Histories. Mary elliott, curator at the Smithsonian National museum of African American history and culture, will moderate. Mary cocurated the museums slavery and freedom exhibit and served as curator and content developer for their digital humanities project. The searchable museum. Please note that there is a change to the panel as listed in your program. Dr. Elizabeth chew was unable to attend today and dr. Sarah bon harper, who you heard from earlier, will be joining the panel. Dr. Ben harper initiated research at highland that led to the discovery of the archaeological remains of the monroes main house and opened a new chapter of site interpretation with inclusive narratives enriched by descendant collaboration. Our next panelist, andrew davenport, is the public historian at the Thomas Jefferson foundation and manager of the getting word africanamerican oral history project at monticello. He is currently a ph. D. Candidate at Georgetown University ity. Our final panelist is my colleague lena mann, historian at the White House Historical association. Lenas research at the association focuses on the enslaved individuals that built, lived and worked in the white house. Please join me in welcoming our panelists to the stage. Oh, great. Good, good. Good afternoon. Thats nice and enthusiastic after that wonderful life. Mm hmm. I actually think is there nap room . Well, its a pleasure to be here this afternoon. And we have a wonderful conversation and thats going to unfold on stage. And im really honored to be on stage with our panelists today. Today, there is excitement and tension in the air when it comes to interpreting American History in the 21st century. The american story is being told through in a more inclusive way, through the lens of historically marginalized people providing, a more nuanced understanding of how the nation came into being. The work involves research, preservation, education, public engagement, board oversight, interpretation. Indeed, storytelling. The important effort can be seen in museum, cms and Historic Sites, including president ial sites. Tonight or this afternoon, this panel will consider president sites that were historically used to enslave people and discuss these places are being our sharing these stories. And promoting a more inclusive history of place people and country. The approach to telling the story of the nation. The people who brought it in to build slavery and freedom. The human story and the shared history is important as we connect it with audiences and help them reflect and think more deeply about this history. Our Panel Includes three dynamic public, historic in serving in a variety of positions who are contributing to and changing the public history field at arguably some of the most widely known and highly regarded Historic Sites in the nation. They are on the front lines, engaging, encouraging and empowering the public to think more deeply about the nations history and about the nations future. We have Sarah Bon Harper, as youve heard, as well as andrew davenport, short and lena. Man. Before we get started, just a little bit of housekeeping. Please make sure your phones turned off so let me start with Sarah Bon Harper with your impressive resume. Just very briefly if you could share, because i think its important for people to get to know you as a person. But what brought you to this work . Yeah, well, thank you. And can i first say just a moment to acknowledge that the reason elizabeth, you is not with us today . Of course, weve all followed montpelier closely in the news. And so as of yesterday afternoon, shes been named interim ceo and president of montpelier with now the descendent led board. So the. And i know she was very much looking forward to being here in this place with us all. And im just a substitute for her. So thank you for welcoming me just the same. And we really do miss having her here. But, you know, shes we know shes doing really good work there and important work. So, yeah, thank you. Is very timely. Whats going on right now . Thats right. And truthfully, we were going to debate over who got to say that the really good friends with elizabeth. Im good friends with elizabeth. Shes really good friends with. I lived just, you know, right near elizabeth. So we see each other multiple times a week. So thats not a we both have long, decades long history with elizabeth. And we know the good work that she does. So. Right so thats that was what brought me here today this afternoon to the panel. But what brought me to this work as as we talked about this morning, i am an archaeologist and in the next level up i consider myself a researcher and i have just a commitment and a passion for the concept that Research Narratives can be brought to all audiences, whether they scholarly stew and public children, you know, all the different audiences. And i really believe in taking the truths that we discover. Each generation needs to wrestle with and discover anew and discover new ones by asking different questions that we should really bring those to the public. And thats thats sort of my driving force. And what brought me. Well, thank you. So let me ask you a few other questions. And dont mind me if i read my question, because it was her background is so powerful and the stories are so important with highland that i wanted to make sure i framed this properly. James monroe like Thomas Jefferson and other president s before him, inherited wealth, including Real Property and property, and people enslaved people. He enslaved at least. 