Is History Dead, Alive, or Just A Dream?

Climbing the steps to Hodgson Hall always makes me feel like I’m going to be met with bayonets. 

Built in 1876, the home of the Georgia Historical Society is a stately architectural sentry, presiding over the northeast corner of Forsyth Park like a decorated general long retired from battle but still vigilant about who crosses over the threshold. 

Once you’ve turned the worn brass doorknobs and enter, however, the scene is serene. Dark wood rises to the high ceilings, the air permeated with the delicious smell of old books. Yellowed maps wrought with swirling calligraphy adorn spaces between neatly organized shelves, the reading tables still sturdy through centuries of studious use. Vaulted windows allow muted sunshine to mix with the glow of old-fashioned lamps, giving a timeless ambience that feels almost sacred. 

Which makes sense; it is, after all, a temple of history: GHS’ formidable collection of books, documents, photographs, and other materials relevant to state and national history is the oldest in the country, containing an original draft copy of the U.S. Constitution and a Cherokee syllabary that led to the first newspaper printed in an indigenous language. 

I used to love to sneak up here during the time I briefly worked for the Society in 2010, when I had the honor of interviewing several of its Trustees, including recently departed legendary football coach and fellow camellia devotee Vince Dooley as well as former U.S. Senator and nuclear peacekeeper Sam Nunn. Being surrounded by all that historical weight and freight felt soothing, a respite from the whirlwind of working mom life. 

I returned to GHS last week to do a bit of research for a project, and it was a blessed relief to find that Hodgson Hall still emanated its same comforting gentility. Not to diminish the organization's recent expansions since I’d been here last: The 1856 Italianate mansion across the street now serves as the Jepson House Education Center, and a new archival wing boasts state-of-the-art preservation facilities. The business of keeping history alive is dynamic and expensive, and GHS continues to attract new donors and diversify its collections with the papers of prominent Savannah women like Juliette Gordon Low as well as caches of photographs documenting local Gullah-Geechee communities. 

Hodgson Hall, courtesy of Library of Congress, circa 1939. Looks pretty much the same.

Still, the overall vibe of the place—following the narrative arc of Western civilization itself—tends towards the stale, pale, and male. (Might have something to do with the massive portrait Mr. Hodgson himself peering over the reading room *shrug*) As I turned my belongings over to be stowed safely at the front desk—only pencils and provided note-taking paper allowed—I began to think about the nature of what we call history. 

If “history” is the story of what came before whatever moment we may find ourselves in, then it’s written like anything else—that is to say, a lot gets left out in the interest of serving the narrative. In the 21st century, the narrative of Georgia history, American history, even the whole of humankind, is changing and expanding due to increased access of information and to each other. In places where information is free and easy to come by, it’s becoming more inclusive, allowing for multiple viewpoints and the correction of lies. Long forgotten documents emerge to cast new light, stories that ended centuries ago open again with entirely new chapters.  

I’m thinking particularly of Kristopher Monroe’s most recent Savannah Morning News article about the Weeping Time, the 1859 tragic sale of enslaved families that took place at Savannah’s Ten Broeck Race Course. Known by academics but not included in high school history books, that event had mostly disappeared from the American consciousness/conscience until 2014 when Kris published his first story about it in The Atlantic. That piece now has hundreds of thousands of clicks and has been followed up with dozens of documentaries, books, and other explorations of what was thought to be the largest sale of enslaved people in American history.    

Kris’ curiosity and commitment to the Weeping Time story hasn’t dimmed, and now almost ten years later, the history brought into the light has morphed again: Last month he wrote about a graduate student in Charleston who has uncovered evidence of an even larger auction of humans that took place in 1835. While this revelation might unburden Savannah from an uncomfortable distinction, it does not dilute the significance of what happened on the city’s west side, though it changes the conversation. 

“What might this mean to the remembrance of The Weeping Time that community members in Savannah have been striving to memorialize,” Kris asks. “How will it alter or complement the story of slavery in America that we are still collectively struggling to define?”

This new information only augments Savannah’s place in the country’s continued discussion of slavery’s generational aftereffects, and the historical marker erected by GHS in 2019 on Augusta Ave. is worded in such a way that it does not need to be replaced. It’a also a reminder that while history consists of the actions of those long departed, it keeps shifting around with the unexpected spasms of a ghost with restless leg syndrome. (Southern sage William Faulkner, who implored “the past is never dead, it’s not even past,” may have been pale and male, but he ain’t stale.)

