The animosity against African Americans, especially in the Deep South, is hard to comprehend, but it is deep, real, persistent and extremely dangerous. Emmett Till’s mother warned him, but even she underestimated the risk. In late August of 1955, Emmett Till was kidnapped from his great uncle’s home by a shopkeeper’s husband and his half-brother, who accused Emmett of whistling at the shopkeeper, a white woman. From past midnight to pre-dawn, the two men, along with several others, held Emmett, aged 14, in the back of a pickup truck, drove around the county, terrorized him, tortured him, shot him and dumped his body in the river. Witnesses reported hearing Emmett’s screams all over town for hours. His great uncle reported the kidnapping, the men were arrested, and the body was found a few days later. His mother, saying “let the world see what I see”, insisted on an open casket at the funeral in Chicago. Jet magazine published photos of his brutalized body. His mother became a lifetime activist, author and motivational speaker on education, poverty and Civil Rights with the NAACP. Many consider Emmett Till’s killing to be the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, not least because Rosa Parks cited Emmett as the reason she kept her seat on the bus in Montgomery on 1 December 1955.
The trial was a foregone conclusion. Outside the courthouse (below) stood a statue dedicated to the “Heroes” of the Confederacy. Inside there was no justice. Instead of jurors, police, court officers and elected officials defending the Law, the courthouse became the focal point of a deep criminal conspiracy, based on racism. Witnesses were intimidated, hidden, immunized and silenced. Emmett’s great uncle testified at the trial, pointing out the kidnappers and murderers, and then he left town immediately and went into hiding under a false name. And for many years afterwards, there has been a concerted effort to conceal the truth. Evidence lost. Signs have been repeatedly shot and torn down. Historic artifacts and structures intentionally left to ruin or demolished. One witness, in hiding for decades under another name, still received death threats demanding silence. The confederate statue still stands in front of the courthouse, just left of the photo.
But despite the legacy of lies, terror and violence, people still work to tell the truth about Emmett Till. Especially if you’re exploring the new monument’s sites in Illinois and Mississippi, I recommend reading the darkly fascinating stories in the Emmett Till Memory Project app, after being introduced to it by one of the contributors at the Emmett Till Interpretive Center across from the courthouse in Sumner, MS. Emmett Till’s coffin is on display at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC. His name was given to the Anti-Lynching Act of 2022. And this new national monument was established by President Biden on 25 July 2023, on what would have been Emmett Till’s 82nd birthday.
Often, there’s a local reluctance to allow government outsiders to tell ‘our’ history. Communities will occasionally refuse to cooperate or turn over any control over their sites to the National Park Service. Reagan’s boyhood home famously stays independent, concerned that his legacy might be tarnished. Sometimes politicians get involved directly in changing the way history is told, and even bend the narrative away from self-evident facts, such as at Andrew Johnson’s site.
Debates often become heated with charges that one side is “revising history” to fit preconceived views. But honest historians do not rewrite history to suit their tastes. A good historian should try to revise their understanding of history, always to make it more accurate. In the UK, “revising” means “studying for exams”, meaning reviewing the material to understand it better. Sometimes a new fact comes along, such as a DNA test proving who is related to Thomas Jefferson. Views and interests change too, which also require us to revise our understanding of history, as we have new questions to answer. Future history books must be updated to include the most accurate information and to address the needs of future generations.
Bad historians ignore new facts, preferring the old version they learned, even if false. Some even intentionally mislead children to try to hide shameful episodes, claiming to protect them from the truth. Some dishonestly smear historical figures or downplay historic events in order to promote a world view based on propaganda, such as what happened with General Grant. Lying to kids or trying to brainwash the public to further a dishonest agenda is never acceptable.
But the park service has experience and expertise to help sites reach more people accurately and effectively. They hire researchers to find more information to expand everyone’s knowledge. They conduct renovations carefully to restore sites to how they appeared at specific times. They know how to create films, displays and foreign language brochures. Sometimes the park service gets it wrong, prompting debate, review and new efforts. Sometimes the site is best managed by a specialized local group, often in partnership with the park service, such as the Tenement Museum in NYC. Still, the park service’s job is to preserve, inspire, educate and make sites more fun for all. So typically, it’s at least worth letting them help.
