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Murder, Politics, and the Challenges of Public History in a Community with a Secret Robert R University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Faculty Publications History, Department of Spring 1994 History, He Wrote: Murder, Politics, and the Challenges of Public History in a Community with a Secret Robert R. Weyeneth University of South Carolina - Columbia, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/hist_facpub Part of the History Commons Publication Info Published in The Public Historian, ed. Randolph Bergstrom, Volume 16, Issue 2, Spring 1994, pages 51-73. Weyeneth, R. R. (1994). History, he wrote: Murder, politics, and the challenges of public history in a community with a secret. The Public Historian, 16(2), 51-73. "Published as History, He Wrote: Murder, Politics, and the Challenges of Public History in a Community with a Secret, Robert R. Weyeneth, The Public Historian, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Spring 1994). © 1994 by the Regents of the University of California/Sponsoring Society or Association. Copying and permissions notice: Authorization to copy this content beyond fair use (as specified in Sections 107 and 108 of the U. S. Copyright Law) for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by the Regents of the University of California/on behalf of the Sponsoring Society for libraries and other users, provided that they are registered with and pay the specified fee via Rightslink® on JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/r/ucal) or directly with the Copyright Clearance Center, http://www.copyright.com." This Article is brought to you by the History, Department of at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Histo He Wrote Murder, Politics, and the Challenges of Public Histozy in a Community with a Secret ROBERTR. WEYENETH LIKETHE FICTIONAL TOWNthat harbored a terriblesecret in the filmBad Day at Black Rock, thecit of Centralia,Washington would rather forget an eventthat occurred there more than 70 years ago. In the movie, which is set inthe West during the postwar year of 1945,the townspeople of BlackRock struggleto preventan outsider from learning that a murderin their commu- nityhas gone unpunished. In the courseof the film,the outsiderdiscovers thata Japanese-Americanfarmer has been killedfour years earlier by a leadingcitizen in a misdirectedfit of patrioticanger following the attack on PearlHarbor. Eerily, this plot echoes events that actually occurred in a small Washingtonlumber town during another postwar year, 1919. In Centralia shortlyafter World War I, ferventpatriotism and intolerance bothfueled bywar-time passions inspireda violentlabor confrontation that killed at leastsix people. Unlike the unseenkilling at BlackRock, however, the so- called CentraliaMassacre made nationalheadlines and precipitateda crackdownon radicalsacross the country.Only in the interveningdecades didthe painfulevents of the pastbecome a secretwithin the community, andan entire chapter of municipalhistory disappear. Manydetails of this historicalmurder mystely remain unknown and possiblyunknowable, but the concernhere is notwith what happened so ROBERT R. WEYENETH is co-directorof the graduateprogram in public history at the Universityof SouthCarolina, where he teachescourses in historicpreservation and Ameri- can socialand environmentalhistory. He receivedhis Ph.D. fromthe Universityof Califor- nia, Berkeleyand has written and consultedon the historyof urbanand nationalparks, communityhistory, and environmentalism.He is currentlyresearching how the civil rights movementis being remembered,and neglected,in Americancommunities. 51 The Public Historian, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Spring1994) (C)1994 by the Regentsof the Universityof Californiaand the NationalCouncil on PublicHistory 52 * THE PUBLICHISTORIAN muchas what is rememberedin Centralia.How have the bloody and highly politicizedevents of 1919shaped public memory? What are the opportuni- tiesand difficulties of undertakinga public history project in a community witha secret?' Myinvolvement inthis story has been as an outsider and is onlycompara- tivelyrecent. During the springand summer of 1990,I wasin western Washingtonworking on a differentproject. One summer evening after the libraryhad closed, I droveover to Centraliato lookfor sites associated with the so-calledmassacre, which I rememberedas a dramaticepisode in Americanlabor history from my general course of graduatestudy at Berke- ley.I couldfind nothing. No visitor guide or museum exhibit mentioned the event;no plaquesidentified significant sites connected with the violence. Talkingwith local people over the nextfew months,I realizedthat the absenceof commemorationwas intentional, and I foundmyself disturbed by thiseffort to