Gary B. Nash For Whom Will the Liberty Bell Toll? From Controversy to Collaboration

he Liberty Bell controversy, which began in late 2001, had a painful beginning but appears to be nearing a productive ending that will please most Philadelphians, most visitors to Independence National THistorical Park (INHP), and most National Park Service people. Some public squabbles waste time and bring about no lasting good. This controversy has been different. By now it is widely known that the controversy centered on how INHP would present the Liberty Bell in its new pavilion built at the south- east corner of Sixth and Market streets. Much was at stake here, and Masters, mighty merchant and nobody knew it better than the super- Philadelphia mayor in the 1750s, intendent and staff at Philadelphia’s erected a fine mansion in about INHP. Each year several million peo- 1767–68. As it turns out, Masters was ple from home and abroad troop past probably Philadelphia’s largest slave the Liberty Bell and neighboring owner. In 1761, after his death, his Independence Hall, eager to see one of probated estate listed the names of 34 the premier sites of America’s her- slaves. Some may have helped build itage. The Liberty Bell and the house. In 1772, Widow Masters Independence Hall are beacons gave the mansion to her daughter attracting people to find links between Polly, who had married Richard Penn, the past and the present. But what do grandson of William Penn. Polly and visitors hear from Park Service rangers Richard Penn were also slave owners, these days, and what will they see as but on a small scale. The mansion’s they gaze at what has become one of next occupant, shortly after the the nation’s most memorable icons—a Revolution erupted, was Sir William 2,000-pound piece of unstable mixed Howe, the British general whose army metals molded 250 years ago that has occupied Philadelphia from achieved an almost global reach as a September 1777 to June 1778. After symbol of freedom and human rights? Howe’s recall, Sir Henry Clinton Now, with some $13 million for a new moved in and, like Howe, his enslaved pavilion, INHP had a new chance to Africans toiled on this site. After the rethink what the Liberty Bell meant at British decamped, Benedict Arnold different points in its history and what arrived to declare martial law and it means today. INHP shouldered a occupy the Masters–Penn mansion. weighty responsibility—and enjoyed a Two enslaved Africans were among rare opportunity. his household retinue of seven. Then What has added to the drama in in 1781, Robert Morris, financier of presenting the Liberty Bell anew is the the American Revolution as he has chunk of real estate upon which the been called, purchased the house and new pavilion was to be erected. The began to reconstruct it, probably with site is where the widow of William the labor of his several slaves (though Volume 21 • Number 1 2004 39 not including Hero, who had fled to President’s House. the British just before they took the For nearly seven years, George city). Thus, for the entire revolution- Washington and the first lady occu- ary period, the lives of the free and pied the Morris House, and no day unfree mingled intimately on this went by without the services provided piece of Philadelphia ground. by the indentured servants and slaves The rebuilding of the Masters– who prepared the meals, cleaned the Penn House made it suitable quarters mansion, drove the coaches, managed for George and Martha Washington the horses, tended the fireplaces, after the nation’s capital moved from hauled the ashes, and performed New York to Philadelphia in 1790. countless other tasks indispensable to But some alterations were needed, running the executive office efficiently especially for sheltering a household and graciously. Like their well-to-do staff of about thirty—a mixed lot of owners, these men and women had white indentured servants and emotions, ideas, spiritual yearnings, enslaved African Americans. Through hopes, and fears; they also had family the work of Ed Lawler, an urban commitments, agendas to pursue, and archeologist and architectural histori- thoughts of improving their condition. an, who has been writing a history of They speak to us as much as Martha the Morris mansion and its use by and George about what it meant to live Washington, we know that each day in Philadelphia at the center of the the thousands of visitors at the Liberty new American republic, though histo- Bell Pavilion will be walking directly ry had dictated that they carry out over the “Servants Hall,” as it was their lives at very different social levels called, over the smokehouse, over the and in severely circumscribed sta- octagon icehouse, and over the added tions. slave quarters apparently built by They speak to us, however, only if Washington with Robert Morris’s we give them voice. Here are two sto- consent (Figure 1). After the ries that have come, as it were, from Washingtons decamped for Mount underground—stories about life at Vernon, John and Abigail Adams Sixth and Market streets, stories that became the new tenants at what have found their way neither into the Philadelphians were coming to call the history books nor into the national