I have a good education, do extra research on each site and form my own views, but I also try to understand, verify facts and frequently ask questions. Almost always, the park rangers can quickly disabuse me of erroneous views, since they are experts. Occasionally, I meet the odd ranger with views in contradiction to the facts or find errors on display, and I bring those to the attention of other park service employees. Getting the stories right can be difficult, but almost always the park rangers are determined to do their best to tell the story correctly, effectively and well. That’s what they do.
I mention this now, after visiting the Gulf Islands site. In both Mississippi and Florida, the park service does a good job in accurately telling the history of the gulf coast, including the dark history of the Civil War. Unfortunately, the US military turned over the most important historical sites, Forts Gaines and Morgan, over to the state of Alabama, where I’ve observed troubling patterns. I believe the national park service would do a much better job telling the history.
Visitors to Fort Morgan might not learn which side won the Battle of Mobile Bay or why that matters. The information may be there, but it is not presented effectively. Here are my recent notes.
Website focuses on the history of old fort Bowyer more than the Civil War era Fort Morgan.
Park brochure timeline covers fort’s history but buries highlights in obscure details.
The Battle of Mobile Bay battery site and plaques are not shown on the map.
Civil War panel neglects critical Union victories at the end, such as Richmond, Petersburg and the surrender at Appomattox.
Flag pavilion plaques show the US flag as only operational in 1813, ignoring the period from 1864 to the present.
Posters in gift shop celebrate the sinking of the Union ship Tecumseh and the early success of the CSS Tennessee.
Bookstore focuses on Confederate defense of Mobile 50 miles away, rather than on the pivotal Union naval victory of Mobile Bay 50 yards away.
There are only two ways to reach the Battle of Mobile Bay battery site.
1) go straight through to the far side of the fort, enter a series of tunnels (use your phone for light) on the right, wander through a maze of passageways, pass through several huge empty rooms, find a small doorway around a corner leading outside, return on the grass between the inner and outer walls, cross the moat, climb a ramp (no handholds) to the top of the outer wall, climb steps through some fortifications, climb some more steps, and go around the outside of the fence that appears to block your path. Or….
2) go behind the restrooms on the far side of the parking lot, climb up through a different battery of fortifications, walk along to the far left, find a narrow stairway up a hill, climb it even though it appears to be blocked at the top, wander along the top of the outer wall to the outer edge of the fence mentioned in step 1, circumvent it and climb up to the top above Battery Thomas.
In neither case are there any signs, arrows, map references, guideposts or signals to find the spot, and it’s best to wear sturdy non-slip shoes. Finding the well-written and illustrated displays (e.g. photo above) was a nice surprise, as I only climbed up there because I got lost exploring and wanted to get a look at the ship channel. Frankly, hiding the panels appears to be an intentional effort to obscure or erase the true and important history that led to the end of the Confederacy and slavery.
If the park service managed the site, I’m sure they would tell the story of one of our country’s greatest naval victories accurately and effectively, preserving that important history, inspiring, educating and delighting future generations. Especially today, on the first day of Black History Month, it’s critical to get history right. That’s why we need the NPS to help us with our history.
While I like the park and plan to visit it again in warmer weather, the seashore skips over the most important section in the middle. In Mississippi, the park includes the Davis Bayou (photo below) with a nice visitor center and park film, and from mid-March to October you can take a ferry out to Ship Island, look for bottlenose dolphins, explore the beaches and visit a Civil War fort. In the Florida section of the park, there are also birds, long stretches of storm-swept and once segregated beaches, old forts first built by the Spanish and later used by the Confederacy, and another visitor center (closed when I tried to visit) to explore near Pensacola. But the Gulf Islands of Alabama are not part of the national park unit. Forts Gaines and Morgan, the guardians of Mobile Bay, are Alabama State Parks. But that’s where the action was.
