Learn from the past, or you are bound to repeat it.
This is as phrase we hear all the time. The idea that history is somehow cyclical, that what has happened in the past will happen again, and we need to understand the past so we don’t mess up again. I agree…in part. We do need to learn about what happened in the past. But not necessarily because the things that happened in the past are going to happen again, but because the things that happened in the past are what got us to where we are today. Which means if we want to solve the problems we are facing today, we have to understand how we got here. Otherwise, our solutions won’t work, because they likely won’t address the actual problems.
This is not a new concept – its an approach embedded in the word sankofa, a word in the Akan Twi and Fante languages in Ghana that means to “retrieve”, and is often used to refer to the importance of reflecting on the past to build a successful future. Having spent the last eight years working at the home of James Madison, the Father of the US Constitution, I often found myself justifying our work in the context of his methodology to crafting the Virginia Plan: he engaged in a six month critical study of the history of confederacies, so he could better address the problems facing his nation, so he could contribute more effective solutions towards something that would be “more perfect.”
There are three components of this approach that stand out to me: first, there are lots of ways to study the past – documents, oral history, archaeology, architecture, art, literature, geography, geology…there is a broad landscape of ways that humans and our planet have expressed what has happened to us, and many disciplines that investigate it. A thorough investigation of the past is one that will bring many threads together.
Second, we aren’t just asking the what and when, we have to examine the why. And even those “why’s” need to be interrogated. Multiple lines of evidence helps with this, but so does a critical exploration of our own biases and perspectives. So does bringing in multiple voices and experiences. As the poet Regie Gibson says, “history is an indictment, and people don’t like to be indicted.” Asking the why needs to confront the parts of the past that make us uncomfortable, and if we are to engage in an investigation of the past that is supposed to help us be better, then we need to be ready to be challenged and indicted.
Third, “we” is a collective. It’s on all of us to participate in this engagement with our past. It doesn’t mean we all have to become historians or archaeologists – but it does mean that the spaces need to be created and sustained for everyone to have the chance to do it. And for those of us who choose to make a career out of studying the past, I believe we have an obligation to use those skillsets in service to those communities and organizations that want to participate. This means fostering collaborative relationships built on trust and mutual respect.
CHARG is my attempt at putting this into action. I’ve spent the past 15 years working at museums focused on engaging the public in exploring the past. I have found archaeology to be an important line of evidence in understanding the daily lives of the people who lived in the past, and how they were participating in building lives and contributing to their communities in meaningful ways. Similarly, I have seen communities and cultural heritage institutions use archaeology as one way to bring difficult stories about American slavery and human resilience to the public in ways that are powerful and impactful. Additionally, I have been energized by the many ways that digital tools can be used and leveraged to address the ways we gain knowledge and do research, collaborate with communities and colleagues, and interpret and share the past with others.
My hope with this research group is to bring the areas I have built some professional skills in archaeology to benefit two groups of people. First, to work with communities and cultural heritage organizations that want to incorporate historical archaeology into their research and interpretation, so they can more effectively use the resources they have to tell their stories. And second, to engage students in the process of doing this archaeological and digital work so they can gain experience working with organizations and tools that will benefit their professional journey. My hope, is that together we’ll work on ways for more people to gain a critical understanding of the past, so they can understand the challenges we face today, so they can build a more perfect future.