Figure 1. Ground plan of Liberty Bell Center, showing the former site of the President’s House and associated structures (shaded). National Park Service map (2002), with additions by Edward Lawler, Jr.; courtesy of www.ushistory.org. 40 The George Wright FORUM consciousness, stories that ought to be dom would set “a dangerous prece- restored to memory in the maturity of dent.” At that, Oney Judge swore she our 21st-century democracy. “should rather suffer death than Oney Judge, born of a Mount return to Slavery.” When Washington Vernon enslaved seamstress and sired persisted, his agent in Portsmouth, by a white indentured servant from New Hampshire, reported in Leeds, England, had served Martha September 1796 that “popular opin- Washington since 1784, when the ion here is in favor of universal free- young mixed-race girl was about ten dom,” which made it difficult for him years of age. Martha Washington to seize and shackle Oney. Two years brought her to Philadelphia in 1790 later, the Washington family was still when Oney was sixteen. Six years trying to snag Martha’s ingrate cham- later, in 1796, her privileged position bermaid by sending George’s nephew, in the Washington household notwith- Burwell Bassett, after her. Not until standing, she fled the president’s man- Washington’s death in 1799 could sion just before the Washingtons were Oney feel some measure of safety. By ready to return to Mount Vernon for now she was married, had a baby, and summer recess. Her days of helping had put roots down in New the first lady dress and powder up for Hampshire where she lived out her levees and state functions, running life, poor but free. errands for her, and accompanying her Just as the site on which the new on visits to the wives of other political Liberty Bell Pavilion was rising was a and diplomatic leaders were now at an stage for a personal declaration of end. Many years later she recalled to a independence by a 22-year-old journalist of Granite Freedom,a New enslaved woman, it became so again Hampshire abolitionist paper, “I had nine months after her escape, just as friends among the colored people of the Washingtons were leaving Philadelphia, had my things carried Philadelphia to take up life as private there [to a waiting ship] before hand, citizens on their beloved Mount and left while [the Washingtons] were Vernon plantation. To the Washing- at dinner.” tons, Hercules enjoyed a special status The Washingtons railed at the in the executive mansion, one that in ingratitude of Oney Judge fleeing slav- their view should have made him ery—“without the least provocation,” immune to the fever for freedom. As as Washington wrote. Oney’s “thirst their prize cook, he had prepared for compleat freedom,” as she called it, countless state dinners for a number of did not register with the president. years. But Hercules, like Oney Judge, The Washingtons sent agents after her, had mingled with numerous free black to cuff her and bring her back or bar- Philadelphians, who by this time had gain her into returning. Hunted down, built two churches of their own, start- Oney sent word that, if guaranteed ed schools and mutual aid societies, freedom, she would return out of carved out niches in the urban econo- affection for the Washington family. my,even purchased homes, and began The first family refused. With several mounting attacks on the fortress of hundred of their enslaved Africans at slavery. stake, they feared that rewarding her Hercules slipped away from the flight from slavery with a grant of free- president’s house, melted into the

Volume 21 • Number 1 2004 41 countryside, and outwitted all of from Mount Vernon who had served Washington’s attempts to capture him. the first family at this site for nearly When a visitor to Mount Vernon asked seven years (soon to be published in Hercules’ six-year-old daughter the Pennsylvania Magazine of History whether she was broken-hearted at the and Biography), I mentioned that it prospect of never seeing her father would be a misfortune to perpetuate again, she replied, “Oh sir! I am very the historical amnesia about the glad because he is free now.” founding fathers and slavery at the All of Washington’s fears, since his Liberty Bell venue. But the alarm bell first arrival in Philadelphia, were being I tried to ring had no effect whatever. I realized. In 1791, he wrote to his sec- had not read the script written by retary, Tobias Lear, that he did not INHP, nor did I know that they were think his slaves “would be benefited” moving ahead at flank speed to get by achieving freedom, “yet the idea of bids to construct the new exhibits. freedom might be too great a tempta- That became apparent when I tion to resist,” and breathing the free returned to Philadelphia on March 12, air of Philadelphia, where the pesky 2002, to give a talk on my First City: Quakers were helping enslaved Philadelphia and the Forging of Pennsylvanians break their shackles, Historical Memory, published by might “make them insolent in a state of University of Pennsylvania Press a few slavery.” Near the end of his presiden- months before. cy, and still grating at Oney Judge’s After reaching Philadelphia, I flight, he ordered his secretary to get called the chief of interpretation at his slaves back to Mount Vernon. “I INHP to ask what visitors would learn wish to have it accomplished under a about the history of the president’s pretext that may deceive both them house, its many illustrious tenants, and the public,” he wrote. “I request and their slaves and servants? Not that these sentiments and this advice much, he replied. The interpretative may be known to none but yourself plan had been researched for several and Mrs. Washington.” years, scholarly and public input had Site and symbol, freedom and slav- been solicited, and the decision had ery, black and white, upstairs and been made to keep the focus squarely downstairs: how should the INHP on the Liberty Bell and its venerable explain the Liberty Bell and its new history. Drawing attention to the site site to the swarming visitors who will on which the new pavilion was being come to venerate the bell? In built, he explained, would confuse the December 2001, I had an inkling that public and divert attention from the the Liberty Bell story line, as it had venerable Bell. I objected that the been devised by INHP, would be sim- Liberty Bell meant many things to plistic and vainglorious and that the many people, among them slaves for piece of history-soaked land the bell whom the biblical inscription on the would occupy would be ignored. bell—“Proclaim liberty throughout Philadelphia’s National Public Radio the land and to all the inhabitants station, WHYY, had interviewed me thereof”—surely had a hollow ring. on December 5, 2001, by hookup in Were not liberty and unfreedom Los Angeles; and having read Ed locked together in deadly embrace? Lawler’s account of the eight slaves Wasn’t the liberty of some built on the