General Grant relied on combined naval and land forces to take Fort Donelson in February 1862, which cut off the Cumberland River from the Mississippi. In April, Flag-Officer David Farragut (depicted by Gaudens above) began his gulf coast campaign by sailing up past the forts guarding the Mississippi and taking New Orleans. After the Union freed the city, three regiments of African American troops were quickly organized, and many of those men first served on the Gulf Islands, helping retake the forts along the gulf coast. In June, Farragut was wounded near Vicksburg.
The Confederacy’s last large port was Mobile Bay. In 1863 the Union took Vicksburg, but to speed the end the war, now Rear Admiral Farragut needed to sail past the forts guarding Mobile Bay. In 1864, the Confederacy, having learned from their mistakes in New Orleans, had heavily reinforced Mobile Bay’s naval defenses among the many fortifications along the Gulf Coast. Fort Gaines guarded the shallower west side of the bay, and Fort Morgan guarded the deep water ship channel from the east side. The gaps were filled with floating sea-mines, called ‘torpedoes’ at the time. And the port was guarded by the massive ironclad CSS Tennessee, the most powerful warship in the world.
Farragut had four small new ironclad ‘monitors’ leading his fleet: the Chickasaw, Manhattan, Tecumseh, and Winnebago. He decided to run the gauntlet up the main channel into the large bay, boldly trying to move fast and far enough to get out of range of Fort Morgan’s guns. Under fire from the fort, the Union navy advanced with its ships lashed in pairs with the monitors on the side taking the heaviest fire. Farragut climbed into the rigging to get a view above the thick smoke. The Tecumseh crossed a mine field to engage the Tennessee, exploded one and sank immediately with 93 lost.
Seeing his fleet hesitating and the Tennessee closing in, Farragut yelled down something to the effect of “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” The remaining monitors surrounded the Tennessee, disabled her and eventually blasted a hole, injuring the Confederate Admiral. The rest of the fleet entered the bay, got behind the forts, and shelled them. The Army, including African American regiments from New Orleans, approached the forts, which surrendered, first Gaines without much of a fight, and then Morgan after a heavy siege.
Mobile Bay was closed, cutting off supplies to the Confederacy. And the Confederate Army was tied down defending the city, helping open up Sherman’s march to Atlanta. While Alabama’s Gulf Islands are not part of the national park service site, they are in the middle of the line of hurricane barrier islands and sandy peninsulas where this major Civil War battle was fought on land and sea. Admiral Farragut and the Union Navy’s contributions to ending the Civil War must not be forgotten.
What’s the point of history? Why bother learning all those boring facts and dates? Sure, there are some interesting characters and conflicts, but surely all that old stuff doesn’t have much relevance to today’s problems with AI, mass shootings, war in the Middle East and global warming. The world changes so quickly now, so what’s the point dwelling on the past, when we need to fix future problems?
Glad you asked.
There’s a common misconception that we have some sacred obligation not to judge the past and just to record it as it happened without questioning it. Out of vanity, many people like to study the history of their ancestors, believing that they were virtuous and victorious, in order to be inspired. We’re passive spectators, taking note of past events, and maybe defending the actions and beliefs of our own ancestors, as if we were cheering for our home team. If someone criticizes part of our history, then we say that nobody should judge what they did using hindsight. We read history in order to validate our beliefs that our origins were honorable, and by not questioning anything, we declare ourselves honorable historians.
That is all lazy, narcissistic nonsense that wastes our time, misses the point entirely and prevents us from learning anything useful. We do not study history in some vain attempt to feel better about our selves due to something our ancestors did. We study history to make better choices now, so that we can rightfully feel proud that we are doing our best. The dead can suffer some honest criticism, and they do not enjoy being excuses for our mistakes. Rather than being forgotten, I’m sure they’d prefer being inspiration for our future successes.
The point of studying history is to learn from the past—both admirable actions and atrocious mistakes—in order to make better decisions today. History didn’t have to happen the way it did. As today, people made mistakes, were driven by greed or hate, and acted out of ignorance. They could and often should have made better decisions, but, no matter how flawed they were, we should not simply dismiss and forget them. We must learn from their mistakes. We must constantly apply our highest moral judgements, use our imagination creatively, and draw the most logical conclusions possible, whenever we study history. That way we will learn as much as we can, so that we can apply the lessons of history to our future decisions.
