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THE LOUISIANA WEEKLY -
YOUR MULTICULTURAL MEDIUM
February 8 - February 14, 2016
Director encouraging visits to the ‘hallowed grounds’ of Black history
African Burial Grounds, an NPS historic site in New York
Photo courtesy NP
Brown v. Board of Education Historic Site in Kansas
Photo courtesy NPS
Robert G. “Bob” Stanton, who
was the first African American
appointed as NPS director, has
been credited with the growth of
the NPS-designated Black history
sites. The number of sites
increased as well as their promi-
nence and care during his four-year
tenure between 1997 and 2001.
Appointed by President Bill
Clinton, Stanton established the
African-American
Experience
Fund for that purpose.
“There are certainly more sites
that need to be recognized,” says
Cyrus. “We work every year to
bring more on board.”
But, for now, the following are
the 25 federally designated his-
toric sites and state locations in
alphabetical order:
African American Civil War
Memorial, DC; African Burial
Ground National Monument, New
York; Booker T. Washington
National Monument, Virginia;
Boston African American National
Historic Site, Massachusetts;
Brown v. Board of Education
National Historic Site, Kansas;
Cane River Creole National
Historical Park and Heritage Area,
Louisiana; Carter G. Woodson
Home National Historic Site, DC;
Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers
National Monument, Ohio; Dayton
Aviation
Heritage
National
Historical Park, Ohio; Frederick
Douglass National Historic Site,
DC; George Washington Carve
National Monument, Missouri
Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritag
Corridor, South Carolina; Harrie
Tubman Underground Railroa
National Monument, Maryland
Little Rock Central High Schoo
National Historic Site, Arizona
Maggie LWalker National Histori
Site, Virginia; Martin Luther Kin
Jr National Historic Site, Georgia
Martin Luther King,Jr. Memorial,
DC; Mary McLeod Bethun
Council House National Histori
Site, DC; Natchez Nationa
Historical Park, Mississippi
National Underground Railroad:
Network To Freedom, Nebraska
New Orleans Jazz Nationa
Historical
Park,
Louisiana
Nicodemus National Historic Site,
Kansas; Port Chicago Nava
Magazine National Memorial,
California; Selma to Montgomery
National Historic Trail, Alabama;
Tuskegee
Airmen
National
Historic Site, Alabama; and
Tuskegee
Institute
National
Historic Site, Alabama.
“Our intent is to engage our com-
munity to certainly seek out hal-
lowed grounds, visit them, support
them, talk about them and share the
history,” Cyrus says. “It’s only when
we talk about this, only when we
identify it that our history is not for-
gotten. Because we have already
lost so much history, we don’t want
to lose anything else.”◊
people to find these sites and do
something to support them and to
increase the profile for them so that
we can continue to show America
and the world that African-
Americans have made significant
contributions and there are places
that we can go that have significant
importance to our history and to
American history.”
Under the Black History Month
theme, “Hallowed Grounds: Sites of
African American Memories,”
Cyrus says ASALH is joining in
support with the National Park
Service (NPS) to encourage people
across the U. S. to visit the approxi-
mately 400 federally designated his-
toric sites in commemoration of the
NPS’s 100th anniversary this year.
“We are a spiritual people. And
there’s no way in many of these
instances that we can tell our story
were it not for how hallowed these
places are,” Cyrus says. “If you look
at Annapolis, Maryland, the place
where African slave ships came in. I
mean that’s holy ground for us. You
have to understand why that should
be important to you, how that speaks
to your soul, how that speaks to who
we are as a people.”
However, Cyrus confirmed that
only 25 of the 400 NPS-designated
sites pertain specifically to Black
history. Within, NPS, these 25 sites
are called the African-American
Experience Fund. There are efforts
to add more, but she said budget
shortfalls have made that difficult.
“The reality is that with the fed-
eral budget being what it is today
that the National Park Service can-
not even maintain the sites that
they have now,” she says. “So, we
know that the reality is we cannot
depend upon the federal govern-
ment to identify and support these
sites. We have got to be able to do
this through our own communities,
through our states; through organi-
zations like ASALH and walking
tours and local history so that peo-
ple know about these sites.”
Many historic sites and artifacts
are privately owned, kept in Black
families, or entrenched in commu-
nities, she points out. They may
include places like a church in a
local community; a place where a
race riot started, or the site of some
local activity that dealt with civil
rights or education.
“We are charging Americans to
look – not just nationally at these
sites - but in your own communi-
ties; to start a dialog about places
of importance that have impacted
African-American
Life
and
History.”
By Hazel Trice Edney
Contributing Writer
(TriceEdneyWire.com)
–
Thousands of priceless relics,
artifacts and Black historic sites
around the U. S. have been
destroyed by accident, negli-
gence or intention.
This is the reason that the
Association for the Study of
African American Life and
History (ASALH) is calling for
African Americans and others to
pay homage to those “Hallowed
Grounds” of Black history during
the entire year of 2016 – beyond
Black History Month.
“There are a number of commu-
nities that have been completely
eradicated off the map due to
urban renewal, etc. There were
places where Black people had
thriving communities; that when
change came they were completely
just annihilated. We need to
remember those sites,” says Sylvia
Cyrus, executive director of
ASALH, the 101-year-old organi-
zation founded by the “Father of
Black History,” Dr. Carter G.
Woodson. “We want to encourage
(Special from HipHop Wired)
MSNBC host and Wake
orest University professor
elissa Harris-Perry narrowly
scaped an attempt on her life
hile covering last week’s Iowa
aucuses. In a recent piece,
arris-Perry retells the close
ncounter with a supposed white
ationalist while attending the
aucuses with her students.
Harris-Perry, who is married to
he former executive director of the
reater New Orleans Fair Housing
ction Center James Perry and
ho lived in New Orleans for sev-
ral years, wrote about the incident
n Tuesday (Feb. 2) via the Anna
ulia Cooper (AJC) Center’s web-
ite, sharing in chilling detail how
n unidentified man rudely ques-
ioned her MSNBC credentials
pparently unaware of who she
as. As the man made an aggres-
ive move, a friend of Harris-
erry’s steps in between the pair
fter the man asks how the profes-
or received her credentials.
From the AJC Center’s website:
I am not sure if it is how he spat
he word credentialed, or if it is how
e took another half step toward me,
r if it is how he didn’t respond to
my question, but the hairs on my
arm stood on end. I ignored it. Told
myself everything was ok.
“Well. It is not exactly a creden-
tial…” I began.
“But why you? Why would they
pick you?”
Now I know something is
wrong. Now his voice is angry.
Now a few other people have
stopped talking and started star-
ing. Now he is so close I can feel
his breath. Before I can answer
his unanswerable question of why
they picked me, he begins to tell
me why he has picked me.
“I just want you to know why I
am doing this.”
Oh – there is a this. He is going
to do a this. To me. And he is going
to tell me why.
Harris-Perry, frozen momentarily
with fear, then says that the man
muttered something about “Nazi
Germany” and “rise to power”
before she and her friend jump and
startle the man who then gets
away. Despite alerting the hotel
security of the incident, Harris-
Perry states that minimal attention
was paid to the matter.
In the piece, Harris-Perry credits
her students with saving her life.◊
Melissa Harris-Perry
survives attempted attack
