{"title":"From Countermemory to Collective Memory","authors":"Claire Whitlinger","doi":"10.5149/NORTHCAROLINA/9781469656335.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5149/NORTHCAROLINA/9781469656335.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"Chapter 2 considers how Philadelphia, Mississippi’s long-silenced countermemory becomes “official” collective memory, transforming cultural representation in the public sphere. By comparing two instances of silence breaking, the twenty-fifth and fortieth anniversary commemorations—both interracial community-wide events unique for having punctuated Philadelphia’s prevailing conspiracy of silence on the murders—this chapter argues that commemorability and mnemonic capacity are necessary but insufficient factors for silence breaking commemorations to emerge. The analysis then reveals two additional criteria—external pressure and interest convergence—suggesting that commemorating silenced pasts is arguably more challenging than commemorating merely difficult pasts.","PeriodicalId":266887,"journal":{"name":"Between Remembrance and Repair","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116435968","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Transformative Capacity of Commemorating Racial Violence","authors":"Claire Whitlinger","doi":"10.5149/NORTHCAROLINA/9781469656335.003.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5149/NORTHCAROLINA/9781469656335.003.0007","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter examines the differences between the 1989 and 2004 commemorations to identify the factors that were pre-sent in 2004—but not in 1989— that enabled the 2004 commemoration to have transformative commemorative outcomes. Most notably, the chapter suggests that the environment’s capacity to commemorate was more developed in 2004 than in 1989, as a number of historic, educational, and civil society organizations had developed in the succeeding years. This structural context enhanced the mnemonic capacity of locals to organize a commemoration and to pursue additional reparative efforts related to the state’s racial history. Beyond these structural factors, this chapter suggests that the 2004 commemoration resonated more deeply with target audiences and generated a collective identity and commitment to mnemonic activism among local organizers.","PeriodicalId":266887,"journal":{"name":"Between Remembrance and Repair","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114765219","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Philadelphia (Mississippi) Story","authors":"Claire Whitlinger","doi":"10.5149/NORTHCAROLINA/9781469656335.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5149/NORTHCAROLINA/9781469656335.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"Previous research on Philadelphia, Mississippi and Neshoba County focuses overwhelmingly on the 1964 murders and subsequent legal trials (in 1967 and 2005), providing relatively little insight into the area’s commemorative practices. Furthermore, such research often depicts the twenty-five years following the murders as “the long silence,” a description that is not entirely accurate. It overlooks the annual commemoration services hosted by Mt. Zion United Methodist Church, the African American church that the three civil rights movement workers visited just before their deaths. This chapter recognizes and reconstructs the commemorative activities of Philadelphia’s African American community, including Martin Luther King Jr.’s visit to Neshoba County in 1966 and other resistance to the local Ku Klux Klan. Doing so uncovers two distinct communities of memory: one characterized by Philadelphia’s dominant white public sphere, the official, government-sanctioned memory; the other representing a powerful and persistent countermemory embedded in Philadelphia’s African American community. In doing so, this chapter positions the twenty-fifth and fortieth anniversary commemorations within historical context, uncovering the mnemonic landscape that preceded the emergence of these two community-wide commemoration services.","PeriodicalId":266887,"journal":{"name":"Between Remembrance and Repair","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125453499","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}