Thoughts on Hometown History

Last  month, I went home to Texas for my mother's 50th birthday weekend. I had some downtime that Sunday morning while she was at church, and I took the opportunity to enjoy the balmy weather and my cute rental car to drive around and finally check out some of the historical markers around town.  Click here for some photos of the architecture and historical markers around Main Street. The markers themselves are an interesting study in public history. I can't help but to think about the messages they are sending about the key individuals and events in Texas history. I know that markers like these cannot possible give a comprehensive history of any given place, but I am always concerned about the things that are obscured in public memory. Taken as a whole, it's quite clear that there is a particular narrative these plaques intend to convey, and I wonder what that narrative means for future retellings of Texas history, especially given the disturbing trends in our public schools.

I grew up in Nacogdoches, the "Oldest Town in Texas." I've always thought that it was some odd twist of fate that a child as enamored with history as I would land in a town so blatantly obsessed with its origins. I suppose my interest was bolstered when I realized how the narrative reflected in the monuments and museums we visited on school field trips was meant to convey certain messages about Texas history. The stories we learned about Sam Houston, Antonio Gil Y'Barbo, and Thomas J. Rusk taught us that Texans were steadfast, brave, and industrious. We fought against tyranny and established thriving communities amidst great adversity. These characterizations were sort of a microcosm of the sanitized Founding Fathers narrative taught in US History classes. 

Statue of Antonio Gil Y'Barbo in Downtown Nacogdoches

Marker Near the Visitors' Center Commemorating the Battle of Nacogdoches

Just as our nation as a whole still struggles with memories of genocide, slavery, and discrimination in our historical narratives, so does Nacogdoches. Growing up, I noticed how teachers and docents stumbled around the presence of Native Americans in East Texas. I noticed how they awkwardly acknowledged that the Caddo had a significant village in/near Nacogdoches generations before Spain established a mission there in 1716 without really answering why that village ceased to exist. As my hometown has worked to preserve its narrative, it becomes clear how certain monuments, such as the Old Stone Fort, are meticulously cared for while others, such as EJ Campbell School, are barely standing. In little tourist-y towns like this, the past and the present sometimes stand uncomfortably close: My middle school was located on Mound Street, where ancient Native American burial mounds sit right next to beautiful old houses and shops. 

 
At some point in my career, I'm going to return home and do some serious research on East Texas African American history. I want to get involved with the African American Heritage Project of Nacogdoches if it's still in existence after I finish my dissertation. But for now, whenever I'm home, I'm going to try to explore a different part of Nacogdoches, especially now that I'm noticing that many lesser-known landmarks are falling into disrepair.

Some Thoughts on Race & Levels of Power (Or, Virginia's State Capitol Creeped Me Out)

I've been in Richmond since Monday conducting research at the Library of Virginia on Janie Porter Barrett and other Black social reformers in the early 1900s. It's been a productive trip. It's more evident than ever that despite their elitism, Barrett and her peers really did care about the well-being of Black children and families in the state. I'm going to have to wrestle some more with my conflicting feelings about social uplift and the problematic divisions between Black elites and poor Blacks, but it's still inspiring to see what these people accomplished. 

After steeping myself in old ledgers, correspondence, and meeting notes relating to Black reform work in Virginia for a few days, I felt an odd discomfort when I visited the state capitol this afternoon. It was psychologically jarring to suddenly find myself surrounded by monuments to white manhood. This in itself is nothing new - most government buildings and monuments are primarily celebrations of the accomplishments of white men. But of all the capitols I've visited, I've never been as bothered as I was today by these types of spaces. The Black Virginians and white women I spent all week researching were completely absent, even though they worked closely with governors and legislators on many advancements in this state. To top everything off, I found this painting (link here) entitled "First Legislature in the New World" hanging on a wall near the rotunda. (Complete disregard of the Native American legal systems in place thousands of years before the men in this painting were born.) It gave me the creeps. Something about being surrounded by paintings and effigies of slaveholders just didn't sit right with me today.

