The Greenbrier Historical Society (GHS)’s newest exhibit, “Echoes of Slavery in Greenbrier County” opened on Saturday, March 7, in the North House Museum.
The exhibit connects the history of white supremacy and slavery in Greenbrier County, beginning with the stories of individual slaves, to segregation and African American Greenbrier Countians who achieved despite it, and to the lasting effects it has on individuals today.
The exhibit features recently taken oral histories from local community members, testimony from several witnesses to an alleged 1861 slave rebellion, photos from the Bolling School, plaques for Katherine Coleman Johnson, Howard Jefferson Crump, and Steve Rutledge, an exploration of the Green Book, and much more.
Led by GHS Executive Director Nora Venezky, GHS Board Member Janice Cooley, Lewisburg Mayor Beverly White, and GHS Americorp member Sarah Shepherd, the museum hosted a discussion following the opening on Saturday, providing details in Venezky and Shepherd’s process for the exhibit’s creation. This included a number of interviews, visits to the national archives, and consulting with the local historical records.
“They had such a passion for it,” said Cooley of Venezky and Shepherd. “The idea was let’s not just do an exhibit that just put pictures out there and tells basic stories. They wanted to have everyone understand really what the truth was and get to the depth of the history of African Americans in Greenbrier County. I think that’s what the exhibit does. As you walk through the exhibit, we wanted to not only paint the history of slavery in Greenbrier County, but the ramifications of slavery, which gets to the title of the exhibit. Although slavery doesn’t look like it [did], there are things in our society today that are still in place as a result of slavery.”
“To see where we’ve been and where we are now, it’s been phenomenal,” said White. “To see at one time, nobody of color could hold office. The first [African American] women to be a City Councilwoman, I did that for 16 years, and that was with the support of our community. … I take this role seriously and with a lot of pride in how far we’ve come, we still have a long way to go. As I told the little girls when I signed the National African American [History] month [proclamation], I don’t want to be the last one on that wall in City Hall. These women, Sarah and Nora, have done a phenomenal job of putting this together and I can’t thank them enough.”
White’s highlighting of the progress made was evident throughout the exhibit – there were 1,525 slaves at the start of the Civil War in Greenbrier County alone. Although slavery often invokes the imagery of large southern plantations, this was not the case in Greenbrier County, with many serving as house slaves. The exhibit follows the Greenbrier County specific history of several individual slaves, an alleged slave rebellion, the Civil War, the Jim Crow era, segregation, and following through to the many problems that still exist to this day, such as mass incarceration. Several details come from more recent history, such as the role of integration in the closing of the Greenbrier Military School and Greenbrier College for Women; both schools “refused to integrate and, as a result, lost federal funding. Both schools closed in 1972.”
“As the historical society, we’re really trying to diversify the history and the story we’re telling,” explained Venezky. “We feel it’s important to tell not just the story of the rich white guy living up on the hill. There’s so much more, and this is one of those steps to telling that broader story about our African American community.”
The exhibit takes an unflinching look at this history of white supremacy and makes clear the sinister intentions of many in power:
“But what God has made unequal, man cannot make equal; the governments of the states and their union were made for the white man, and I will oppose all attempts to give political power, suffrage, or office to the colored man,” said J.F. Caldwell, former Lewisburg mayor in 1868.
Cooley also underscored the reason for the exhibit by repeating a question she was asked;
“Someone said to me ‘why don’t black people just forget slavery and move on?’ The first reaction is you want to get angry, … but I’m like no, let me just help this person understand that, yes, slavery happened 200 years ago, but there’s still ramifications of it everyday in our world. In black people’s world and white people’s world,” Cooley said. “[It] still impacts how we live together and how we communicate together. In order for us to bridge the gaps between each other, we have to understand each other, and I think this exhibit can help us understand each other more, about what slavery actually did to a group of people and the culture. That culture didn’t just end in 100 years, it continues, it’s generational.”
The discussion also honored a number of Bolling School teachers, recognized their difficulty, and thanked them for the preparation to handle anything life would throw their way. Several former Bolling students also lamented the loss of many Bolling teachers, who left the county when the school was closed following integration.
Venezky hopes the exhibit, bundled with more details than physical space allows, will be made available online in the near future.
Made possible through a grant from the Daywood Foundation, the semi-permanent exhibit is available for all to see inside the North House Museum in Lewisburg.
Read more in the Monday, March 9, 2020, edition of The West Virginia Daily News.