History is indeed malleable, and thank the heavens for that. This week I experienced the jubilation of setting foot in Taylor Square for the very first time with Sistah Patt Gunn and her joyful cohorts, who continue to celebrate the victory of removing the stale pale slaveholder originally memorialized here and renaming the square for a formerly enslaved Black woman of such tremendous historic significance and contribution she deserves her own holiday. (IFYKYK; if you don’t, read about Susie King Taylor here, here, and here.)

But we all know that for history to stick, it must be shared and told, loudly and often. As families strolled through the square in their Sunday best on the way to church, Gullah-Geechee historical re-enactor Rozz Rouse delivered a mesmerizing homily of Taylor Square’s new namesake.

Assuming the countenance of Susie King Taylor in a Union Army coat, Sistah Rozz’s melodious voice rose to the treetops with a young nurse and teacher’s story of caring for others, of empowering a community with education, of being remembered for future generations. 

Sistah Rozz Rouse in Taylor Square

“We are grounding her here, we are saying her name,” explained Sistah Patt, adding that the SKT Center for Jubilee has garnered national attention for the three-year effort to rename the square (rumor has it that a certain Michelle O. has been following the process closely.) 

To that end, for the next few months she and Rozz will be offering up the Susie King Taylor story at Taylor Square every Sunday at 11am, along with tea from Ashford Tea Company. The free program lasts roughly 30 minutes, and spending that time under the oaks is a wonderful way to witness history in action.  

The city’s website, Uber, and Google maps have already been updated to the square’s new name, and the Center has secured funds to commission a monument by international sculptor and Savannah icon Jerome Meadows, which is about the best pairing of content and talent I could ever imagine.

For those who care, yes, ol’ ugly Calhoun will get his due in the form of a plaque in the corner, explaining that the square originally bore his name and why the City of Savannah chose to remove it. 

“The history we tell is focused on the problems we need to solve now,” Georgia Southern professor and Center for Jubilee board member Dr. Dan Chapman said of not erasing Calhoun from the square’s story entirely. 

“And we’re trying to tell a much more complicated history than we ever have before.” 

Sistah Patt reiterated that the Center has no plans to rename any other squares, though she would like the tactics of diplomacy, consensus-building, and patience that were so vital in the success of this historic shift to serve as a model for others. (On a related note, the effort to remove the two busts of Confederate generals from Forsyth Park remains stalled, though protestors kept up the pressure last Saturday morning during the Farmers Market.)

It felt heartening to see history corrected in the direction of representation and progress, and I practically skipped out of Taylor Square on Sunday morning. Then I remembered that history’s malleability can and has been brutally directed the other way, advancing the agenda of the stale, pale, ma—y’know what? Let’s just call it what the real and reputable history books call it: White supremacy. 

From new voter restrictions to the despicable erasure of African American studies from schools to the treasonous losers trying to seize the narrative in their favor, the old version of history isn’t ceding without its violent tantrums. As much as Taylor Square is a leap forward, the problems we need to solve now are copious and can no longer be contained.   

Sitting in the cool, lovely stillness of Hodgson Hall, I didn’t have any insights, just a lot of circular thoughts and a half-sharpened pencil. The kind GHS archivists did help me find the tiny slice of Savannah I’d been looking for: A DVD from the early 1990s called Savannah Remembers, featuring a charming and diverse cross section of local folks reminiscing about the old City Market and games of half rubber ball played in the twilight of Ardsley Park. 

Here was the late John Duncan waxing poetic about the grandness of the demolished Union Station in his elegant Transatlantic accent, then gone-too-soon jazz pioneer Ben Tucker talking about Civil Rights. (His legacy, the Savannah Jazz Festival starts next week with free shows in Forsyth Park.)

It must have been filmed just as tourism was taking off, because one couple commented on the rise of ghost tours along the squares. 

“There are a number of them around,” murmured the wife.

“Ghosts or tours?” asked the husband. 

“Both,” she said, and they both laughed and laughed. 

There were sweet stories about church picnics and bonfires and castnet fishing in the creeks, first person accounts captured more than three decades ago, its subjects already nostalgic for a Savannah with a far simpler history.  

“It was a dream world that doesn’t exist anymore,” former Savannah Evening Press reporter Jane Kahn recalled wistfully. 

I can sympathize, feeling a similar longing for the sleepy city I used to know. But I also welcome changes that expand its historical narrative and gird it from those who would rewrite it in their own favor.

As convenient as it would be for Savannah’s history to be as soothing and stable as an old-timey library, maybe it’s more like fine china on a cruise ship: Fragile and wont to crack with just a little bit of shaking—but with care and consensus, capable of holding whatever truths find their way to the table. 

And if we want to claim how history is to affect the future, the only time we have is now.

Looking back, facing forward, shoulder to shoulder ~ JLL

“Come on out to Taylor Square Sunday”