Louisiana plantation museum to focus on harsh realities of slavery

[inanna]

Source: Reuters

17 Jan 2015 at 19:04 ET

WALLACE, La. (Reuters) – Life-size sculptures of slave children haunt the clapboard church on the grounds of the old sugar cane plantation, where ceramic heads of black men will soon sway on pikes in the Louisiana breeze.

Unlike other plantation museums along the Great River Road between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, the newly opened and under-construction Whitney Plantation focuses squarely on the plight of slaves.

While nearby sites highlight their antebellum architecture and the lifestyles of the white people who lived there, only 11 minutes of the roughly two-hour Whitney Plantation tour are devoted to the grand house where the German-American masters resided.

<snip>

“The idea is to have people with this color skin be educated,” said John Cummings, the museum’s 77-year-old founder, pointing to his own white arm. “When you leave here you will be different.”

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/louisiana-plantation-museum-to-focus-on-harsh-realities-of-slavery/

---

Caution: there is a disturbing image at link.

I'd like to visit the museum.

[brer cat]

1. I would like to visit also.

I went to a Louisiana plantation years ago, and it was all "Scarlett and Tara" in Louisiana. About the only mention of slaves was to point out how many it took to clean the house and cook. I don't know how I would feel about heads of black men (even ceramic) on pikes, but I do appreciate the attempt to be realistic about how slaves were treated, and what miserable lives they had. It certainly has the potential to be very educational.

[inanna]

4. There has been a concentrated effort

by "neo-confederates" to distort the history of US slavery and the Civil War. Seems as though some are attempting to set the record straight though. Kudos to them.

The SPLC has taken the lead role in research about the neo-confederate movement. Here is a link to one of their reports for those interested:

Link: http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/ideology/neo-confederate/the-neo-confederate-movement

Lots of other articles available at the SPLC site if you run a search.

(I'm just going to assume that you already know about this: many here on DU do. I'm posting the info more for those who may not be aware.)

Also, in 2010 Ed Sebesta published The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader: The "Great Truth" about the "Lost Cause". The work is described below:

Resounding documentary proof that the original reasoning behind secession and subsequent myth-making was in defense of slavery and white supremacy. Most Americans hold basic misconceptions about the Confederacy, the Civil War, and the actions of subsequent neo-Confederates. For example, two-thirds of Americans--including most history teachers--think the Confederate States seceded for "states' rights." This error persists because most have never read the key documents about the Confederacy. The 150th anniversary of secession and civil war provides a moment for all Americans to read these documents, properly set in context by award-winning sociologist and historian James W. Loewen and coeditor Edward H. Sebesta, to put in perspective the mythology of the Old South. When South Carolina seceded, it published "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union." The document actually opposes states' rights. Its authors argue that Northern states were ignoring the rights of slave owners as identified by Congress and in the Constitution. Similarly, Mississippi's "Declaration of the Immediate Causes . . ." says, "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery--the greatest material interest of the world." Later documents in this collection show how neo-Confederates obfuscated this truth, starting around 1890. The evidence also points to the centrality of race in neo-Confederate thought even today and to the continuing importance of neo-Confederate ideas in American political life. James W. Loewen, Washington, D.C., is the best-selling author of Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong and Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong. He is also the author of Teaching What Really Happened: How to Avoid the Tyranny of Textbooks; Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism; Social Science in the Classroom; and Mississippi: Conflict and Change. He is professor emeritus at the University of Vermont. Edward H. Sebesta, Dallas, Texas, is a coeditor of Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction. His articles have appeared in numerous journals.

Link: http://www.amazon.ca/The-Confederate-Neo-Confederate-Reader-Great/dp/1604732199

I will be purchasing the book.

Not surprisingly, most of the negative commentaries and reviews at the Amazon link are from...
you guessed it: neo-confederates.

[mountain grammy]

6. This is an important book, the truth is critical..

[BumRushDaShow]

2. K&R

It's good to see more and more of these types of local exhibits appearing, which often leads to the development of themed tours that wind their way through various historical microcosms to tell stories that were purposely overlooked in most schools...

[SunSeeker]

3. Maybe this will educate Scalise about what it is Louisiana has to apologize for.

But I doubt assholes like him would step foot in that museum .

[petronius]

5. The article mentions Laura Plantation as well, which is the one I thought

this story would be about - when we toured various plantations in LA there was a stark difference between Laura and the rest in terms of the inclusion of slavery in the tours and displays. It definitely made a big impression.

Another place that I just heard about and want to visit--outside of Louisiana--is the Royall House and Slave Quarters in Massachusetts. Sounds like a place with a similar degree of honesty...

[mountain grammy]

7. I will visit this museum the next time I'm in Louisiana.

[Tom Ripley]

8. I once visited an antebellum mansion tour...

In Macon and made the docent rather uncomfortable with my questions about the slaves who made possible such a grand lifestyle.

[inanna]

9. Ah, well good for you and I wish I could have been present for that.

I have a few questions of my own.

I definitely plan to visit some of the historical sites in the South at some point. The museum in the OP will be a stop on my travels there.

And not to derail my own thread but I am also well aware of positive aspects to southern culture as well: a lot of the music (the blues!!!) and most definitely the food.

And a more recent favorite:

[Tom Ripley]

11. Southern lit along with the music and food...

make up the winning trio.
Other features? Not so much.
Okay....and the weather.

[locks]

10. Thanks for the article from Reuters

On Jan. 2 I posted (titled Slavery) some of what I learned from visiting the Whitney Plantation while I was in New Orleans over Christmas. Even if you have been to some of the restored Louisiana plantations and know some of the history of slavery you "will be different when you leave there." In many states there were as many or more men, women and children living in slavery than there were free citizens; in Louisiana alone 350,000, many of them sold on the market in front of the beautiful St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. It is not easy for any of us, black or white, to see how they lived but we so need to learn the true history of our nation in order to be able to say "never again" as we say after we have been to Auschwitz.

[inanna]

12. I'd love to read your post.

Can you add a link to it?

[baran]

13. Here's the link

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026034571

[inanna]

14. Thanks for link.

Very well written post.

Recommended.

[mountain grammy]

16. Yes, thanks for the link, very good post.

[heaven05]

15. well

there's the european Holocaust museum, bout time a 'real depiction' of the ameriKKKan Holocaust comes to the light......I'm going.....I will make this a point........in this life before I die. The horrible things done to POC in this nation needs to be forefront and dealt with everyday. All these RWers and dixiecrats wouldn't feel so emboldened to able to vote for racism and racial/economic division in a RW senate and HOS.........full of racist, extremists bent on putting POC "back in their place".

Also, I'd like to see a museum devoted to the real depictions of the slaughter of the original american. You know the U.S Army Calvary units, no matter what unit, but especially the 9th, 10th and 7th going through a native-American village slaughtering old people, women and children in the name of 'Manifest Destiny'.