Above is a Ghost Dance Shirt from 1890, decorated with eagle and owl feathers, worn by a Lakota (Sioux) warrior who hoped that it would protect him from bullets. That December 29th, at Wounded Knee, under a flag of truce, the US Cavalry, driven by settlers’ often imaginary racist fears, machine gunned 250 to 300 men women and children to death. The point of history is neither to let such facts sit dryly without emotion or judgement in a book, nor to toss it in the dustbin, nor to argue that the massacre was inevitable, nor to compare whether your ancestors were more mistaken than mine or anyone else’s. The point of history is to learn from past mistakes in order to avoid the doom of repeating them.
620,000 men, roughly 2% of the population died in the line of duty during the Civil War. If we apply no judgement as to why they died, then we learn nothing useful. If we are dishonest or allow ourselves to be confused by old misinformation, then we will draw the wrong conclusions. If we understand the plain truth—that the war was fought over slavery—, study its racist roots, and apply our best judgement, then we can fight racism better and perhaps avoid a future war. Learning to be better must be our main goal, after considering the consequences.
Some lessons can be applied immediately, and others are evergreen. For example, if the safety lessons of Port Chicago had been learned immediately, another similar disaster could have been prevented. The deeper lesson, that bias kills and that diversity can save lives, is one many of us are still struggling to learn. If you can’t learn anything useful from history, you’re not trying hard enough.
Today’s problem of AI replacing skilled labor can be better understood by studying labor history. The most intractable conflicts today can be understood better by studying hatred and injustice from our past. The climate crisis can be better understood by studying evolution, archaeology, and our few remaining intact ecosystems. History is the reservoir of our past experiences and knowledge, and we must draw on that as thoughtfully as possible, always driven by the need to improve ourselves. That’s the point.
Despite not being on the West Coast, the US military evicted all American citizens from the southern part of Arizona during WWII as potential ‘navy base saboteurs’, if they had Japanese ancestry. The military’s arbitrary exclusion zone ran through Phoenix, so if you lived on the south side of the city, you wound up incarcerated while your family on the north side kept their homes.
Like Poston, most Japanese-Americans were taken from their homes in Southern California. The barracks in the background of the photo above comprised a small part of camp 2 or Butte Camp at Gila. The Gila River Tribal Community protested, but the military appropriated over 17,000 acres of their land anyway and concentrated roughly 15,000 people here according to their ethnicity.
The tribal community had been struggling since the Gila River was diverted by white settlers beginning in the 1880s. In 1934, archaeologists dug up their ancestral burial grounds, and after they dug again in 1964, the government also created a national park site. Now that site is closed and the tribes don’t allow visitors there.
Survivors of internment built a monument on the ‘internment camp’ site, but someone shot it up with a machine gun a few years back, and unless you’re family, you can’t visit the site now. Given all the tragedies and harm done here under the American flag, seems like folks might benefit from a government funded educational center explaining the history and the importance of respecting Constitutional rights.
The Gila River Tribal Community runs the excellent nearby Huhugam Culture Center free museum, which contains a small display case of ‘relocation center’ artifacts, including two busts of young prisoners. The one pictured is Sayoko ‘Jean’ Kawamura, and the other has no name, forgotten to history.
I recently completed visits by electric vehicle to all US national park sites primarily focused on (paid) labor issues, including agriculture, mills, mining, railroads and steel. Even more interesting than learning about dangerous early working conditions, was realizing that the worst cases of labor conflicts and disasters in our history share common circumstances. When there is excess capital with extreme time pressure to achieve returns especially in a limited geographic area, owners engaged in hyper-competition often resort to unethical, unsafe and/or illegal tactics to extract profits at the expense of their own employees.
