Racial, cultural history forum held at Mother Emanuel

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – Friday’s forum was titled “Aspiring Toward a Common History” where historians and city leaders sat in Mother Emanuel’s sanctuary and discussed many subjects including historical monuments.

Public historians from across the nation came together to discuss racial and cultural history inside the South’s oldest African Methodist Episcopal church.

“What I do consider myself is a historian who is concerned about public awareness,” Dr. Felice Knight from the International African American Museum said, “and making sure that our various publics are included within the various narratives about the past.”

Friday’s conversation centered on the complexities of racial and cultural history with an emphasis on the meaning of historical monuments.

“This is how the people who put up the monuments interpreted it,” Dr. Adam Domby from Auburn University said. “They gave dedication speeches where they said, ‘This is a monument to overturning Reconstruction.’ Where they celebrated in these speeches the essential nullification of the 15^th Amendment again and again.”

World Heritage USA and the Charleston Forum co-hosted Friday’s panel. They say dialogue about the past is important because it can have a resounding impact on the future.

“If we’re vulnerable enough to tell our own story,” professor emeritus of history at West Point Ty Seidule said, “and we tell the truth and we use facts, we can change the world. We can change the world.”

A second panel followed where Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg and former Birmingham, Alabama Mayor William Bell also discussed racial and cultural history in the South.