42 The George Wright FORUM enslavement of others? Whether true Bush. And I remembered the letter or not, he replied, “the train has left which Martha Aikens, the superin- the station”—a metaphor that has tendent of INHP, showed me: from become the standard rationale for Mr. Tony Johnston of Williamstown, those who do not want to entertain New Jersey. Johnston had written how dissenting views. We are out of time, his children wanted to see out of money,and the interpretive plan Independence Hall when he and his was put before the public with plenty family were visiting Philadelphia on of opportunity for comment and criti- July 4, 1995. “I did not want to go,” cism, explained the chief of interpreta- explained Johnston. “I am an African- tion. Would the public hear not a word American and spent most of my life in about how they were walking over the the west. I did not think this place had slave quarters Washington built as anything to do with me.”But their tour they approached the entrance of the guide, Frances Delmar, changed his Liberty Bell Pavilion? Would they mind. “She made me understand that learn nothing about how they were even if I am not blood related to those stepping in the footprints of Richard men in Independence Hall, I am idea Penn, Benedict Arnold, Sir William and dream related,” he wrote. “She Howe, Robert Morris, Abigail Adams, told her story just like my mother used and a host of others? The most I could to do her quilts. She put the pieces eke from him was a half-promise to together and when she was done I saw consider a wayside panel out on the pattern and white I fit in the pat- Market Street that would note that this tern.”Johnston concluded that Ranger was the site of the Masters–Morris Delmar “saw I was uneasy being house that became the executive man- African American in that place. She sion of our first two presidents. faced the race thing head on with Muttering to myself as I walked to charm and truth. Thank you for giving the old Friends Meetinghouse to give us tour guides like her. Bless you.” a talk on First City,a book about the Here is exactly how the National contest for public memory that had Park Service was changing from my agitated Philadelphia for generations, I boyhood days in Philadelphia. This pondered whether my concluding was why our historians’ group was chapter, titled “Restoring Memory,” convinced that serious missteps were was too optimistic. I mused about how being made. Was the process of mem- “the property in history has been ory-making, the process of overcom- redistributed as collecting institutions ing historical amnesia, going into have broadened their vision about reverse gear at the Liberty Bell what is collectible and as the access to Pavilion? the means of producing stories about At the Quaker Meetinghouse, I the past has widened greatly.” I related concluded with what I had just heard how the Republican National from the Park Service. One after Committee had sanctioned a 30-foot- another, those attending deplored high mural portraying the Under- INHP’s inattention to the Liberty ground Railroad and its radical aboli- Bell’s historically rich site. Up jumped tionist leaders in Philadelphia and Randall Miller, former editor of the unveiled it as the convention of July Pennsylvania Magazine of History and 2000 met to nominate George W. Biography,prolific author, and crown