177 black people, including enslaving some at the white house, monroe, while professing the evils of slavery, did not grant freedom to the black people. He held in bondage. With the exception of many meeting one man, peter marks. And that was upon James Monroes death. Peter marks was granted his freedom additionally, james monroe believed that free black people should manifest their freedom beyond the shores of the United States in order to maintain the integrity of the social and economic order. How does highlands present the story of president monroe . The last founding father. And as an enslaver and a segregationist without leaning into the narrative of the benevolent enslaver. Additionally how are the experiences of those who were enslaved, including peter marks . Who . Monroe man you made it. And peter mallory, the enslaved black man, a skilled carpenter who helped build the highlands. Guess house in a way that speaks to both their humanity in addition to their labor. Yeah. Thank you for that thoughtful question. I think if we can sit here. Monroe, maybe as part of the founding generation. Right. Changing to that language of the time and all who participated. Then were part of what built this country. And how are our past unrolled that . That opens a door to what i consider an ecosystem approach. And let me explain that, which is that. Monroe an enslaved individual and many other enslaved individuals also were part of social, economic, political, agricultural systems, functioning at the same time, and they were all actors within these same worlds. And so where one is discussed, the other is discussed. They may have had different roles, but they have different, but they are part of the same conversations. And so i have brought that forward and its been one of my really big soapboxes. And i go ahead and tell my team, you know, all right, you can laugh at me when i Start Talking about this guy really excited about it. And i really believe in it that we need to discuss them in the same places with the same themes. And so in our new we curated standing guest house, our exhibitions show, different perspectives, and they show discussion and of peter mallory, for example, and how we understand him from the documentary record alongside monroes discussion in the same letter with about andrew jackson. Right. And so that they are in the same places and in that in this particular example, they came from a letter from 1818. But in that theyre not theyre not spatially separated and theyre not thematically separated. And this to the point where. In one of our spaces theres a small sign that we prompt the visitors with the question, is there an exhibit on slavery here . And the answer is actually not specifically, but that slave is discussed in all the spaces and throughout our interpretation, just as slavery was present through all the spaces, all aspects of life at the time, and people we often see stop and think about that and want to reflect on it and want to talk about it with our guides staff. But thats, i think, the key piece that that ecosystem of its not a separate portion. They too. Peter marks. Peter mallory, george williams, the enslaved cook. Hannah, were all members of that founding generation in different ways. And so we try to really make that substantial in our interpretation. I love that because, you know, it also allows the audience to understand that these were people who had family faith system aims, they had their skill sets, but also had intellect, and they had considerations of freedom. Right. No doubt discussion of freedom, what it meant. At the same time, as, you know, president monroe was reflecting freedom and looking around to his environment and seeing enslaved africanamericans and thinking about what freedom meant and how it had to be manifest. It would interrupt the system that was in place right. Right. Which i think was the the hurdle that so many did not get past. And as you referenced, liberia, that idea of living alongside free black americans side by side with the same rights and privileges that was that was too much for most of them to imagine. They could not get or could not or would not get their heads around that. And thats a part of our conversation. And for many people, thats even something very new for them to learn about colonization. So its really great. Exactly. And we can bring that thread forward to, you know, where does segregation start and, you know, sort of go all the way back and really make those connections. Yeah. Well, so your body includes that you served as monticello is Archaeological Research manager and you have lectured and written on a variety of themes, including the analysis of archaeological data, landscapes of slavery and the construction of historic narratives for academic and popular audiences. What do descendant voices bring to the table, and what are two or three key things the audience should know about the practice of descendant engagement and its importance to preservation work in the interpretation of slavery . Yes, and i want to hold all of those pieces to make sure i answer them. I think the the real. Need for including descendant voices is, of course, that many scholars or Museum Professionals come from outside the communities so impacted by the history were discussing. And fortunately, not all. But many scholars come from outside that community. And so, including the voices who rightfully have a place in that story, is critical. And so ill ill next think about it. A point that i know elizabeth would also talk about here, which was the summit at montpelier with the National Trust early in 2018, about best practices for teaching, about slavery. And from that summit, each one of the highland descendants and i attended and were part of the follow up in creating the rubric about the best best practices for teaching about slavery and the rubric includes research, interpretation and governance. And of course, weve already talked about elizabeths role and her absence here in that governance piece. But thats, i think, the big and critical element is to include those voices in those various components and i think on a sort of personal, experiential response to a part of your question, one of the things that descendent voices in our community, in our in Highlands Council of descendant advisors, one of the things that they add is to make sure that were not just talking about the past. Right. We are talking about the world we live in and about the future. And so on our slate of things we consider together is. What do we want to do for our world today that makes the future differ . And and im not saying thats never