So now I'm thinking about different levels of power and the racialized and gendered ways that we celebrate power in the US. The people in my research have power on the ground - they work closely with communities, local committees, churches, schools, and such. The men memorialized at the state capitol have power in the political and economic systems above the ground. As a historian, I want to join the ranks of other scholars who call attention to the important ground-level work that is, in my opinion, more representative of American social ideals than what we see in state capitols and other historical monuments. As a nation, we have to idolize politicians less and community activists more. Imagine how revolutionary it would be if we glamorized the people who ran our local Boys & Girls Club or homeless shelter just as much as we do our high-level politicians. After all, those are the types of people who have the most direct effect on our children and needy. But we deem the power dynamics developed in those areas inferior because they tend to favor people of color, the poor, and women.

Sidenote: I need to read theory more closely. I know Gramsci, Foucault, and a whole host of other folks have written countless pages on power and space and memory. Perhaps it's best that I digest theory in spurts: I learn something new each time I dig in.

I wish I was enough of a poet to articulate the eerie feeling I experienced today. Maybe I just shouldn't have gone straight from the archive to the capitol. Maybe the spirits of those men really didn't want my Black female self in their pretty clubhouse. That's alright though. I marched around that building free, literate, proud, everything they didn't want me to be. I hope they rolled over in their graves.

Addendum: In case someone messages me with this asinine question that I'm tired of answering - No, I do not hate white people or men. I hate racism & sexism. Two different things, people. 

Mellon-Heads: My 1st SSRC-MMUF Summer Conference

This past week, I attended my first SSRC-MMUF Graduate Student Summer Conference. As with all things Mellon, it was a wonderful experience. This year's theme was "The Creative Potential of the Mellon Mays Network," which held particular relevance given the often apocalyptic atmosphere surrounding the future of academia. Now that I have my first year of graduate school under my belt, I can truly appreciate the significance of events like this. I fnd it refreshing to come together with other young students of color, to listen to their stories, to watch them become animated when they discuss their research interests. And of course, it's always good to party a little bit. :-)

Panel Discussing "The Creative Potential of the Mellon Mays Network"

I gave my first paper presentation at this year's conference as well. I felt a little behind, given that several students in my cohort at my home institution have presented at conferences already. But since I've started my project from scratch this past year, I suppose I'm not doing so badly. My presentation went well. I received some great feedback from a few professors, and no one in the audience appeared too bored.


Me Giving My Presentation

 I am ever grateful for the opportunity to participate in such a great program. Being a Mellon Mays Undergradaute Fellow in undergrad saved my academic life. Before becoming a Fellow, I didn't know what grad school entailed, or that I could make a living off of my love for history. It saddens me that so many people question the use and need for these programs. Racial and ethnic minorities are grossly underrepresented at universities, both in the States and abroad. (See here and here.) Though I certainly have reservations about how universities handle diversity issues, attempts to do away with scholarships and programs aimed at pulling more students of color into these institutions are quite harmful. Frankly, anyone who argues that affirmative action isn't needed anymore is painfully ignorant at best and maliciously oppressive at the worst. However, I'll save that rant for another post.

All in all, I'm glad that the MMUF program exists, and I'm committed to remaining an active part of the Mellon family throughout my career. In the solitude of graduate school, it's easy to forget that so many of us are struggling through the same things. I love my department, but I must confess that it's tiring to be one of the few brown faces around the place. Navigating the space between my rural East Texas upbringing and the cosmopolitan scholarly life I hope to live would be much more difficult if not for the resources that the MMUF program provides. It's more than fellowship money. It's the reassurance I feel when I see young professors of color who are pursuing this path with their spirits intact. It's the comraderie I feel when I have lunch with other students who can relate to the same insecurities and frustrations that come with graduate school. The mission of the MMUF program reminds me that I'm doing something worthy. Even if people think that I'm "just" reading books or that the research I do doesn't matter, I know that there are young people out there who desperately need to see teachers, scholars, and activists who look like them and can relate to them. And that's why I'm doing this. (Well, that and the fact that I'd go crazy if I had to work a 9-to-5 forever. My previous job was great, but I couldn't be an office admin for the rest of my days. Let's be real.) I'm doing this because I see a very real need for poor people and people of color to be represented in academia, in government, in the upper levels of commerce. My way of addressing this need is to learn how to play this game so that hopefully I can change it. (I think I inadvertently stole that line from a rap song...)

I leave you with an image that, to me, captures the essence of the conference. Someone had a copy of Dr. Manning Marable's new Malcolm X volume next to an Amstel at Thursday night's party. Lovely.

Peace,
V