From the Editor

Abstract

From the Editor Scott Ury This issue of History and Memory highlights ongoing, at times heated, debates regarding the central role that race, racism and migration play in the history, nature and fate of a number of contemporary societies. Indeed, few topics are as volatile today as those related to race, belonging and citizenship. In light of these discussions, the different articles in this issue regarding the history of slavery in the United States, efforts to desegregate the US army, the American Legion's aspirations to shape historical education, and the memory of slavery and migration in the United Kingdom will be of interest not only to students and scholars of historical memory but also to researchers of race and racism, as well as those working on ethnicity and migration. Starting with a discussion of historical artifacts and the critical role they play in museum displays and public memory, Edwin E. Breeden examines the origins of a broadsheet detailing an 1852 slave auction in the southern port city of Charleston, South Carolina that touted the sale of a "Gang of 25 Sea Island Cotton and Rice Negroes" (4). Although Breeden's careful historical analysis leads him to conclude that the document has its origins in an 1892 novel, and not in an actual slave auction, he uses the document's history to explore larger issues regarding "how Americans have understood … [slavery's] role in their nation's past" (7). Christine Knauer continues this discussion of the connection between race and memory in the United States with an analysis of the public memory of President Harry S. Truman's decision to sign Executive Order 9981, which was designed to end "racial segregation in the American military" "with a stroke of a pen." Knauer highlights how the memory of Executive Order 9981 has often concentrated on Truman's role, how efforts to commemorate the order have changed over the years, and how it was invoked in debates over the inclusion of homosexuals and transgender people in the US military. Most importantly, Knauer's history of Order 9981 shifts the historical focus from Truman's executive decision to the importance of "African American activism and Black agency" (42). [End Page 1] George Lewis also probes the intersection between race, citizenship and memory with an examination of the American Legion's efforts to create a history textbook for every school in the United States that would advance its program of Americanization and "100% Americanism." He demonstrates the central role that the burgeoning school system played in the United States after World War I, arguing that public schools offered the American Legion "a useful tool with which to shape the collective memory" of the American past in order "to understand Americanism in the present" (80). He thus underscores the extent to which third-sector organizations like the American Legion often view school curricula as a critical means for forging collective memory and national consciousness. Shifting the focus from the United States to the United Kingdom, Richard Millington investigates another central issue in contemporary culture and politics: the role of statues and memorials in the urban landscape and public memory. Focusing on the statue of William Huskisson, a Member of Parliament for Liverpool who "opposed the abolition of slavery" but was primarily remembered for his death in a train accident in 1830, Millington discusses the curious case of his statue which was torn down in 1982 by local activists as a symbol of Liverpool's involvement in the slave trade and then subsequently reinstated about a mile away, with a plaque that "makes no mention of slavery" (128). In doing so, Millington points to the persistent "conflict … at the heart of British cultural memory of slavery" (135). Laurence Gouriévidis addresses many of the themes raised by the other contributors by exploring the efforts to commemorate the memory of Irish and Scottish famine migrants in contemporary Glasgow. Gouriévidis argues that debates over the creation of the Irish and Highland Famine Memorial and the Tower of Silence reflect the extent to which contemporary social divides—in this case between Irish Catholics and Scottish Protestants—often turn to the past for meaning and validation. As the author...