Chairman McClintock, Ranking Member Grijalva, members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me here today and for convening this hearing regarding H.R. 5532, the Reconstruction Era National Historical Park Act. I want to also thank Congressman Mark Sanford, cosponsor of this legislation, who represents many of the areas affected.
Throughout my tenure in this august body, I have worked to preserve and protect our nation’s most treasured historical sites and institutions. Reconstruction, a period which lasted a little more than 13 years, is a crucial period in American history. Although it ended March 17, 1877, we tend to apply the label Reconstruction Era to the latter four decades of the 19th Century. It was during those years that African Americans across the South began their freedom from slavery, gained citizenship, and enjoyed equal protection of the laws, and the right to vote under the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution.
Some of the oldest and best preserved sites from the Reconstruction era are located in Beaufort County, South Carolina. Brick Baptist Church and Penn Center on St. Helena Island were the site of the original Penn School, founded in 1862 by Quaker missionaries to educate newly freed slaves, the first such school established in the South.
Camp Saxton in Port Royal was a Union Army camp where, on January 1, 1863, Union General Rufus Saxton read President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation to thousands of slaves that had gathered to celebrate their new freedom. The camp was also the site where the First South Carolina Volunteers were assembled, the first official black regiment of the U.S. Army.
With overwhelming support from their communities and local elected leadership, these sites and a visitors center in downtown Beaufort were designated the Reconstruction Era National Monument by President Obama in January of 2017.
The proposal before us today will do three things: 1) redesignate the national monument as the Reconstruction Era National Historical Park; 2) provide for possible boundary expansions within the Beaufort National Historic Landmark District and on St. Helena Island; and 3) establish the Reconstruction Era National Historic Network.
As a National Park is the highest level of protection and prestige our government can bestow, I believe passing this legislation will send a powerful message regarding the significance of these Reconstruction sites. Having served previously as the sponsor of the legislation redesignating the Congaree Swamp National Monument as the Congaree National Park, I can attest that the rebranding of the park resulted in an increase in annual visitors of almost 20%, a significant economic impact to rural South Carolina. Congress has in recent years redesignated both the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site and the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument as National Historical Parks, two sites with similar historical significance but nowhere near the same.
Of course, the sites currently included in the national monument are not the only significant Reconstruction sites worthy of preservation. This legislation would allow for expansion of the boundary for sites near the existing monument. However, it is not feasible to incorporate all historic sites from Reconstruction into one national park. The Reconstruction Era National Historic Network would be a program operated by the National Park Service, but managed by the current site owners, whether federal, state, local, or private. This concept has been utilized in the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom and the recently enacted African American Civil Rights Network.
When creation of the national monument was under consideration, I heard from many communities with sites they thought were worthy of inclusion. With the network in place, communities can make their case for federal recognition and assistance for their significant Reconstruction Era sites without the National Park Service having to take on the obligation of owning or managing the sites.
I often invoke the adage that if we fail to learn from the past we are doomed to repeat it. Sadly, many of the gains made by African Americans during the Reconstruction Era were lost in the Jim Crow era that followed. Reconstruction is a story of the triumph of freedom, but it is also a lesson that freedoms are not permanent and can be fleeting if not protected. Passage of this legislation, helping our nation preserve and protect, document, and promote the history of Reconstruction is critical to avoiding past mistakes and guiding our pursuit of a more perfect union.
Thank you again for having me today, and I appreciate the committee’s consideration of this important legislation.
I am pleased to now introduce Dr. Kate Masur to this committee. She is an Associate Professor of History at Northwestern University focusing on the Civil War and Reconstruction. Recently, she has partnered with the National Park Service on several projects relating to Reconstruction. She helped develop the Official National Park Service Handbook for Reconstruction, released in 2016, and co-authored the National Historic Landmark Theme Study on the Reconstruction Era for the National Park Service which was released last year.
Dr. Masur, thank you for taking the time to appear before the committee today.