Volume 21 • Number 1 2004 43 jewel of the History Department at St. at the heart of one of the nation’s most Joseph’s University, to suggest that I potent symbols of freedom.” Salisbury write an op-ed piece for the and Saffron included a defensive state- Philadelphia Inquirer to bring the ment from INHP that “the Liberty issue before the public. Not quite Bell is its own story, and Washington’s ready to have him paint a bulls-eye on slaves are a different one better told the back of someone who had made elsewhere.” Philadelphia’s African useful target practice for the ultra- American mayor, John Street, was patriotic attack on the National quoted as being disturbed by this and History Standards in 1994–96, I calling for “a very earnest dialogue ... agreed only on the condition that he about how to address the issue of would co-author the piece. When Washington and his slaves.” Randall Miller agreed, we were off to the races. Miller was quoted at length, pointing The next day, Marty Moss-Coane, out that Park Service was missing an host of WHYY’s “Radio Times,” opportunity “to tell the real story of interviewed me on First City, and she the American Revolution and the followed my suggestion that she segue meaning of freedom. Americans, into a discussion of the planned through Washington, were working Liberty Bell exhibits. This gave me a out the definition of freedom in a new chance to be provocative. “Our mem- republic. And Washington had slaves. ory of the past is often managed and Meanwhile, the slaves were defining manipulated,” I said. “Here it is being freedom for themselves by running downright murdered.” The switch- away. There are endless contradictions board began to light up as people embedded in this site.” I was quoted called in from all compass points. that “[m]aybe the National Park Overwhelmingly, they supported my Service feels it would besmirch the plea for presenting the history of the Liberty Bell to discuss [the slavery Liberty Bell site, along with the bell, in issue] and that the Liberty Bell should ways that mingled stories of freedom be pure. But that’s not history [in the and unfreedom, black and white, whole that] ... people deserve to mighty and humble, leaving the public know.” with food for thought rather than sim- Two days later, the Inquirer devot- ply a warm, cozy glow about the old ed a full page to the issue with a clever cracked bell. headline “Site Unseen” about the Fifteen minutes of discussion about Morris–Washington house along with the Liberty Bell on “Radio News” an article about how Mayor Street was proved a crucial turning point. The dialoguing with Park Service officials, public was getting aroused. Equally who now seemed willing to rethink important, Stephan Salisbury at the their exhibits a bit, especially if the Inquirer decided to cover the story. mayor agreed that work on the new Writing with Inga Saffron, he splashed pavilion would not be delayed. the story on the front page, Sunday, Meanwhile, Miller and I organized a March 24, with a headline reading committee of well-known historians “Echoes of Slavery at Liberty Bell and Philadelphia institutional leaders site.” Thousands of Inquirer readers to hold the feet of Park Service officials were learning about a chapter of for- to the fire, while offering to work with gotten history—“the presence of slaves them to rethink their plans for the

44 The George Wright FORUM Liberty Bell pavilion and the site on the living symbol of freedom and inde- which it would arise. Among them pendence,” we wrote, and “Washing- were Charlene Mires, an American ton’s slaves were living symbols of the historian at Villanova University and most paradoxical part of the nation’s author of a soon-to-be-published his- birth—freedom and unfreedom side tory of Independence Hall, who told by side, with the enslavement of some the press about how not only the pres- making possible the liberty of others. ident’s house was involved with slav- An exhibition of documents and arti- ery but that Independence Hall itself facts should show slavery’s and free- was where runaway slaves were tried dom’s many meanings at the dawn of as late as 1854. “These issues of slav- the new nation. Doing so will make the ery and freedom run throughout Liberty Bell’s own story ring loud and Independence Mall,” Mires said to the true.” “A free people,” we concluded, Inquirer.“It doesn’t diminish the “dare not bury evidence or silence story to address them.” long-forgotten African Americans, Upping the ante, the Inquirer’s whose stories make the meaning of the March 27 lead editorial was titled Liberty Bell and the Revolution real “Freedom & Slavery, Just as they and palpable, here and abroad.” coexisted in the 1700s, both must be From this point forward, the key part of Liberty Bell’s story.” The was to move from publicity to concrete Inquirer wagged its finger at INHP, results. To this end, we asked INHP reminded them that “the old cracked Superintendent Martha Aikens to bell will be situated on ground that meet with us to discuss what we enhances it as a cherished symbol of regarded as a flawed plan. “The the struggle for liberty, especially to planned interpretation of the Liberty African Americans” and expressed Bell’s new site, as we understand it,” confidence that “the Liberty Bell in its we wrote in a letter to her, “will focus new home will not bury an ugly part of on the Liberty Bell, its history, and its the country’s history.” significance as a national icon symbol- And then the Inquirer published izing the commitment to freedom in an op-ed piece that Randall Miller and America. But the Liberty Bell story so I wrote on Easter Sunday, March 31, envisioned speaks mostly to the along with an essay by Charlene achievement of American independ- Mires, The next day, the Associated ence and the devotion to the ideal of Press put a story on the wire, to be freedom thereafter. This does not picked up around the country, titled address the braided historical relation- “Historians Decry Liberty Bell Site.” ship between freedom and slavery, The history of slavery on how interdependent they were, and Independence Mall was now becom- how the freedom of some was built ing a hot issue. Letters were pouring in upon the unfreedom of others. to the Inquirer. Moreover this singular focus on liber- In our op-ed essay, Miller and I ty as the achievement of white argued that the Park Service should Americans leaves African Americans enlist historians to help bring out the out of the story, except as objects of rich stories showing how freedom and others’ benevolence and concern. The slavery commingled at the Liberty Bell issue of how white freedom lived site and elsewhere. “Washington was cheek by jowl with slavery, and how

