History matters...
I read with interest Democrat Ramshield's commentary on the Der Speigel reporters' tour of Ferguson Missouri. The article pointed out how the built environment of a place can offer clues to its background.
Evidence is everywhere about America's long history of mistreatment of blacks and other racial "minorities", and our built environment can tell us much about that history.
I decided to look around my little West Texas village to see what I could see.
History is staring me in the face, it turns out.
Our county, Brewster county Texas, is named after a South Carolina-born confederate general, Henry Percy Brewster. A quick look at his biography is instructive- I assume he was a slaveholder, but I need to read further to be sure.
The only college in our area, Sul Ross State University, is named after Lawrence Sullivan Ross, quite the interesting historical figure. Born in frontier Iowa but lived in Alabama and Texas, he was an adjutant general in the Confederacy. Evidently a complex well-educated man, he seems to have been a scholar-fighter. I need to find a biography of him, too.
This town was a tank town founded long after slavery ended, but was generally founded by southerners. The tracks here separate the Anglo side from what was called the Mexican side. The old Mexican school is being renovated as a private herpetology library (hopefully), and the town is integrated as far as housing and public access goes. The physical marks of the segregation days are everywhere. Until the 70s an iron fence in the campo de santos separated the Hispanic from the Anglo graves. Travis Roberts, an anglo from a old high status family, took the fence down in about 1977, but, small towns being what they are, I can't find anyone who will talk about that episode.
So...I'd like to hear about your town or city. If you live in South Bend or Detroit, evidence of the Great Migration is everywhere. If you live on the river in Memphis or St. Louis, the history of Black America is there to be deciphered.
What institutions or buildings or land use patterns in your home reflect the divided history of our country? Take a day at your library or history museum and see what you can dig up.
It's been instructive to me and I need to do a whole lot more reading about my own home, it looks like.