UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Ripping the Veil: Collective Memory and Black Southern Identity A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Communication by Patricia G. Davis Committee in charge: Professor Michael Schudson, Chair Professor Michael Hanson Professor Valerie Hartouni Professor Robert Horwitz Professor Esra Ozyurek Professor Stefan Tanaka 2009 The Dissertation of Patricia Davis is approved and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microform and electronically: Chair University of California, San Diego 2009 iii DEDICATION For my parents, Simon C. and Ollie F. Spencer, and my daughter, Joelle iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page………………………………………………………………. iii Dedication…………………………………………………………………… iv Table of Contents……………………………………………………………. v Acknowledgements………………………………………………………….. vi Vita………………………………………………………………………….. vii Abstract of the dissertation……..…………………………………………… viii Chapter One: Ripping the Veil: Collective Memory and Black Southern Identity……………………………………………………………………… 1 Chapter Two: So That the Dead May Finally Speak: Space, Place, and the Transformational Rhetoric of Black History Museums……………………. 49 Chapter Three: Ghosts of Nat Turner: African American Civil War Reenactments and the Performance of Historical Agency, Citizenship, and Masculinity……. 98 Chapter Four: From Old South to New Media: Museum Informatics, Narrative, and the Production of History………………………………………………… 152 Chapter Five: Conclusion…………………………………………………….. 188 v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am deeply grateful to my committee chair, Michael Schudson, who read various drafts of this dissertation, sometimes on short notice, and yet managed to provide very detailed and incisive feedback and offered enthusiastic support and guidance from the beginning. His expertise in sociological and communication theory, along with his knowledge of Civil War history, enabled this project to become a finer piece of research because of his help in these areas and more. I am also very fortunate to have had Robert Horwitz, Val Hartouni, and Michael Hanson as committee members. Their expertise, from a variety of areas within the Communication department, enabled me to produce a project that employed multiple perspectives. Stefan Tanaka from the History Department, and Esra Ozyurek, from the Anthropology Department, provided valuable feedback that enhanced the quality of the dissertation immensely. I would also like to thank the staff of the Communication Department at UCSD, including Gayle Aruta, Jamie Lloyd, Bea Velasco, Bruce Jones, Liz Floyd, Claudia Dametz, Judy Wertin, Cindy Svacina. Their willingness to go above and beyond the call of duty was immensely critical to bringing this project to its full fruition. I am also indebted to the many people who very generously shared their experiences and networks for this project. While there are too many to list here, I am especially grateful to John Logan, James Hunn, Tim Frederickson, Dr. Frank Smith, and Hari Jones. I would like to extend special thanks to Mary Carol Hill, an avid and vi enthusiastic Civil War reenactor, who offered me a room in her home, an expertly guided tour of Fredericksburg, and many useful contacts for my research. Mary Fears and her family, also kind and devoted living historians, were very generous with their time and knowledge during my first foray into the world of battle reenactment. I would also like to thank my aunt and uncle, Jared and Kathy Flood, for generously allowing me to live in their home while researching museums in Washington, D.C. I thank my parents, Simon and Ollie Spencer, and my entire family in Virginia for the multiple forms of support that were crucial to the completion of this project. My daughter, Joelle, embarked on this sojourn with me and was great all the way. There are also friends who were extremely helpful in many ways: Alex Orailoglu, Beth Ferholt, Rachel Kahn, Ricardo Guthrie, Fatma Mindikoglu, Nadine Kozak, Jericho Berg, Paula Miller, Monika Gosin, Pat Aron, and Joann Moody. This project received generous financial and intellectual support from these sources: The San Diego Fellowship from the University of California, San Diego (2002- 2004); a Freida Daum Urey Endowed Fellowship at the University of California, San Diego; a research grant from the Virginia Historical Society; a Northeast Consortium for Diversity Dissertation Fellowship (2007-2008); the African American Studies Department at Northeastern University; the Office of the Provost at Northeastern University; and a Final Year Dissertation Fellowship awarded by the University of California’s Office of the President (2008-2009). vii VITA 1992 B.B.A. in Business Administration, concentration in Marketing Howard University 1994 M.A. in