What a tiring and amazing weekend! I think our participants had a great time and weren't even aware of all the scrambling behind the scenes (which is the way it is supposed to be). On a personal level, this conference caused me to reflect on some issues that strike close to home. One of the conference exhibitors had a large display of the history of racism in Missouri with specific focus on the Pierce City lynchings that occurred and the subsequent "driving out" of all African Americans located in the Ozarks. I was aware of this history (it occurred in the early 1900's) as I first learned about it two years ago while attending a History of Racism conference. The personal impact is that Pierce City is about 15 miles from where I grew up and is where my family and I attended church. As I visited with the gentleman who had put together this display, I learned that this was his family that had been lynched and chased out of town at gunpoint. I was aware of the racism that existed in that part of the country, but I had no idea of the stories that were in my childhood's backyard. These stories were never discussed in our history lessons at school.
I will try to post more of my thoughts and feelings in the next couple of days, but due to time constraints, this is all I can post for the moment. If you want to know more about the Pierce City lynchings, you can read about them at:
http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/
2007/03/02/banished/
1 comment:
Thanks for the link.
Wow, I always wondered how our neck of the woods ended up being so durn lily white.
You know, I worked with Murray Bishoff for a few weeks at the KFC in Aurora. Nice to see we've both moved on since that wonderful experience ...
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