Agriculture
After visiting one more site, I will write a separate post about slavery. Even after emancipation, agriculture continued to exploit farm labor brutally, through sharecropping & tenant farming, where workers were kept in perpetual debt to the owner. Cane River is a good place to learn how a plantation adapted to exploit farm labor in different ways from before the revolution to WWII. As black workers moved into industry after that war, agriculture began to exploit more migrant workers, especially Pilipino & Mexican workers on the west coast. National chains engaged in ruthless competition with local owners over the most productive fruit farmland in California—supported by unjust foreign labor policies—cutting labor costs to maintain profits as prices fell. César Chávez park is a good place to learn about the history and resulting farm worker strike.
Mills
Water-powered industrial mills pre-date our country, but they were refined and boomed after the revolution. The company town developed near the first cotton mills in Rhode Island and were copied at similar sites in New Jersey, Massachusetts and Ohio. Before electrification allowed factories to be built in cheaper locations, mill towns only formed in very specific places along rivers with large volume water falls near ports. This meant concentrated competition among many firms using the same techniques. Labor needed training and skilled, small fingers were more nimble than large. So, owners hired women and children. Immigrants arrived by the boat load. Supplies of cotton came from slave plantations often owned by the mill owners. The incredible boom in productivity led to collapses in prices. 70+ hour work weeks, strict control of women’s lives, economic control of labor through company housing, stores, entertainment and even churches, and child labor became used to sustain competitive advantage. Strikes were oppressed with dirty tricks and pressure tactics including media smear campaigns and violence. Safety was disregarded, as seen in disasters like Pemberton Mill near Lowell in 1860 when over 100 women & children were crushed by heavy machinery or 50 years later in the Triangle Shirtwaist garment district fire.
Mining
Mines often create cruel capitalism conditions. Investors see growing demand & high prices and over-invest, funding multiple aggressive firms with similar equipment. Labor and small operators flood the area, with everyone trying to ‘strike it rich’ with the mother lode. From black lung in coalcountry to radiation sickness in uranium mines, owners sacrifice miner lives and crush strikes with violence and dirty tricks. (Watch “Harlan County USA”). The world’s largest pure copper lode was found and mined in upper Michigan (see photo), where at a Christmas party for striking families upstairs in Keweenaw’s Italian Hall, an anti-unionist outside shouted ‘fire’ and blocked the door: 59 children and 14 parents were crushed to death.
Railroads
Disregard for the lives of their workers became part of the gilded age tycoon culture. Despite repeated safety warnings, the wealthy club members on Lake Conemaugh voted to raise their dam an extra two feet to avoid dirtying their hems while crossing. The resulting flood wiped out the company town of Johnstown Pennsylvania, killing over 2,200 people. Speculation on railroad stocks led to frequent booms and busts and much over-investment, with only limited lines becoming profitable. Labor was also imported from China with strict laws prohibiting settling permanently. Railroad owners faced diminishing returns, and repeatedly pressed labor for concessions, provoking a massive strike led by Pullman porters. Rather than negotiate, management bought the US Attorney General and influenced President Cleveland to bring in the troops.
Steel
The history of labor is replete with examples of class division: people of color, women, children and immigrants are systematically paid less. Capitalists can cut labor costs by keeping one group down, which they leverage to lower labor costs for all. World War II broke standard labor practices, hiring women and minorities to build ships and produce armaments, but as after other wars, many labor gains were later lost. Racism is not always understood as an economic tactic, but the history of labor and civil rights are inextricably linked. Birmingham Alabama had a hyper-competitive steel industry—as the only location in the world with significant amounts of iron, coal and limestone nearby—, and owners organized to divide labor along racial lines to lower their costs: they codified racial segregation, including prohibiting black and white children from playing together. The modern civil rights movement grew in response to racist social policies imposed by steel factory owners seeking to perpetuate a two-tiered wage system.
Lessons
Capitalism is mutually beneficial for customers, employees, owners and society. But especially when an owner is at personal risk in a hyper competitive business with diminishing returns, there is an incentive to cheat, act unethically or even commit crimes. Some capitalists use their wealth & power to corrupt government and civic leaders, influencing media and disenfranchising voters. Cruel labor conditions have persisted in this country for centuries, changing only with war, disasters, violent strikes or specific market collapse: i.e. too late.