Volume 21 • Number 1 2004 45 this played itself out on the now sacred against NPS’s new thinking,” as he ground of the Independence Hall area wrote. Pitcaithley now wrote (including the presidential house in Superintendent Aikens urging an the 1790s), is what has occasioned so approach similar to that advocated by much public interest and comment.” our ad hoc group. “The potential for We ended our letter with a request for interpreting Washington’s residence the interpretive plan, which we had and slavery on the site,” he counseled not been able to pry from her office. “presents the National Park Service Protracted negotiations with the with several exciting opportunities.” Park Service leaders now ensued. The President’s House, he prodded, Three stages evolved. First, INHP’s should be explained and interpreted, leaders, under a barrage of negative and “the juxtaposition of slave quar- press commentary and intensified by a ters (George Washington’s slave quar- long New York Times article on April ters, no less) and the Liberty Bell” pro- 20, tried a finger-in-the-dike ap- vided “some stirring interpretive pos- proach. In late April, Superintendent sibilities.” “The contradiction in the Aikens released a brief description— founding of the country between free- our first glimpse of the interpretive dom and slavery,” he continued, plan—of the ten zones planned to “becomes palpable when one actually interpret the Liberty Bell inside the crosses through a slave quarters site pavilion and invited five of our ad hoc when entering a shrine to a major sym- historians’ group to review one panel bol of the abolition movement.... How on slavery that they agreed to fit into better to establish the proper histori- one of the ten exhibit zones. But the cal context for understanding the superintendent denied us access to the Liberty Bell than by talking about the script sent out for bids, would not institution of slavery? And not the agree to consider all ten zones of the institution as generalized phenome- exhibits, and warned that the Park non, but as lived by George Service would not contemplate any Washington’s own slaves. The fact that major changes inside the pavilion Washington’s slaves Hercules and because “the plans and specifications Oney Judge sought and gained free- for the Liberty Bell Center were com- dom from this very spot gives us inter- pleted on March 22, 2002.” However, pretive opportunities other historic she invited us to discuss possible sites can only long for. This juxtaposi- interpretations of the President’s tion is an interpretive gift that can House site, where people will line up make the Liberty Bell ‘experience’ to enter the Liberty Bell Pavilion. much more meaningful to the visiting Second, the intervention of NPS’s public. We will have missed a real edu- Chief Historian, Dwight Pitcaithley, cational opportunity if we do not act became crucially important. When he on this possibility.” first saw the interpretative plan, Shuttling between Washington and Pitcaithley was dismayed to find a Philadelphia, Pitcaithley’s meetings chest-thumping, celebratory script, with the INHP staff and its regional- “an exhibit to make people feel good office supervisors bore fruit. This but not to think,” an exhibit that brought us to the third stage of the “would be an embarrassment if it went process: many months of parleying up,” and one that “works exactly and jockeying. During this period,

