The Battle of Franklin Trust, the City of Franklin, and the Fuller Story joined forces to dedicate five historical markers describing the vital roles African Americans played in the life of the City of Franklin, Tennessee, during the Civil War and Reconstruction Era. Pastors Hewitt Sawyers, Dr. Chris Williamson and Dr. Kevin Riggs, and historian Eric A. Jacobson of The Battle of Franklin Trust initiated the movement to tell a Fuller Story of the city’s past. “I am so proud to be part of this effort. The stories told by these interpretive markers have always been part of our shared history and it is time we are honest with the past,” Eric A. Jacobson, CEO of the Battle of Franklin Trust, told the Williamson Source. “The Fuller Story is, in many ways, the story of America. I applaud the pastors for their leadership and our friends all over Franklin for their support and steadfast commitment,” he said.
The installation of the historical interpretive panels is the first step in telling the story of the centuries-old communities of African Americans in the city. Even though thousands of enslaved people lived in and around the city at the time of the Civil War, their presence was not noted in the commemorative landscape.
At the dedication, Eric Jacobson said “This is a wonderful day. This is your history. History is very difficult. Sometimes it is sharp, sometimes it is thorny. One of the truths is that right here in our town square for nearly half-a-century human beings were bought and sold.” That slave-trade history is told in a panel. Another panel is devoted to Reconstruction in Franklin. Jacobson said, Reconstruction had successes for the African American community and perhaps its greatest failure was that Reconstruction ended.” Jacobson said that while some worry that “history is being erased” with the questioning of Confederate iconography, in many locations black history had been erased. Now, in 2019 Franklin was reclaiming its full past.
A panel tells the story of the scores of local men who joined the United States Colored Troops (USCT) to fight against the Confederacy. This corrects an absence of any mention of the USCT at the city’s main war memorials. Other panels tell the story of the city’s Reconstruction Era race riot and of the lynchings of blacks around Franklin during the century after emancipation.
Two of the panels were placed on the circle surrounding Franklin’s 120 year old Confederate soldier statue.
Next year the city will erect a monument to the USCT who helped liberate the South.
Video of the event can be found here.
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