Overview

For decades racism and social inequity have stayed at the center of the national conversation in the United States, sustaining the debate around public historic places and monuments and what they represent. These conversations are a reminder of the crucial role that public history professionals play in engaging public audiences on subjects of race and slavery. This ""difficult history"" has often remained un- or underexplored in our public discourse, hidden from view by the tourism industry, or even by public history professionals themselves, as they created historic sites, museums, and public squares based on white-centric interpretations of history and heritage.Challenging History, through a collection of essays by a diverse group of scholars and practitioners, examines how difficult histories, specifically those of slavery and race in the United States, are being interpreted and inserted at public history sites and in public history work. Several essays explore the successes and challenges of recent projects, while others discuss gaps that public historians can fill at sites where Black history took place but is absent in the interpretation. Through case studies, the contributors reveal the entrenched false narratives that public history workers are countering in established public history spaces and the work they are conducting to reorient our collective understanding of the past. History practitioners help the public better understand the world. Their choices help to shape ideas about heritage and historical remembrances and can reform, even transform, worldviews through more inclusive and ethically narrated histories. Challenging History invites public historians to consider the ethical implications of the narratives they choose to share and makes the case that an inclusive, honest, and complete portrayal of the past has the potential to reshape collective memory and ideas about the meaning of American history and citizenship.

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9781643362007

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Reviews

"[T]hese essays suggest the potential of public history to challenge restrictive narratives and preconceptions. All of the projects discussed here center marginalized histories. In learning about this work, the reader is reminded of the importance of a broader conceptualization and understanding of the African American experience within public history. -- ""Journal of Southern History"""

"Faber tells Stinney's story with passion and restraint. He worked on the book for a decade but died before he was able to complete it. Before he died, he asked the historian Carol Berkin, a friend since they were in graduate school together in the 1960s, to pick up where he left off. Berkin finished the last chapter, edited the manuscript, wrote a forward explaining all this, and saw the book through to publication. Her contribution is a lovely tribute to Faber, just as Faber's book is a fitting tribute to George Stinney and the wretched experience, past and present, of which his story is a part. --James Goodman, Rutgers University-Newark ""American Historical Review"" Historians, docents, professors, activists, or anyone looking for models on how to better do public histories of ""lesser-known historical actors"" (17) should read this interdisciplinary volume. Challenging History: Race, Equity, and the Practice of Public History manages to bind together conceptual analysis and practical application while detailing how the experience of African Americans has or has not been centered in public history. --Scott Hancock, Gettysburg College ""American Historical Review"" [T]hese essays suggest the potential of public history to challenge restrictive narratives and preconceptions. All of the projects discussed here center marginalized histories. In learning about this work, the reader is reminded of the importance of a broader conceptualization and understanding of the African American experience within public history. -- ""Journal of Southern History"""

[T]hese essays suggest the potential of public history to challenge restrictive narratives and preconceptions. All of the projects discussed here center marginalized histories. In learning about this work, the reader is reminded of the importance of a broader conceptualization and understanding of the African American experience within public history. -- Journal of Southern History

Author Information

John W. White, founding director of the Lowcountry Digital History Initiative and dean of libraries at the College of Charleston, is coeditor of Laying the Foundation: Digital Humanities in Academic Libraries.

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