Communication, concentration in Rhetoric Ohio State University 2004-2007 Teaching Assistant, University of California, San Diego 2007-2008 Research Scholar, African American Studies Department, Northeastern University 2009 Ph.D. in Communication, University of California, San Diego PUBLICATIONS “Birth of a Besieged Nation: Discourses of Victimhood in D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation ” In Seeking a Voice: Images of Race and Gender in 19 th Century Journalism FIELDS OF STUDY Major Fields: Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, Media Studies Specialization: Communication and culture, performance studies, material culture/museum studies, race and representation, feminist theory, qualitative methods viii ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Ripping the Veil: Collective Memory and Black Southern Identity by Patricia G. Davis Doctor of Philosophy in Communication University of California, San Diego, 2009 Professor Michael Schudson, Chair My study investigates processed through which African Americans articulate an identification with the South through the reconstruction of cultural memories of slavery and the Civil War. The objective of the dissertation is to examine the ways in which multiple, contradictory, decentered, and fragmented subjectivities are produced and expressed through a variety of vernacular media forms. Using a mixture of interviews, historical research, and critical textual analysis, I analyze history museums foregrounding the black experience of slavery, African American Civil War reenactments, and a digital media Memory Book site. These forms enable vernacular media producers to construct narratives of the period highlighting black historical agency, connecting the history of slavery to its contemporary legacy, and recovering the emancipationist vision of the war. In so doing, they critique and revise dominant ix historical narratives of slavery and the Civil War that construct 19 th century memory, as well as contemporary southern identity, as white. x Chapter One: Ripping the Veil: Collective Memory and Black Southern Identity 1.1. Introduction: Project Overview This dissertation argues that African Americans are utilizing a variety of vernacular media forms as means of connecting with an emergent southern identity centered on collective memories of slavery and the Civil War. By providing a critique of mainstream media narratives positioning blacks as historical victims and contemporary “social problems,” those engaged in constructing this identity do so through the production of historical agency that occurs both at the level of the neglected history presented, and at the level of representation itself. Vernacular media forms allow “ordinary” African Americans to become producers of historical narratives and thus provide a substantially productive means for the critical interrogation and destabilization of racialized orthodoxies about the nation’s past. In a reversal of well-known migratory trends of the early- to mid-twentieth century, African Americans are returning to the South in significant numbers as a means of connecting (or reconnecting) with historically significant places and institutions (Falk, Hunt, & Hunt, 2004). These return migration trends include not only blacks born in the South, but also northern-born (defined as any area of the country outside of the South) blacks, as well. 1 In their study of the factors motivating North-South migration, Cromartie & Stack (1989) emphasize the importance of familial and social ties as prime 1 The subject of African American return migration has been studied extensively. For more information, please see Long & Hanson, 1975; DaVanzo & Morrison, 1981; Robinson, 1986; Smith, Longino, & Leeds, 1992; Adelman, Morett, & Tolnay, 2000; Frey, 2001. 1 2 reasons for the return “home.” In distinguishing between household and homeplace, they contend that it is homeplace, or individual ties to a place that have been nurtured over a lifetime and handed down through generations, that have marked this trend. Moreover, scholars of southern history and culture agree that these trends represent more than the desire to gravitate toward the region for its economic opportunities. Historian C. Vann Woodward (1996: 496) has noted that “the attractions for those returning were mainly old cultural constants…the values of place and past, the symbols of traditions of region rather than race,” while literary scholar Thadious M. Davis (1988: 6) has suggested that African American return migration represents “laying claim to a culture and a region that, though fraught with pain and difficulty, provides a major grounding for identity.” These claims are supported by demographic research. According to a report compiled by the Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy