Memorializing Displacement
Jean Allman, Andrew Hurley and Katherine Van Allen
From October 26-28, 2016, the Center for Humanities at Washington University, the Museum Studies Program at the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL), and the Missouri History Museum, hosted the Memorializing Displacement Workshop. Highlighting innovative practices in South Africa and major cities in the United States, the event aimed to instigate conversations among activists, scholars, curators, and other museum professionals about how to recover and preserve stories of displaced communities and involuntary urban relocations in St. Louis. The program was guided by the following overarching questions:
– What interpretive strategies have been employed successfully in other parts of the United States and the world to recover the stories of displaced populations?
– What obstacles have local groups encountered in keeping alive memories of dislodged communities in St. Louis?
– How relevant are the interpretive strategies adopted elsewhere to the case of St. Louis?
– How can the interpretation of lost communities address the contemporary legacies of historical injustices and unleash the forces of progressive change?
The workshop began with a public plenary session at the Missouri History Museum featuring four invited guests from South Africa who have earned renown for transforming museum and heritage practices in post-apartheid South Africa. The remainder of the program, held at Washington University on October 27th and UMSL on October 28th, was constructed to encourage interchange among our South African guests, invited speakers from other cities in the United States, and local participants. To orient out-of-town guests to the local historical landscape, they were taken on a three-hour narrated bus tour of notable sites of displacement in the St. Louis metropolitan area. Thursday afternoon and Friday programming consisted of film screenings, panel discussions, and a wrap-up session designed to identify local commemoration priorities and brainstorm collaborative projects.
A recording for the first panel can be found in the Divided City Video Archive.
In our original proposal, we established three measures for evaluating program success.
Attendance—Attendance at each day’s events ranged between 60 and 70 people. Approximately 30-40 people attended on multiple days. Total attendance consisted of about 100 discrete individuals. These included faculty, students, museum professionals, and representatives from civic and cultural organizations.
Engagement of local stakeholders—Attendees represented a wide range of civic institutions and agencies, including the Griot Museum of Black History, the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, Lewis Place Historic Preservation, Inc., the Scott Joplin House State Historical Site, Laumeier Sculpture Garden, and Greenwood Cemetery Organization.
Developing a Consensus about Next Steps—At the concluding session, attendees arrived at a consensus to convene a follow-up meeting among interested parties to explore collaborative initiatives on interpreting the theme of involuntary displacement. The meeting is scheduled for February 23, 2017 at the Griot Museum of Black History.
The full program for the “Memorializing Displacement” workshop can be found here.
Jean Allman is Director of the Center for Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis.
Andrew Hurley is Professor of History at University of Missouri-St. Louis.
Katherine Van Allen is the Managing Director of Museum Services for the Missouri History Museum.