OAH Supports National Park Service Study Interpreting the Reconstruction Era

Page Putnam Miller

The OAH Executive Board voted in April to support legislation that directs the Secretary of the Interior to study certain sites in Beaufort County, South Carolina, relating to the Reconstruction Era and to assess the suitability and feasibility of designating the study area as a unit of the National Park System.

The impetus for this initiative evolved from a visit to the Beaufort area in December 2000 by then Secretary of Interior, Bruce Babbitt, who was accompanied by the distinguished Reconstruction scholar Eric Foner, National Park Service staff, and state historical leaders. After visiting a number of historic places in the area, Babbitt challenged community leaders to work together to provide opportunities for the public to learn more about the Reconstruction sites. Noting that he would be leaving office in less than two months, Secretary Babbitt was unable to assure National Park Service financial support but did provided the needed spark to get the initiative moving.

In January 2001, the Reconstruction History Partnership—composed of the Penn Center, University of South Carolina Beaufort, the City of Beaufort, the Town of Hilton Head Island, and Beaufort County—began to explore various strategies for preserving and interpreting the area’s cultural resources associated with Reconstruction. These include

  • the Penn School for former slaves founded in 1862 and located on St. Helena Island
  • the Old Fort Plantation on the Beaufort River where the first African Americans assembled on 1 January 1863 to hear the reading of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation
  • the Freedmen’s Bureau housed in the recently restored Beaufort College
  • the Beaufort Arsenal where free slaves in Beaufort voted for the first time
  • the first Freedmen’s Village of Mitchellville on Hilton Head Island
  • many other noteworthy historic buildings and archeological sites associated with the Civil War hero and Reconstruction leader Robert Smalls

Over the ensuing months the partnership in consultation with national, regional, and local leaders —and with assistance of a grant from the South Carolina Humanities Council—began to build local support for the initiative and to study the possible sites and the themes for interpretation. This effort led to the decision to seek Congressional support for a study on the possible creation in Beaufort County of a new unit of the National Park Service to focus on Reconstruction. Although there are many units of the National Park Service that deal with the Civil War, there are none that have as their primary mission the interpretation of Reconstruction.

On 30 April Senator Ernest Hollings introduced S. 2388, legislation that directs the Secretary of the Interior to study certain sites in the area of Beaufort, South Carolina, relating to the Reconstruction Era to assess the suitability and feasibility of designating the study area as a unit of the National Park System. Representative Joe Wilson, who represents the Beaufort area in the House, introduced H.R. 4747, a parallel bill on 15 May.

On 20 June, the Senate Energy and Natural Resource’s Subcommittee on Public Lands held a hearing on nine bills, one of which was S. 2388. Because of the number of bills, there was no outside witness for the Reconstruction bill. However, there were three written statements presented for the record. One was from the local partnership which stressed the national significance of historic resources in and around Beaufort and emphasized a strong level of local interest. A second was a joint statement of the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the National Coordinating Committee for the Promotion of History which emphasized the unique historical sites in the Beaufort area and made a case for why some of the other sites associated with Reconstruction do not match the range of innovative ideas that kept Beaufort at the forefront of national attention. The third statement was written by Eric Foner, who explained why the Beaufort area is the most appropriate site for a Reconstruction unit of the National Park Service.

Brenda Barrett, National Coordinator for Heritage Areas of the National Park Service, was the witness for the National Park Service. She summarized the National Park Service position on all nine bills. On S. 2388 she said that the Department of Interior supported the legislation but with some recommended amendments and she noted that the Department has not requested any funds in Fiscal Year 2003 for this study.

While some of the bills considered at the 20 June hearing had obvious opposition and were controversial, S. 2388 seemed to have a broad base of support. Although there are still many hurdles to get through before a study would be authorized and funded, there is a strong foundation on which to build. q

Page Putnam Miller is a Distinguished Visiting Lecturer University of South Carolina, Columbia, and a member of the OAH Executive Board.