1251 US Route 319, Thomasville
Jack Hadley will offer a walking tour of Pebble Hill and provide an overview of the role Black workers played in maintaining this hunting plantation. This tour will be documented by our videographer so it can serve as permanent resource for attendees.
Given the distance and remote location of Pebble Hill and nearby restaurants, we plan to provide a boxed lunch for attendees.
Dr. Piehler will discuss questions of memory and race in shaping the legacy of the Civil War after 1865. Despite losing the Civil War, many scholars argue that White southerners initially won the battle over the memory of this conflict. Beginning in earnest in the 1880s, veterans of the Confederate army started joining veteran organizations. Many communities, including Thomasville, started to erect monuments to the Lost Cause. To promote national reconciliation, White northerners embraced a memory of the war that minimized the legacy of slavery and sought to stress remembering the bravery and sacrifice of combat veterans of both sides of the conflict. Like other southern towns, Thomasville had an active chapter of the United Confederate Veterans. Dr. Piehler will emphasize that Black citizens in Thomasville and across the nation, kept alive the memory of the Civil War as a battle cry for freedom. Although many northerners were more willing to remember the legacy of the Civil War in ending slavery, relatively few Civil War monuments commemorating Union soldiers have representations of African American troops. One of the few notable exceptions in the monument outside of the Boston statehouse commemorating the service of the Massachusetts 54th dedicated in 1897. Dr. Piehler will conclude his session by examining how the world wars influenced the memory of the Civil War in Thomasville and nationally.
Workshop concludes for the day, July 26