ignore,if notobliterate, the past.At firstI complainedto colleagues,citing Centralia as yet anotherexample of theappalling distor- tionsof localhistory. I alsogrumbled about academic historians and their abdicationof responsibilityfor interpretingthe past to general audiences. In time,though, fascination supplemented irritation. I grew intrigued by what I cameto callthe process of historical reconciliation inCentralia. I began to wonderhow and why a communitywould choose to forgetits past.I also beganruminating on whether an outsider should try to playa catalyticrole. Coulda publichistorian facilitate reconciliation with a problematicalpast? Wasthis part of ourjob description?2 Eventually,I decided to becomea probono consultant in theemploy of Clio,and I becamea partof the stoxymyself. Through discussions with sympatheticCentralia residents and the staff at the statehistoric preserva- tionoffice, I decidedto usethe process of nominatingsites to theNational Registerof HistoricPlaces as a wayto recognizethe controversial past and placeit squarelyin anarena of publicdiscussion. By the endof 1991,two sites had been listedon the NationalRegister. The projectstimulated intenselocal debate and considerable national press attention, as it revealed genuinechallenges in undertakingheritage preservation in a placelike Centralia. 1. T.H. Breen offers thoughtfulobservations about public memoly and community histoxyin Imagining the Past (Reading,Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1989). Breen's explorations in the histoIyof EastHampton, New Yorkillustrate how communities often inventtheir pasts throughthe stonesthey tell themselvesabout local history. Like East Hampton, many places discovera fictionalgolden age without the tensionsof the present.But in Centraliasilence is golden:imagining the pastrequires selective disremembering as muchas nostalgicinvention. 2. For a generalstudy of publicmemory and the processof historicalreconciliation in a nationalcontext, see MichaelKammen, Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformationof Traditionin American Culture (NewYork: Alfred A. Knopf,1991). See alsothe issuedevoted to "Memoryand American HistoIy" of Journal of American History 75 (March1989). HISTORY,HEWROTE * 53 AChronology ofthe Violence and Trial To appreciatewhy collective memory is so selectivein Centralia,it is necessaryto understandsomething of thetown's controversial history. The so-calledCentralia Massacre was a violentexpression of thefirst Red Scare, the nationalcrackdown on radicalsthat began during World War I and continuedinto the postwaryears. On ArmisticeDay 1919,Centralia wit- nessedan armedskirmish between members of the IndustrialWorkers of theWorld, a radicallabor union with a militantreputation, and members of the AmericanLegion, a veteransorganization recently formed to promote patriotismand anti-radicalism. To markthe firstanniversary of the endof the worldwar, Centralia's American Legion post scheduled an Armistice Dayparade with an unusualagenda: destruction of the localI.W.W. hall. Theplan was an open secret in townfor several weeks, but unbeknownst to Legionorganizers, the I.W.W. decided not to be intimidatedand to defend the hallwhen attacked.3 Onthe afternoon of November11, 1919, the parade made its way up the TowerAvenue business corridor and then beyond, to the intersectionof Towerand Third, an areaof modestboarding houses and workingman's hotelswhere the I.W.W.operated its unionhall. As the marchersreversed directionto returndowntown, parading veterans rushed the Roderick Hotel,in which the I.W.W. hall was located. Armed Wobblies asmembers oftheI.W.W. were known- opened fire from inside the hall, as well as from an adjacentboarding house and the summitof a nearbyhill. Whenthe gunfirefailed to driveoff the legionnaires,Wobblies scattered. Three legionnaireswere killed on the street near the RoderickHotel, and a fourth wasshot by a fleeingWobbly on the outskirts of town.Almost a dozenothers werewounded. Subsequently, the contentsof theunion hall were dragged intothe streetand set ablaze.4 Initially,the violence was reported as an unprovoked act of terrorismon thepart ofthe radical labor union. Forweeks afterthe event, public outrage inspiredreprisals against Wobblies in the Northwestand elsewhere. Na- tionally,hundreds of I.W.W.members were roundedup, and scoresof Wobblyhalls were raided or destroyedby vigilantes.(Only later did the CentraliaWobblies have a chanceto tell theirside of the story:that the 3. A detailed and authoritativeaccount of the chronologyof events and the much- disputedculpability of the variousparticipants is John McClelland,Jr., Wobbly War: The Centralia Story (Tacoma:Washington State Historical Society, 1987), on whichthis narrative is based.The workis also a good guideto
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