Introduction

The history of slavery in America evokes a wide spectrum of responses from museum visitors. Staff members at plantation museums throughout the South are often overwhelmed by the power of the place and how to connect with visitors when dealing with this complicated history. Understanding the need to present a full and complete picture of plantation life is necessarily connected to the museum's role in the local and national community. While museum professionals seem to understand all of the arguments for balanced interpretation, most of our institutions still fail to put it into practice in an effective manner. To my surprise, my efforts to advocate for an accurate representation of slavery within my museum has resulted in connections with other cultural organizations and institutions of higher education that go far beyond the walls of Belle Meade Plantation.

An Educator's Journey

Being a transplant to Nashville and a new museum professional at a (gasp!) plantation museum was a truly life changing experience. I started out as a part-time educator and rose up the ranks of a rapidly changing organization through the last eight years. In 2001, Belle Meade unveiled a new permanent exhibit about the life of African Americans in slavery and freedom. That same year we started a school program, "In the Time of Slavery". Throughout this process I had read a large number of books about slavery in America, poured over the archival information at my museum, and went to conference sessions where other museums discussed what worked (and didn't work) for them. The most important professional development I did was to attend the Stratford Hall Seminar on Slavery. This two-week intensive course helped me to synthesize all of the information I had gathered and also helped me to make contacts I could use in my ongoing pursuit of new ideas.

Making New Connections

While I was still working through these ideas, I was invited to a luncheon with new board members. One of them happened to be a history professor at Vanderbilt University. We spent the luncheon discussing southern history and the challenges of interpreting that history to the public. As the discussion turned to slavery interpretation I mentioned the book and my struggles with complacency. By the end of the luncheon we had decided to plan a workshop, invite other museum professionals and discuss the next steps to inclusive interpretation at plantation sites. Too often staff are not aware of the skills their board members have and how these relationships can really help the museum. This is a clear example of what can happen when your board and staff get together, if you haven't fostered this kind of open communication I highly recommend that you do.

Instead of trying to be both history specialists and interpretation specialists, why don't we as museum professionals just go to the source? This is a question I developed through my discussions with our professor on the board. I had spent much of my time trying to be an expert in the history of slavery but almost no time becoming an expert at interpreting this history. While planning the workshop we decided that a major theme would be developing partnerships between universities and museums. This would enable content specialists and interpretation specialists to join forces and create programming that benefited from both strengths. As we formed the planning committee we gathered community members from both fields, forming a list of potential speakers from both the university and museum worlds.

But the partnership did not end with speakers and committee members. As a budget developed for the workshop it was (at the time) more than I had ever spent on one program. As it turned out, this was not a problem. Because of our strong new partnership, Vanderbilt University sponsored the event and financed the entire weekend. If this isn't reason enough to work together, I don't know what is!

The workshop was held in November of 2004. We had approximately 30 people attend with 3 speakers and a case study. I decided to have the attendees evaluate our current programming. The project helped to put all of our theories into practice and discuss how to improve this case study. It also helped my museum learn from our peers and gave us a concrete assessment of how to improve. The weekend was a great success. The workshop culminated in a statement of best practices for the interpretation of plantation sites:

1. Interpretive panels should be light on wording and heavy on pictures and objects.
2. Both panels and spoken interpretation should focus on humanizing enslaved individuals with stories, pictures and relationships stressed.
3. When creating an exhibit or tour remember the perspective of the storyline. How many perspectives are represented throughout your site?
4. Research by trained historians is extremely important to get the right resources and understand the context for interpretation. If you do not have a historian on staff, you can easily partner with a local university for research help.
5. Context is imperative for proper interpretation. Historic documents, letters and farm practices must be interpreted within the context of the times, relationships and activities on the farm.
6. Interpretation of a historic site must integrate tour guides, signage, landscape, introductions, brochures and even the gift shop to create a holistic picture of plantation life.
7. A diverse staff and volunteer core will create the necessary variety of perspectives in interpretation. Sites must be committed to recruiting with diversity in mind.
8. When furnishing a slave cabin or quarters the average or common experience at your site must be the baseline for visitors to understand, if you have unique stories in addition to the common experience they may be interpreted in relation to the baseline.
9. Think about your interpretation in terms of utilizing a variety of senses and learning styles. How many of these tools are you using?
1. Third person guides
2. Interpretive signs and panels
3. Video
4. Audio (spoken word and music)
5. Brochures
6. Interactive (both high and low technology)
7. Theater
8. First person
9. Costumes
10. Captured moment
11. Photos
12. Personalized stories
13. Primary documents

While you may not need to use all of these tools, the more tools your site utilizes the more balanced you can make the story.

Our partnership with Vanderbilt University has already grown from this one project to the formation of an internship program. We are also in the planning process for integrating research projects into classes. My hope is to expand the partnership to connect with the school of education, crafting new field trip packages and teacher training.

We are currently planning the second workshop to be held in March 2006. The event will be a little longer and have more time for discussion. We are continuing our partnership with Vanderbilt University and are also partnering with the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH). The title of the new workshop is: Telling the Tough Stories: A Workshop and Dialogue about Museums, their Community, and the Ethics of Interpreting Slavery. In addition, as part of our new museum website we will be hosting a page for past workshop participants including a place for postings to keep in touch.