Week 5 Responses

Week 5

NEWS

http://www.app.com/article/20120210/NJNEWS/302100011

After taking a course on Civil Rights History last semester, I have taken an interest in the portrayal of African American History in America today. During the last portion of the course we read The Civil Rights Movement In American History edited by Renee C. Romano and Leigh Raiford. That book helped give me a starting point for analyzing this depiction of African Americans in history. The debate about having a month dedicated to African American history began when the week was brought to fruition (as the article states,) and the arguments are valid. One of the main arguments against the idea of separate history months is that it does not support the equality in history that is desired. From the opposing stand point, African American History should be a year-round integrated part of teaching history, not just highlighted once a month and then set aside until the next February. This is a valid argument, but the reason we have the monthly celebration is obviously because the struggle of African Americans is one to be highlighted. The history of African Americans (as well as women and other groups that have a month dedicated to them) deserves attention in the public’s eye. In schools the information should be integrated, yes, but that doesn’t change the fact that the average adult American can forget about the history of America at leisure without being reminded of events. The month also provides an opportunity for people to continuously learn new information about our collective history. For example, another article that I found involved a community coming together to honor a large burial cite that contains the remains of hundreds of slaves in an unmarked field. Situations like these, while they are reported on, receive extra attention during this month, and that attention helps the nation’s collective memory grow.

The only issue that I have with this collective memory is that it forgets the individuals who brought about change. The Civil Rights Movement had people working hard for equality long before Parks sat down or King stood up. Even looking at Rosa Parks there is a lot forgotten. She is remembered as an elderly woman who refused to give up her seat on a bus. What our nation’s collective memory doesn’t know on a larger level is that she was an activist long before refusing to move, and she was not the first to protest in this way. She is remembered because it was the trigger that brought Martin Luther King Jr. to the public’s attention. I’m not trying to say by any means that these great Americans shouldn’t be remembered for their deeds, but there are local heroes that are often forgotten who did more work for their individual communities than members of those communities now even know. The University of Louisville has done a great job of keeping our local heroes in our memory by installing the large glass panes depicting and describing Louisville’s Civil Rights workers in their new renovations of Freedom Park (by the Playhouse Theatre facing Cardinal Towne.) For this African American History Month I urge people to skim those descriptions and get a better feeling for the Civil Rights work done in our hometown, as well as learning about other heroes in the movement. African American History Month is a celebration of where our country is now, as well as a reminder of all of the work that has yet to be done.

(Sorry for the lengthy post, I started typing and couldn’t stop.)

ART

http://greenmuseum.org/artist_index.php?artist_id=15

http://www.amdandart.org/tour_solution.html

Created and lead by T. Allen Comp, AMD&ART is an interesting project that has a team of artists, engineers, scientists, and humanists working as a collective to help create a creative solution to a problem that is facing Appalachia communities, AMD (Acid Mine Drainage.) AMD is causing pollution to the water systems of the area in which they began their work in 1994, Vintondale, Pennsylvania. That pollution creates unhealthy environments and destroys the land. The team SPLASH (Sustainable Partnership of Landscaping Architects, Scientists, and Historians)  uses three key aspects in their approach to making real change in that area. They start with the sciences, treating the water, then use the arts, public works created by the suggestions and needs of the public throughout the park, and finally the humanities, using history and humanities to get large amounts of community involvement on the project.

I find this project to be very interesting. It is hard to necessarily critique the work itself, as there are not many photos of the artistic side of it nailed down on the site, however the project is an ambitious and interesting one. The idea of bringing so many different types of forward thinkers together to created one large project is something I really appreciate in art today. The ability to spread the conventions of art into areas that allow other types of thinkers to put their ideas into the project are generally more dynamic from works I have seen.