46 The George Wright FORUM Superintendent Aikens had delegated of an artifact rather than simply an her responsibilities to Deputy informational caption. Here is one Superintendent Dennis Reidenbach example. In the initially planned because she was departing for a new exhibit, in a section on how the NPS assignment. At meetings with our Liberty Bell traveled around the coun- group on May 13, 2002, with the air try in the late 19th and early 20th cen- fairly crackling with electricity and turies, the INHP interpretive team jux- Pitcaithley playing the role of taposed four photographs of visitors at Metternich, the entire exhibit, not just San Francisco’s 1915 Panama–Pacific one panel in one of ten zones, was put Expo, with a caption reading: “1915 on the table for discussion, contempla- scenes: men holding children up to tion, and revision. The door that had the Bell, top-hatted men lining up for a been opened just a crack was now picture at the Bell, Native American, flung wide open. It was agreed that the Thomas Edison.” The new text reads: meaning of freedom in a democracy “As the Liberty Bell increased in pop- built on slave foundations would be a ularity as a symbol of freedom and lib- central theme in the exhibit; that the erty for white Americans during the treatment of the President’s House last quarter of the 19th century, it outside the pavilion would be inter- reminded African Americans, Native preted with attention to the enslaved Americans, other ethnic groups, and Africans and indentured servants who women of unrealized ideals. While the toiled there; and that the Park Service Bell traveled the nation as a symbol of would rewrite the script and send it liberty, intermittent race riots, lynch- out for review by noted scholars of the ings, and Indians wars presented an African American experience and the alternative picture of freedom denied.” history of liberty in America. David Under the photo of Chief Little Bear, Hollenberg, Associate Northeast the caption now read: “Forced to Regional Director of the Park Service, choose between segregation and pledged that “we are looking at the assimilation that insisted upon the bell as a symbol of an ongoing contin- suppression of their unique cultural uous struggle for liberty rather than practices, Native Americans may not [as a symbol] of liberty attained.” have seen the hope of fair treatment In two days in late May 2002, the and equal rights embodied in the Liberty Bell exhibits were overhauled. Bell.” Five of the ten zones were reorganized, In sum, INHP abandoned the rescripted, and changed to drop some attempt to restrict changes to one zone images while adding others. For exam- and work only around the edges of the ple, INHP agreed to adopt my sugges- original script. Rosalind Remer, histo- tion to use a slave head harness with a rian at Moravian College and director bell that announced slave flight—what of museum planning and program- might be called an “unfreedom bell” ming at the National Constitution intended to thwart those seeking free- Center from 1997 to 1999, reported dom. In many other cases, mindful of back to our committee that after two the need to use as many images already exhausting days “an amazingly contracted for as possible, INHP thoughtful, provocative exhibit” was agreed to new text designed to give being hammered out, one “that will visitors varying interpretive readings ask visitors to confront the complex

Volume 21 • Number 1 2004 47 relationship of freedom and unfree- script on their website, complete with dom as part of their consideration of most of the images, our group offered Liberty Bell-as-icon. The ongoing small but important changes in the struggle for equality is central to all of wording of what several million visi- the panels. The celebratory tone is tors each year would read. Betokening gone, replaced by subtle discussion of the new spirit of collaboration with symbols and popular uses of the non-NPS historians, most of the past.... The complicated story of changes were accepted and woven into Reconstruction and racism is at the the nearly final text (see Figures 2 and heart of the exhibit—in some ways, I 3). think, a pivotal section that makes What gave special urgency to revis- clear that all of the appropriations of ing the Liberty Bell exhibit and incor- the Liberty Bell image are not the porating site interpretation into it was same—nor do they stem from the same the involvement of black Philadelphi- impulses.... Images that were before ans, who represent about half the seen simply as celebratory odes to the city’s population. On July 3, 2002, bell can now be interpreted in various hundreds of African Americans ways.” The major reconceptualization demonstrated at the Liberty Bell site, and rewriting left the INHP staff “a lit- while the Avenging the Ancestors tle nervous,” reported Remer, “but Coalition, headed by lawyer Michael also strengthened ... because they very Coard, organized a letter writing cam- clearly seemed to see that this is now paign and a petition with several thou- an exhibit to be proud of, rather than sand signatures that called for a monu- one to hide from scholarly scrutiny.” ment to commemorate Washington’s A team of IHNP staffers, including slaves. The African People’s Solidarity Doris Fanelli, Coxey Toogood, and Committee wanted more discussion of Joe Becton, none of whom had been slavery, though much along the lines given an opportunity to help shape the that our committee was pursuing. In original script, produced a much- what would turn out to be a key move, revised script, which then went out to Congressman Chaka Fattah intro- a brace of scholars, just as the Park duced an amendment to the 2003 Service’s general management plan budget of the Department of the requires. Replies brought further Interior, requiring that the Park changes to the script, which was then Service report to Congress about an on its way toward a final review, with appropriate commemoration of the our ad hoc historians’ group involved. President’s House and the slaves who “The paradox of slavery in a land of toiled there. The appropriations com- the free will be a major exhibition mittee, which oversees the NPS budg- theme when the $12.6 million Liberty et, voted unanimously for the Fattah Bell Center ... opens next spring,” amendment. Shortly, the Multicultural reported the Inquirer on August 11. Affairs Congress, a division of the “The text of the exhibition ... has been Philadelphia Convention and Visitors completely reworked over the last Bureau, joined the call for a “promi- three months and is nearing comple- nent monument or memorial” fixing in tion, according to NPS officials.” The the public memory the contributions completion would take another ten of Washington’s slaves to the early weeks. After INHP mounted the new years of the new republic and making

