Week End: Alex Champion's Weeks 4-5

It was an eventful weekend outside of The Maryland State Archives. My research exercises continued as I explored the databases and scanned records used by the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland team—meaning nothing new to report on that front. 

Back to School—Three Legged Stool

On Friday the 28^th I participated in the Third annual Back to School program coordinated by The HistoryMakers and arranged by 211 schools in the United States. Back to School is the most expansive and, seasonally, intensive activity The HistoryMakers conducts. Several staffers are employed year round in coordinating much of the work but the entire office pitches in during the frenzied, carnival like atmosphere in the final days. All persons (no matter their job description) confirm commitments, conduct coordinating conference calls, and prepare materials for every participating school and every participating HistoryMaker speaking there.  

Back to School is one of three legs on the THM stool. The second leg is the “An Evening With” series, which is the primary fundraising activity. Our fellowship, with few exceptions, is concerned with interviews and programming records processing—the third leg; our perspective on what THM does is therefore skewed. Although the two THM fellows from the program’s first year were involved in the implementation of BTS, the fellows in the field joined the HistoryMakers in the area and represented THM. Julieanna passionately believes in the archives but within the greater context of THM’s purpose to educate and preserve. I chose to emphasize these goals in my remarks.

I arrived at Annapolis High School around 7:30 and was shocked by several aspects of the school almost immediately. Although the school looked no bigger than my own High School, it had a business manager, security guard, mandatory student ID lanyards, and a visitor check in policy that scanned my driver license image onto a sticker; I couldn’t even keep the sticker as a memento since my surrendering of it qualified as a check out.

Because a couple hundred of the ninth graders were on a field trip, only a few hundred were at the assembly. Eugene Whiting, the ninth grade principal, and an interested Junior girl opened the assembly and introduced me. I was floored to see how young these Freshmen seemed. Although the majority of the students were listening or, at the very least, not talking during my remarks, a large minority engaged in a novel disruptive activity: They clapped. They clapped when I came to the podium, they clapped when I said hello, they clapped when I began my remarks, and they clapped two separate instances when I finished.

Carl Snowden addresses 300 freshman

These same students were more respectful to the HistoryMakers.  Chief Judge Robert M. Bell of the Maryland Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state, and Carl Snowden, the director of the Office for Civil Rights in the Attorney General’s office, knew each other from way back despite their generational difference. Upon meeting them in the conference room, I was first struck with their immaculate dress. Judge Bell, in his late 60s, was dressed conservatively with a tan two piece suit, matching shoes, and a well groomed moustache but nevertheless gave it a flair with a gingham shirt and matching pocket square, which were complimented by his expertly knotted bow tie. Although long removed from his native North Carolina, Judge Bell oozed southern gentleman even as he playfully teased Mr. Snowden into speaking first. Carl Snowden is less than ten years younger than Judge Bell but dressed in a contemporary gray blue suit and tie.





Excuse the blur: I didn't want the flash to
detract from Judge Bell's remarks.

Since both men are veteran public speakers and celebrities of a sort, they held the ninth graders’ attentions better and longer than I was able. They used entertaining and edifying anecdotes from their own lives or others to emphasize the importance of education. The assembly broke after all students recited The HistoryMakers “Commit” pledge. After a brief return to the conference room we dropped in on very different classes: The first was IB World History and the second was Theory of Knowledge. Our minders, for reasons I will not attempt to fathom, emphasized the audience differences between the courses. The World History course was ostensibly for tenth graders on the International Baccalaureate track but was “mixed” with Juniors and Seniors. Judge Bell and Mr. Snowden employed several well rehearsed scripts but also coolly and thoughtfully replied to repeated questions about the death penalty. Despite Annapolis’ demographics I was shocked to see only one white student. A couple of them had visible tattoos.

The Theory of Knowledge class was, as I expect is the case everywhere, composed of ambitious seniors. Although Judge Bell and Mr. Snowden again performed well, the students were somewhat intrigued by me since I admitted to taking ToK exactly 10 years ago. I was a professional, of what it probably didn’t matter, with recent college experiences right at the time they were applying to colleges. The teacher used one of my remarks about archives and the integrity of information to discuss information literacy. Using an anecdote of my own, I explained how significantly the Internet changed the information universe during the course of my lifetime. I emphasized the importance of primary documents, meaningful research and critical thinking beyond simple verification, reading or listening to diverse sources, following fact checking organizations that resist the media tendency to create false equivalence, be suspicious of free information, and consider the motives of news givers.

We Are All Kunta Kinte

The Saturday following Back to School was largely devoted to representing the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland project at the Kunta Kinte Heritage Festival by the City Dock in the Historic Downtown of Annapolis. On this, the 25^th anniversary of the festival, me and two other LOSIM research archivists talked about the project, explored the various applications on website with interested parties, and made several contacts with members of the media or with teachers.

We were working with new display materials, which required significant troubleshooting because of our small table and Mother Nature. The wind played tricks with our poster display easel, our tiny easels for mounted want ad reproductions, and every piece of literature we had; it felt as if the entire project could be hurled into Ego Alley with the dozens of yachts. By the time my morning shift was over the booth expanded to an unused adjacent, our vulnerable displays were taped down, and our tiny table became a demonstration zone for the database.

A very poignant moment took place at the end of my shift. A speaker, whom I could not name or see because of an obstruction, reminded everyone about the historical context. “It’s important to remember where we are,” she began. “Here at the City Dock where people sit and watch boats in the bay, slaves were brought for sale.” In fact, it was exactly 245 years since the published arrival of the slave ship Lord Ligonier, which Kunta Kinte was allegedly aboard, and advertisement for the slave auction to follow.