It's been a really, really long time since we last gathered at St. Helena Branch Library on March 12th for a BDC Local History program. We had 120 people in attendance at Dr. Rowland's lecture about Kate Gleason that afternoon. (How could it have been otherwise knowing Dr. Rowland?) In fact, the BDC was well on its way to breaking our previous attendance record for the fiscal year. But then the plague hit. Large gatherings that we had grown accustomed to expect cannot happen right now because of COVID-19 mitigation efforts. For the foreseeable future, all the Library meeting rooms remain closed.
A lot of people are making the first virtual lecture happen. The BCHS selected and coordinated the speaker. St. Helena Branch staff, Maria Benac and Andrew Newell, filmed Ms. Devoe's talk in late September. Nancy Gilley, Vice President of the Beaufort County Historical Society, and I were filmed doing our respective introductory remarks by Maria on October 2nd. Maria has since been editing the recordings into a whole. I sat in two mornings to help Maria. Traci Cox, the Library's webmistress and marketing coordinator, will post the video files to the Library's platform when the editing is complete. Leah Roche who coordinates the BCHS website will share the video on that page, too.
Our goal is to provide insight into the history of this county; produce a lecture of the quality you have come to know and expect of us; and, to create a template for future recorded lectures in this series if we cannot gather together in person in one space safely any time soon. Thus we agreed that the Library will host the video on a platform from which anyone, anywhere, without any special skills or access to special software, will be able to view the video in its very limited run.
We will provide the link to those who sign up for the BDC's e-blasts through the Library's website. We plan to upload the video, run it for a few weeks, and then permanently and forever take it down from the web. We hope that our plan will meet with success and that those who view the recording will learn something new about the scope and depth of Beaufort District's long and storied history. We will use the number of views from the Library's video channel and on the BCHS's website for the statistics needed to satisfy the South Carolina Humanities Speakers Bureau grant.
According to the American Association of State and Local History, cultural heritage organizations have a responsibility to engage with history in its full complexity. That complexity means that sometimes we are made uncomfortable by what we learn. You will also hear echoes of past struggles and injustices during this lecture that continue to reverberate today.
The speaker and lecture being offered are described this way on the South Carolina Humanities website:
Women in Reconstruction: The Lives of Susie King Taylor, Charlotte Forten, and Laura Towne
Susie
King Taylor escapes bondage at the age of fourteen; Charlotte Forten,
an educated teacher from Philadelphia, boards a steamship, as does Laura
Towne, a Boston medical school graduate. All three end up in Beaufort
and the South Carolina Sea Islands in 1862. Three women of different
backgrounds, ages, and race. Where did they come from, what did they
want, and why did they stay? Each was forever changed by their time in
the South Carolina Lowcountry. Their journeys, their writings, their
fortitude and passion are inspirational. This program will remind
listeners of the power of education and the resourcefulness of women who
worked during the era of Reconstruction.
About the Speaker: Suzie Parker Devoe is an actor, writer and producer and a graduate of The American Academy of Dramatic Arts and Southern Methodist University. After a career of performing, she began public speaking ten years ago about topics on Women’s History and the Suffrage movement. As an Executive Board member of the Edward Hopper House Arts Center, she added topics about Edward Hopper and his life as an artist to her repertoire. She enjoys speaking to audiences on subjects that inspire her.
Rest assured that we look forward to the time when all of us can safely gather together again at the Library to explore the depth and scope of the history of this place we call home. We hope to have our next joint lecture tentatively scheduled for January 2021 in person but only time and the status of COVID-19 infections will tell whether or not that plan unfolds as desired.
Update: 23 October 2020 - The url for the "Women in Reconstruction" video is https://youtu.be/wmsvv0r3Mlc. Please share with your friends who love local history but please do not download the video as Suzie Parker Devoe retains copyright to the video's contents.
No comments:
Post a Comment