been a part of my consideration otherwise, but thats something that is resound and clearly on list because of the conversations that weve had. I love that. Thank you so much. So our next panelist is andrew davenport. And you have a really unique kind of special position dealing with recording the oral histories of African American. When you two are a descendant as well associated with monticello. So i have a few questions for you, but the first one is similar. What brought you to this work . Thank you so much, mary. And thank you, sarah for your answers are just just fabulous. What brought me to the work is, is the story of preservation and its also a story of of recovery and i grew up with my grandmother who grew up with her grandmother and my grandmothers grandparents enslaved in Central Virginia. Thats not a story that i knew growing up. I knew about the people. I knew the names and i knew the stories. But family didnt talk about the history of enslavement. But as you well know, oral history, storytelling, these are favorite ways of passing on information to younger generations. And as my mentor, dr. Diane swann wrote, was a pioneering oral historian to say the children are a vessel for their elders stories and also elders pick out people in their families. Young in the family, to pour their stories into. And it was early on, i think, identified as the kind of sucker who was going to just, like, receive all of this history from my grandmother and her sisters who were light skinned africanamericans, who grew up in jackson ward in richmond, virginia, and who attended school here in dc. My great aunts went to dunbar in the 1930s and my great grandfather was a graduate of howard medical school, actually, the school of pharmacy in 1915. And i heard of these stories growing up about my grandmothers people and but i never could get past 1870. Right. Thats the the famous brick wall. When youre doing africanamerican genealogy, i went away to college and while we were there, barack obama was elected president. And in 2008, we were having conversations about being post race or the possibility that america could happen to be post race and. I remember being in the audience as my professors had a q a and thinking to myself, there is no way that this country can be post race, because i have so much to work through myself. I most certainly am not post race. And i thought that what i had to do internally was do the kind of research that would maybe give me some answers to the questions that i had, like, where do people come from . Who were they enslaved by . And so on. And i didnt just do that for the africanamerican side of my family, which is my and my maternal side. But did that also my my irish family, my dads side, and i became an irish citizen within the past couple of years doing similar kind of research. So im just kind of stuck doing history research, but i love it so much. And what ended up happening is that i decided to try to meet as many people as i possibly could throughout these various branches of my family. So i set out after graduating from college ten years ago to do that work really with an emphasis on africanAmerican History here in the United States, but also, basically, i was open to meeting anyone. In 2015, i met a cousin, a third cousin once removed gael, jessup, white and gael introduced me to monticello. And we have shared ancestor her great grandmother is my great great grandfathers brother. Okay. We come from a family called the robinsons, which are an extended branch of the hemings family who we learned were at monticello, my grandmothers grandfather was born enslaved in charlottesville. He was born likely at or around edgehill, which is the plantation owned by Thomas Jefferson. Randolph jeffersons grandson. And we learned, of course, that we had ancestors who were enslaved at monticello. My very first experience, i want to tell it happened august 2016. Monticello and the getting word project, which is this oral history for descendants, had partnered with the slave dwelling project. Excuse me, my notebook keeps falling off to invite descendants back to stay overnight at monticello for an entire weekend. So i was there with other descendants, maybe two or three dozen for the various families, descendant from families who were enslaved at monticello. The granger family, the hemings family, the fossett familys, the hughes family, the gillette family. There were no tourists there. There were no visitors. It was just us and was our first time. We had dinner together, meeting one another, and we we had a fire on mulberry row, which of course, is the main street of jeffersons monticello, as everyone been there, theres this unconscionably beautiful view, south into buckingham county. And you can youre on mulberry row looking out. And here we are having this fire just surrounded with people who have these personal and deep familial connections. And my question was, why did people return . Because this is a tragic history. Theres no question after jefferson dies, 200 enslaved people are sold away, dispersed. Theyre scattered all over the country. As one of them said, Peter Fossett, who was 11 years old when he was forcibly sold in the west lawn. Im on a cello. We were scattered all over the country and never to see each other again until we meet in another world. He said that in 1900, when he was about 85 years old, what he couldnt have imagined is that there were a number of historians, particularly black women historians and others associated with them, who were doing the kind of recovery work, the kind of preserved work to restore family and social ties. And the folks had come back and theyve been doing for at least a generation. And so i was just completely blown away. In august 2016, i slept overnight in the beer cellar. I met scores of people who i not met previously and basically from from that point forward, i decided i was already a history teacher. So i was kind of primed for this, but i decided to try and do try and learn as much as i possibly could about what happened at monticello, what happened beyond montice