48 The George Wright FORUM Figures 2–3. New exhibits at the Liberty Bell Center. Photos by R. Kennedy for the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Association.

Philadelphia a premier destination for would be seen inside the Liberty Bell African American visitors. The city Pavilion, the focus now shifted out- council followed suit with a resolution side—to the site of the President’s endorsing this idea. House and its interpretation. The With general agreement on what power of the place—some 12,000

Volume 21 • Number 1 2004 49 square feet—is enormous. What Park oration. Representing our historians’ Service ranger would not want to group, Professor Stephanie Wolf pre- stand on this history-drenched site sented three important themes that and tell stories to knots of visitors INHP had earlier dismissed as a diver- waiting to enter the pavilion? I fanta- sion and source of confusion from the size that I am starting a new career as Liberty Bell focus: the need to make an INHP ranger. “Come over here,” I visible the executive branch of govern- say to a group of overseas visitors. ment that has always been missing in “Here the first two presidents wrestled the Independence Mall interpretation with how the infant United States since park rangers had no physical would deal with the French representation around which to work Revolution, which divided Philadel- this interpretation; the need to inter- phians, like the nation at large, into pret the president’s house as home warring camps.” “Step right here,” I and office of Washington and Adams tell a group of school children. “Just —the one a slave owner, the other a over where you are standing, on the proto-abolitionist—as a way of expres- second floor, Nelly Custis helped her sing the split that runs through the grandmother, Martha Washington, nation’s history; and the need to focus two centuries ago, preparing for bed on the many and diverse people who and kneeling in prayer with the first lived and worked at this site or in lady and singing her grandmother to neighboring households. sleep.” “Now come a few yards this By late summer, INHP had com- way,”I tell a group of African missioned two design firms, Olin American visitors. “From this spot, Partnership of Philadelphia and George Washington watched white Vincent Ciulla Design of Brooklyn, to slave planters, who were fleeing the work on a plan. On January 15, 2003, black revolution in Haiti in the early the Park Service unveiled plans for the 1790s, tumbling off ships a few blocks outside exhibits. They included all of east of here with scores of slaves in what we and other community organi- tow. These French-speaking slaves zations had asked for, and even more: would soon be free in Philadelphia, as (1) inscriptions of passages condemn- the gradual abolition act of 1780 ing slavery that were stricken from required, and many would worship at drafts of the Declaration of Independ- the city’s Catholic churches.” When I ence on the front wall of the visitor see some visitors from Oklahoma, I center (which faces the Liberty Bell say: “Please stand right here, good site); (2) physical representations of people. You are standing just over the the President’s House—a partial foot- place where the young John Quincy print of it, perhaps in slate; (3) side Adams sat in the front hall with walls detailing the presidencies of President Washington and seventeen Washington and Adams; (4) a curved visiting Chickasaw chiefs, passing a black marble wall winding through the ceremonial peace pipe around the cir- spacious approach to the pavilion with cle.” stories of the free, unfree, and partially In the end, INHP and Northeast free people who labored there; (5) the Region staffers agreed that the execu- history of slavery in Philadelphia and tive mansion and the people who lived in the nation at large; (6) material on and worked there deserved commem- the emergence of the free black com-

