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Are you sure?

One of the more common things I see and hear from people who are defending the display of the Confederate battle flag is “My ancestors didn’t own slaves.” Putting aside for a moment that this isn’t really a very good defense of a symbol that has stood for hatred and terror for the better part of 150 years, the main thing I want to ask the people who say that is, are you sure? I mean really, are you sure? Thanks to a lot of research that was done by my great-grandmother, grandmother, and other members of that side of my family, I have a pretty good idea of the history of the branch of my family tree. I’ve spent some time looking for more details about that history, and every so often I’ll take another look to see if any new information or records have moved online. A couple of weeks ago I was doing just that, looking for a more complete family tree. I have to take a moment here to acknowledge that I am able to have that understanding in large part because of the privilege that comes...
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Juneteenth

I’m amazed and heartened by the number of White people I see recognize Juneteenth publicly today. I’m trying very hard not to think “it took you all long enough!”, recognizing that I had no idea what Juneteenth was myself until I was well out of college. Once more, we White people were shielded from the lived reality of millions of our fellow citizens. But my greater worry about Juneteenth is that it’s another recognition of evils that we White people committed against Black people that gives us an easy out. “It’s terrible that those people were kept in bondage for two years after the Emancipation proclamation, but then the Union soldiers showed up in Galveston Bay and everything was made right!” Juneteenth, particularly for us White people, can fall too easily into the “White Savior” narrative that excuses what actually happened. So what’s much more on my mind today is Reconstruction. That is, the reason why there were Union soldiers landing in Galveston Bay. I came across this Twit...
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Underground

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Today I got to drive one of my favorite roads in Southeast Ohio, route 329 between Amesville and Glouster. 329 winds its way from the Hocking River near Guysville up the Federal Creek valley through Amesville and on to Trimble. It’s a beautiful farming valley that is filled with history from the coal mining era back to the early days of European settlement and on from there back to the mound-building cultures of North America before European contact. You can’t help but feel the weight of history as you wind your way through this unglaciated valley carved by water and time through the former sea bed that makes up our topography in this area. But today what was most on my mind was the tour I got of the area from a former Board member who is a historian and community activist with deep roots in our county. She gave me her Underground Railroad tour of Athens County, and Federal Creek features prominently in that story. Ever since then I can’t drive 329 without thinking of the stories of t...
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