<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">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.<BR>
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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.<BR>
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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.<BR>
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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. <BR>
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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.<BR>
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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?<BR>
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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.<BR>
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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.<BR>
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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. <BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SCRIPT" FACE="Lucida Handwriting" LANG="0">Deborah W. Yoho<BR>
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">Executive Director, Greater Columbia Literacy Council<BR>
Co-Moderator, NIFL-Health Discussion Group<BR>
921 Woodrow Street<BR>
Columbia, SC 29205<BR>
803-765-2555 Fax: 803-799-8417 dwyoho@aol.com<BR>
Agency email: litcola@mail.com</FONT></HTML>