[NLA] COABE Plantation Tour (long)

[Dwyoho@aol.com]

You might not notice until the very end, so I'll draw attention at the top to 
the fact that my address is in South Carolina.  A friend of mine in NY, who 
is on this list, called me this morning to alert me to the "firestorm" 
brewing on the NLA list about the plantation tour.  I searched the archives 
to catch up on the discussion, and now I'd like to add my two cents.  I shall 
do my best to relate my remarks to policy and advocacy for the AELS system.

Our state is without a doubt a textbook case of the world's worse public 
relations and national/international image.  Repeatedly we draw negative 
headlines (an understatement.), and we do it to ourselves.   I'll refrain 
from making a list, beginning with Susan Smith and ending with the 
Confederate flag.  Enough said.

The fiasco of the COABE brochure is the latest.  If I were a reporter, I'd 
pick up on this story too.  In fact, it would be easy to call our local tv 
station and speak with a few I know on a first-name basis.  Actually, I might 
do just that, but first I'd appreciate feedback from this list.

COABE is right to cancel the tour.  Those who raised the issue on this list 
are right.  I have visited Boone Hall more than once, as well as many other 
plantations.  I am not African-American, but the specter of slavery surely 
haunts every square inch.  I'm glad these places are maintained as testimony, 
in the same way that I"m glad there is a Holocaust museum in Washington.  

One of our local celebrities, Dr. Walter Edgar, a distinguished historian at 
the University of South Carolina, published a definitive history of the state 
a few years ago.  In his book "South Carolina: A History", he documents the 
careful campaign in the South following Reconstruction to romanticize the 
ante-bellum period.  Margaret Mitchell's tome, publised in the late 30's, was 
the evitable expression of a sucessful movement that eventually deified 
Robert E Lee, placed monuments on the town square of every small southern 
town, and raised the Confederate Naval Jack over the SC statehouse, and into 
the design of other state flags as well.  Meanwhile, among bonafide 
historians, country "rednecks", the still-in-existence Old South gentry, and 
politically-aware citizens of every stripe,  the debate continues to rage 
about every issue related to the South's history, from the Three Fifths 
Compromise in the US Constitution to Jim Crow laws to naming streets and 
holidays after Martin Luther King. SC still does not observe Memorial Day in 
its public schools because it was originally created to honor the North's 
Civil War dead, nor is President's Day a state holiday because it relates to 
Honest Abe.

But enough from the history teacher.  Nor will I add the pages I could write 
about why I love it here, and adopted SC as my home state after traveling the 
world as an Air Force brat.  What does this have to do with literacy and 
adult ed?

Plenty.  We all know that the need for adult literacy and lifelong learning 
is greatest in the South, which continues to crucify itself with a school 
system that is also the product of a painful history.  Like Alabama, we have 
counties where more than 50% of all adult residents haven't finished hifgh 
school.

We also have a political climate where all human service needs, from 
education to mental health, get short shrift.  After living here 30 years, I 
suspect what is needed is more of the cold light of scrutiny from the 
outside.  That has happened on this list.  The promotion of a national 
conference focused the attention of some movers and shakers on a situation 
that is representative of the problem.  I hope, hope, hope, that COABE will 
take the next step beyond cancelling the tour to make the Charleston 
Visitor's Bureau, the Boone Hall folks, the SC Chamber of Commerce, and my 
colleagues here who serve on the local conference committee fully aware of 
the pain caused by this kind of promotionable crap, portraying planatation 
life as having a "charm all  its own".   If I can help, I just need some 
encouragement.  Everybody here knows that I'm "not from around here" anyway, 
even after 30 years.

Believe me, Rhett Butler's post-Reconstruction Public Relations Firm is still 
hard at work,  keeping the "memory" of Tara alive and well in a million 
insidious ways. COABE can strike a real blow to raise the state's collective 
consciousness if it so chooses. 
 

 









Deborah W. Yoho
Executive Director, Greater Columbia Literacy Council
Co-Moderator, NIFL-Health Discussion Group
921 Woodrow Street
Columbia, SC  29205
803-765-2555  Fax:  803-799-8417  dwyoho at aol.com
Agency email:  litcola at mail.com
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