IN-PERSON Barcelona. Section B

Abstract

In 1863, Gettysburg was the site of the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War. Soon after the battle, land around Gettysburg began to be preserved to commemorate a site of a decisive victory in the war that ended the Confederacy’s enslavement of Black people in the United States. By the 1880s, some of the eventually 1328 monuments began to be erected on the former battlefield, initiating a discourse of memory and heritage—but only that of white men from the winning side. By the early 1900s, white heritage groups from former Confederacy also began erecting towering monuments. By the 1930s, the landscape’s discourse had entirely displaced Black people and Blackness, despite enslavement being the reason why there was a war, and despite ten thousand Black men being present during the battle in 1863. The battlefield’s gentrification preserved the discourse of whiteness, driven in large part by the heritage sector’s profitable evolution—today, about a million visitors come annually to this small town of 7500 people. Nonetheless, the discourse of whiteness is slowly and carefully being disrupted. The first sign on the landscape with the word slavery appeared in March of 2022. This presentation explores how Black Gettysburgians, including local historians, activists, and architects, work with federal employees to consider how digital mapping, temporary visual art exhibitions on the landscape, and permanent art installations such as new monuments may transform heritage discourse in a manner that increases accessibility while balancing the needs of the present with those of the past.