If we learn from history, we can curb the excesses of hyper-competitive capitalism. Look for large concentrations of capital aggressively competing to dominate a single market in a short time frame. Look for extreme funding of misinformation, government corruption, efforts to divide the public and restrict voting. Hold business leaders to strict legal and ethical behavior. Then, perhaps, the next tragic chapter in our labor history can be avoided.
John Smith was an explorer, adventurer and leader whose stories, maps and detailed descriptions of life in the ‘New World’ helped convince many early immigrants to cross the Atlantic to the colonies. As a young soldier John Smith was held captive by the Turks, as a leader of the first British colony he was captured by the Powhatan, and as an explorer in New England he was held hostage by French pirates. Respectively, he escaped, was saved by Pocahontas (more than once), and negotiated his own release. He learned the local native language, forced upper class colonists to labor for food, and didn’t return to England until after some gunpowder exploded in his canoe.
The affiliated “trail” covers Smith’s detailed exploration of the rivers that flow into the Chesapeake Bay. From Hampton Roads near Fort Monroe where the bay opens to the Atlantic, he went up the James River past Jamestowne, past places that would later be Grant’s HQ in Petersburg, the Confederate Capital of Richmond, and across the Appalachian Trail and the Blue Ridge Parkway where the James becomes the Jackson River. Smith explored past Yorktown and up the two rivers that form West Point. He went up the Rappahannock River past Fredericksburg.
Smith also later explored and named much of New England, but this Chesapeake trail alone is certainly worthy of exploration. Someday, I’d like to return and see it by boat! And speaking of hopping around the country, Monday posts are going to cover National Parks on the West Coast, while Thursday posts will range more widely, covering more trails across the country. Enjoy!
Taos Pueblo has been continuously occupied for over 1,000 years—perhaps far longer—, much older than European settlements, and it is a World Heritage Site. Archaeologists have not extensively excavated the area—because the Red Willow people are still living there—, but there is evidence of trade with Mesa Verde and other early Native American settlements dating back many centuries. The multistory building above is home to many families, and folks on the upper floors climb ladders to access their apartments. While modern doors and windows have been added, the families, community and tribal government preserve the village in its original form, using mostly traditional building materials and avoiding electricity and plumbing anywhere within the village.
The pueblo sits below the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, a significant portion of which were returned to the community by President Nixon, including the Blue Lake and the headwaters of the Red Willow Creek. The creek runs through the middle of the village, is the sole source of water and flows into the Rio Grande. The Rio Grande Gorge southwest of Taos is strikingly beautiful, as are the Palisades near Eagle’s Nest northeast. The pueblos in this area are at the crossroads of ancient trading routes from coast to coast and to Central America.
Taos means Red Willow in the Tiwa language, and it is a town in an area crowded with history. Coronado arrived in 1540, and the Spanish built the first San Geronimo Church in 1620. When their Native dances, songs and worship were prohibited, the people here joined the Pueblo Revolt, which destroyed this any many other churches and forced the Spanish to retreat to what is now Mexico. The Spanish eventually reconquered the area and rebuilt the church. After the Spanish were forced to cede their territory to end the Spanish American War, the US Cavalry eventually was sent to subdue the people, who took refuge in the church. There were no survivors of the artillery bombardment, and the old church grounds are now a cemetery. The new San Geronimo Church contains a statue of the Virgin Mary from the old church, and the villagers practice both their indigenous Nature-focused religion and Catholicism with indigenous elements.
The locals give tours, sell handicrafts and run bakeries and cafes. Al’Thloo’s (grandmother’s) Cafe serves excellent Piñon Coffee and a Taos Pueblo Taco on freshly baked Frybread. The proprietress explained that the creek is currently near record flooding, due to the unnatural heat this Spring, and she informed me about the havoc that the Climate Crisis is having on snowpack, wildfires, drought, irrigation, crops and ranching. Her husband fought in WWII, and her family has been involved in supporting Native American causes for decades from here to Standing Rock. I wish more people were as clear-eyed and passionate as she is.
Zero Carbon Travel 