Tense moments when revisiting America's history of slavery

+ another era steeped in American rage; counterterrorism tactics to prevent shootings US Edition - Today's top story: Modern-day culture wars are playing out on historic tours of slaveholding plantations [View in browser]( US Edition | 9 December 2021 [The Conversation]( America’s newly urgent reckoning with race is taking place in many areas, from health care to policing. One subject that has proved especially charged: how to teach American history in a way that fully explores and uncovers the dark history and legacy of slavery. That’s mostly taken place in discussions and arguments over teaching of critical race theory, even though that’s a theory seldom taught in U.S. schools. There’s another place where getting this history right is especially pressing: the many plantations that now function as historical sites across the South. One of those museums, Stratford Hall, the ancestral home of the Lee family, which counted Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee among its members, is grappling with just that history. Stratford Hall was also the home of hundreds of enslaved Africans and African Americans. Scholar Kelley Fanto Deetz directs visitor programs there, and in her story this week [she reflects on how the stories of enslaved people]( toiling at the plantations have largely been omitted from modern-day tours. In offering programs that focus on the enslaved, as Stratford Hall now does, the historic site steps right into the current-day conflicts: “With new tours and an exhibition highlighting enslaved Africans and African Americans who lived at Stratford Hall, discussions during plantation tours among visitors can often turn into visceral debates over whose history should be told or ignored,” Deetz says. “Visitors’ expectations often collide with reality, creating tense moments on tours. Some visitors want answers and stories that sit comfortably with their ideas of slavery and of America as a whole. "‘Were the Lees good slave owners?’ is a frequent question.” Naomi Schalit Senior Editor, Politics + Society Today's newsletter supported by [readers like you]( These statues of enslaved young boys are part of a modern-day depiction of southern plantation life at the Whitney Museum in Louisiana. AP Photo/Gerald Herbert [Modern-day culture wars are playing out on historic tours of slaveholding plantations]( Kelley Fanto Deetz, University of California, Berkeley The romanticized notions of Southern gentility are increasingly at odds with historical reality as the lives, culture and contributions of the enslaved are becoming integral on tours of plantations. Parents and activists who support transgender rights rally before a school board meeting on Aug. 10, 2021, in Ashburn, Virginia. Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images [Trans people have a long history in Appalachia – but politicians prefer to ignore it]( G. 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