false testimony. The commission issued a Final Report concluding that, while both sides had contributed to the massacre by engaging in inflammatory rhetoric, the Klan and ANP members intended to inflict injury on protesters, and the police department had colluded with the Klan by allowing anticipated violence to take place. In 2009 the Greensboro City Council passed a resolution expressing regret for the deaths. In 2015 the city unveiled a historical marker to acknowledge the Greensboro Massacre. Three hundred people attended the ceremony. On August 15, 2017, the Greensboro City Council apologized for the massacre.

[[ end Wikipedia]]

The conversation was so gripping that the organizers stayed an hour or more beyond planned departure, not wanting to shut down the conversation.

We then went to the International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro, which features exhibits about the 1960s anti-segragation sit-ins (most famous being the Woolworths lunch counter). That museum struck most as good but not as powerful as the later Birmingham and Montgomery museums. For various logistical reasons we stayed at that museum an hour longer than expected.

The trip itinerary planned 3 hours at the Levine Museum of the New South in Charlotte, but due to the 2 hours late departure from Greensboro we only got about an hour in this museum before its 5pm closing time.

I was busy with press duties and saw almost nothing that day myself.

An unplanned stop on the 2nd-to-last day of our trip.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Pettus_Bridge

….On March 7, 1965, armed police attacked peaceful civil rights demonstrators attempting to march to the state capital of Montgomery in an incident that became known as Bloody Sunday. Because of the design of the bridge, the protesters were unable to see the police officers on the east side of the bridge until after they had reached the top of the bridge in the center. The protesters first saw the police while at the center of the bridge, 100 feet above the Alabama River. Upon seeing them, protester Hosea Williams asked his fellow protester John Lewis if he knew how to swim. Despite the danger ahead, the protesters continued marching.⁴ They were then attacked and beaten by police on the other side.

Televised images of the brutal attack presented Americans and international audiences with horrifying images of marchers left bloodied and severely injured, and roused support for the Selma Voting Rights Movement. Amelia Boynton, who had helped organize the march as well as participating therein, was beaten unconscious. A photograph of her lying on Edmund Pettus Bridge appeared on the front page of newspapers and news magazines around the world.¹² In all, 17 marchers were hospitalized and 50 treated for lesser injuries; the day soon became known as “Bloody Sunday” within the African American community.¹³

Dan perspectives

The King Center was very impressive, starting with the very moving film about MLK’s life and death (the unassuming carriage used to transport his body to his final resting place was a powerful symbol to many). I had to miss almost all of this day too.

The late morning/early afternoon tour of the Sweet Auburn District was a real lesson about the potential for private-public partnerships (in this case, jump-started by the King Family’s partnership with the National Park Service) to preserve communities in the face of gentrification. I found it very inspiring.

Dan Perspective

For me, a critical realization of the past year, reinforced by this trip, is that the ugly hate and violence that we saw in our streets on August 11+12 last year is just a reflection of the generalized racism that is directed again Blacks and people of color in the Souith (and of course in America in general, but arguably less so). Most of the Alt-Right protesters in Charlottesville were from outside, but the rally was organized by people who lived in Charlottesville and attended UVa.

Racial violence is Charlottesville began with the importation of enslaved people (Thomas Jefferson of course was a slave owner whose relationship with Sally Hemmings is extremely problemmatic) and continues on through the Civil War (over half the local population was enslaved as of 1865) and Reconstruction (including John Henry James lynching by 100+ unmasked men who were never prosecuted) and Jim Crow. Our schools were shut down after Brown vs. Board of Education as part of “Massive Resistance”. Local POC make up 80% of stop and frisks by police. Black communities are suffering from gentrification and targeted unqual drug policing and other contemporary maladies. etc. etc.

For many of us, the Pilgrimage through the South showed the continuities and similarities between Charlottesville and other southern cities. We wish it was an outsider phenomenon, but history tells us that that’s not really the case. See these media packet documents:

Some Highlights in Charlottesville Racial History: https://nowcomment.com/documents/106526

Some Highlights in Virginia’s Racial History: https://nowcomment.com/documents/106525

Charlottesville Civil Rights Pilgrimage FAQ: https://nowcomment.com/documents/106527

The Lynching of John Henry James: https://nowcomment.com/documents/106528

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_National_Memorial_for_Peace_and_Justice
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, informally known as the National Lynching Memorial is a national memorial to commemorate the victims of lynching in the United States in order to acknowledge the past of racial terrorism in the search for social justice. Founded by the Equal Justice Initiative, it opened in downtown Montgomery, Alabama on April 26, 2018.