The Fayetteville Observer reports on a community meeting Tuesday on the new North Carolina History Center on the Civil War, Emancipation, and Reconstruction. The museum is already under construction in Fayetteville, but its subject matter and interpretation have been controversial from the very start of planning. The museum is expected to cost $80 million and is funded by the city, the county, and the state. The center will be at the site of the United States Arsenal, an important local Civil War site.
Several speakers at the meeting said that in the past, the Civil War and Reconstruction were presented from a white Confederate perspective and that they were mistrustful of new expenditures to tell a false story. The local report says:
Angela Lewis, who grew up on nearby Langdon Street, asked how people could be sure the center’s programming would remain accurate. She said people in her family remained skeptical. “There is a lack of trust,” she said. “With all that you are gathering here to be inclusive, to open up opportunities for genuine education … Who determines that what you are doing will take place? Who’s the gatekeeper?”
Andrew Bryant, a 71 year-old resident said that he was mistrustful when he first heard of the proposed museum. “I didn’t agree with this,” he told the audience. After discussions with the museum’s planners, he came to see the project as one that could tell what really happened in the 1860s and 1870s. He said:
“Two things can happen. White people are going to be mad because it’s the truth, and Black people are going to be mad because they know the truth. But when you start putting those two together you got the best opportunity to make things happen.”
David Camps, a local minister wondered if the museum could present different viewpoints on the era. He said that “Our schools are still giving false information.”
Another meeting on the center will take place next week at a different location.
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