50 The George Wright FORUM munity in Philadelphia and the strug- encouragement to most of the parties gle to dismantle the house of slavery, concerned with her open-mindedness represented by a breach in the wall and commitment to see this important through which the enslaved figurative- presentation of history through to a ly escaped; and (7) large sculptures of satisfactory conclusion. Oney Judge and Hercules, 12–16 feet Here are the two most salient high and visible from both inside and points that marked the Liberty Bell outside the site, with a contemplative contretemps and distinguish it from garden space as well as a third sculp- the history wars of the early 1990s. ture interpreting enslavement and Almost all such squabbles in recent emancipation. In the view of our ad years involve an old question: whose hoc historians’ group, the design was story gets told, who gets to speak, and innovative, exciting, and responsive to who has a say-so on stimulating—or what we and the Park Service’s chief anaesthetizing — public memory? historian had urged. Michael Coard First, the media—whether newspa- from the Avenging the Ancestors pers, radio, or television—was over- Coalition applauded the designs, pre- whelmingly opposed to the narrow dicting that “our little Black boys and and unflinchingly heroic story of the girls [will] beam with pride when they Liberty Bell and the exclusion of the walk through Independence Mall and rich history about the site on which it witness the true history of America will rest. In particular, not to treat the and their brave ancestors.” conjunction of freedom and slavery in The story of the Liberty Bell the historic heart of old Philadelphia Pavilion and the site it occupies is not and the nation’s capital in the 1790s, quite over. Money must be raised to and not to bring forward the stories of transform the 12,000 square feet out- African Americans, indentured ser- side the pavilion into a contemplative vants, women, and others struggling to and commemorative set of exhibits. find their place under the canopy of The design of the exhibits—whether freedom and equal rights, seemed statues, symbolic walls, plaques— offensive and mistaken. The needs final approval. The “words on Philadelphia Inquirer ran about a the walls” that will explain the dozen stories, three editorials, at least President’s House, the administra- six op-ed essays, and dozens of letters tions of Washington and Adams, and to the editors, while WHYY, the lives of those who served there Philadelphia’s National Public Radio have yet to be written. The images, station, interviewed many of the con- such as the painting of Hercules that testants in this battle. Because of this has been uncovered in a Spanish mini-media blitz Park Service staffers museum, still need to be selected. But came to recognize they were missing a the process for reaching the finish line major opportunity in telling a story, is in place, and the finish line is within laced with paradox and ambiguity, view. The new superintendent of worthy of the American democracy in INHP, Mary Bomar, has opened her what is destined to become one of the door to interested parties to this dis- most visited historic sites in the world. pute and has participated vigorously Second, the leadership team at in several meetings and roundtable INHP mistakenly lost faith in collabo- discussions, where she has given rative interpretive planning with

Volume 21 • Number 1 2004 51 scholars and the public, as well as with David Hollenberg now describes as a some of its talented historical “radically transformed” plan. It proba- researchers and park rangers. We may bly helped that the historians’ group never know exactly why. Yet the train tried not to personalize the argument that had left the station was made to or ascribe dark motives to anyone return for an overhaul. Something of involved; rather, we argued that the great importance to those involved in Park Service staffers had underesti- public history finally gained accept- mated the public’s capacity for grasp- ance all around the table where the ing complex issues and—most of all— cards were dealt: that it is not did not follow the Park Service’s own unhealthy in a democracy that a ten- dictates, namely the general manage- sion between the commemorative ment plan, which calls for close collab- voice and the historical voice should oration with historians and other manifest itself in public history sites, scholars, as well as the public, in arriv- and that the National Park Service can ing at a final exhibition plan. serve the American democracy best if In the heat of the National History its sites become forums, as historian Standards controversy in 1995, histo- Edward Linenthal has said, where rian Kenneth Moynihan asked “diverse interpretations of complex whether the scholars’ history can be historical events can be aired or taken the public’s history and hoped that home to contemplate.” What started Americans were weaning themselves out as a nasty fight turned into a coop- from a “just-get-the-facts-straight his- erative effort to revamp a misguided tory” and reaching an understanding interpretive plan. The struggle was not that history is “an ongoing conversa- between historians and the National tion that yields not final truths but an Park Service but between a handful of endless succession of discoveries that Park Service officials and a combina- change our understanding not only of tion of historians, the public, media the past but of ourselves and of the moguls, the Park Service chief histori- times we live in.” Eight years later, this an. After several months of resistance, appears to be the case—at least here. the originators of the plan to com- When the Liberty Bell Center opened memorate and interpret the Liberty in October 2003, the old cracked bell Bell came to understand that they began to toll symbolically for all the were much in the minority and that it people, and the scholars’ history was best to move ahead with what became the public’s history.

Gary B. Nash, Department of History, University of California–Los Angeles, Box 951473, Los Angeles, California 90095-1473; [email protected] 1

52 The George Wright FORUM