This story out of Little Rock, Arkansas perfectly reflects where we are in the ongoing debate about how our history should be remembered and interpreted in our public spaces. Old State House Museum tour guide Tessa Wahlquist recently uncovered evidence demonstrating that hundreds of African Americans had been sold on site.
When Wahlquist brought this to the attention to her superiors she was told to continue to research, but that she was not to divulge her findings to anyone, especially the general public. There was no directive from above that this information could not be made public, but the current environment, it was believed, warranted caution.
According to the article, museum officials were concerned that Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s administration would not only prevent these new findings from becoming public, but that Wahlquist and the rest of the staff would face severe repercussions.
In 2023, Huckabee released an executive order banning the teaching of Critical Race Theory in public schools and museums.
Prohibited Indoctrination Defined: No communication by a public-school employee, public school representative, or guest speaker shall compel a person to adopt, affirm or profess an idea in violation of Title IV and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (P.L. 88-352, 78 Stat. 241), including that:
People of one color, creed, race, ethnicity, sex, age, marital status, familial status, disability, religion, national origin, or any other characteristic protected by federal or state law are inherently superior or inferior to people of another color, creed, race, ethnicity, sex, age, marital status, familial status, disability, religion, national origin, or any other characteristic protected by federal or state law[.]
Does that mean that references to the past, when white supremacy was the law in Arkansas and elsewhere, are also illegal?
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Of course, their caution is entirely justified. This is exactly what I predicted would happen to public historians, especially those working under elected Republican leaders who are themselves weary of the history of slavery becoming more visible or are just following President Trump’s lead. They have succeeded in establishing a culture of fear among public historians, researchers, and tour guides who work for local and state government.
The article does a good job of detailing the stories uncovered by Wahlquist, who left her position in 2024. Her research is impressive and there is a very good chance that it will be made public in some form at some point in time.
It’s a reminder that however hard public officials try, it is impossible to prevent this information from getting out. More to the point, this history doesn’t have to be controversial; surveys clearly demonstrate that, across racial lines. Americans want to learn more about this history.
Right now a marker commemorating the “War Between the States,” which was put up by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 2015, sits on the grounds of the Old State House Museum. The marker reads “Remembering our Ancestor Who Fought,” though it makes no mention that Confederate independence would have meant the continuation and even expansion of slavery.
Not far away are the steps and doorway, where countless families were destroyed and lives upended forever. The stories uncovered by Wahlquist are part of the very structure and landscape and yet no plaque, monument or wayside marker honors the lives of these men, women, and children and what was stolen from them.
Walhquist would like to see some recognition placed on this site.
I get mad about all the monuments, she said. ‘We commemorate secession, and we shouldn’t be commemorating that. I want a plaque there, something to the effect of ‘At this door, over 400 people were separated from their families and auctioned off against their will, and while we may never know what happened to them, we acknowledge the suffering that went on.’
It’s the least we can do to honor their memory.
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