Interview with Michael Allen on a Career in Public History

Today’s Muster features an interview with Michael Allen, a retired National Park Service official. Over the course of his nearly four decade career, Allen has played a pivotal role in how several Civil War Era sites have reshaped their interpretative vision of the past. More recently, he has played a critical role in the creation of the Reconstruction-era NPS site in Beaufort, as well as the International African American Museum in Charleston. Portions of this interview have been edited for length and clarity.

Robert Bland: Michael, it is a pleasure to get a chance to sit down with you today. I wonder if we could begin today’s conversation by introducing yourself and saying a little bit about the beginning of your career with the National Park Service.

Michael Allen: I am Michael Allen and I am retired from the National Park Service. And, as you indicated, I was blessed and fortunate enough to be able to do 37 and a half years with that agency. I would say, in a nutshell, my time and energy and effort there was dealing with history, culture, preservation, and more specifically, African American history and Gullah culture. And I would say my journey was addressing what had been hidden in plain view.

RB: I wonder if you could say a little bit more there about what you mean by things have been “hidden in plain view”? In what ways did the National Park Service’s interpretative approach change over the course  of your career?

MA:  I began my journey with the National Park Service while I was attending an HBCU, South Carolina State College in Orangeburg, South Carolina. I was a history major. And I grew up here in South Carolina, in a small town called Kingstree, which is incorporated in the Gullah region of South Carolina. Africanisms, Gullah culture, history, tradition were all around me, in terms of what I ate, in terms of my language, in terms of what I may have said, things that I may have done, things I saw, experienced from an educational perspective, from a social perspective, from a community perspective, from a religious perspective, all those Africanisms and things were around me.

But unfortunately, from an educational perspective, these things were not presented to me. Or just simply put, taught to me. In history classes, whether it’s in elementary, middle, high school. These things really was not presented. I had them, but they were not made aware to me.

And it wasn’t until the fall of 1978 in my freshman history class that I was fortunate enough to, you know, to have a great history teacher, Dr. Bill Hines. And he introduced me, really, to colonial life and early talking about history through a good book that I would encourage folks to take advantage of called Black Majority. By Dr. Peter Wood. And as I went through the book, I then began to see myself. Things I may have done, things I may have said, just how I managed myself was made very clear. I felt, to be truthful, somewhat betrayed that all this good history and information that I’m gathering now as a freshman in college, was not presented to me. But I realized, the dynamics of growing up in the South, teaching African history and culture back in the 1970s and 80s may have been challenging to some people. So, in many respects, that experience in the from 1978 really galvanized my thought process of wanting to deal with what was uncovered—what was in plain view.

And so, I just use that as a pretext to when I began working for the Park Service in 1982, to really work to uncover what had been hidden in plain view and to be about the task of really being out front, saying that this story needs to be told.

RB: I wonder if you could say a little bit about the politics of that earlier public history moment. Your career runs along the rise of the new social history in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Works like Slaves No More and other histories from this time period provided big turning point in the larger story of the Civil War. We went from a traditional accounting of emancipation that emphasized how “Lincoln freed the slaves,” to our current understanding of Black freedom that now emphasizes more bottom-up stories. Now we have more stories of people fleeing to union lines, stories of contraband camps. I wonder what that story looks like on the ground in a place like Charleston in the 1980s and 1990s,

MA: I call it the hoop skirt experience—”states’ rights, not slavery.” The reality is that when I visited places or drove down certain streets in and around Charleston, I knew the history. I mean, thousands of people come to Charleston on a yearly basis. Lots of people go down to The Battery. That’s a very famous historic place in the city of Charleston.

But it was in February of 1865 that African American soldiers stepped foot on the battery to begin the process of liberating the city of Charleston. From being under the bondage of enslavement, and so we may go and drive and look at The Battery.

But we cannot leave that part of the story of The Battery. So, when I was working at Sullivan’s Island. And then again, do Black majority and other research books. I realize that Sullivan’s Island was almost an entry point for enslaved Africans coming into the New World and coming into North America and coming into the colony of South Carolina. In the early eighteenth century, the colonial government basically declared that any vessel bringing cargo Africans into the Port of Charleston would have to quarantine them on Sullivan’s Island. That site is no longer existing. But the fort is less than a mile from where that site once stood.

RB: I want to ask you a broader public history question. We’re in a moment where we are thinking a lot about plantations right now. We have seen some public debate sparked by the burning of the Nottaway, plantation, which has led us back to some longstanding questions about their place in southern history. Should they be called forced labor camps? But also, how should sites be interpreted and contextualized now?

MA: In 1990, the National Park Service acquired a site outside of Charleston, Mount Pleasant. that was a former plantation called Snee Farm. It was once owned by Charles Pinckney. One of the signers and drafters of the United States Constitution. And a number of individuals banded together, purchased that property. So, it would not be turned into a subdivision. It was then donated to the National Park Service in the early 1990s. I came in in 1992 as a staff member. As a part of the team that led to development and eventually opening.

And so, now the question is: How do we interpret this new place? And how do we do it in a way that could be comprehensive? We’re fortunate enough for the legislation that created the site. Congress said that you will interpret the life and legacy and contributions of Charles Pinckney, the man; that you will look at the United States as a transitioning from a colony into a young nation; and the third, and probably the most important point for me, it said that you will interpret all of the lives of individuals who lived at that plantation. Whether you were white, black. Free, slave, Gullah-Geechee. That’s in black and white. That’s what Congress said. So, I think having those specific things in the legislation which created it. It gave us enough, at least for me, gave us an opportunity to address what had been hidden in plain view.

RB: I want to close on thinking more broadly about the Lowcountry.  We’re in a moment where it seems like the Lowcountry’s at the vanguard of public history. We have the recent opening of the International African American Museum. The relatively new National Park Site for Reconstruction in Beaufort. Charleston is at the vanguard for thinking about southern foodways histories. How do you see these developments in the region’s public history?

MA: think in my journey with the National Park Service, I was fortunate enough to be involved with everything you just mentioned. I’m original board member of the International African American Museum. We met for the very first time in November 2000 and that meeting would lead to the institution that we call the International African American Museum today. If you back up to the summer of 1999, on Sullivan’s Island today, there’s a historic marker that talks about Sullivan’s Island in the context of their arrival, highlighting the fusion in the history and culture of Africans and African Americans.

Our concurrent resolution was passed stating that something should be placed on Sullivan’s Island to address this history. Which now means that we could not evade the history of Sullivan’s Island in the context of the African American experience. That you can’t hide it anymore. That you gotta deal with this. Whether it’s the Slave Mart Museum, whether it’s the International African American Museum, whether it’s eventually the foundation and the creation of the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor. Even now to Reconstruction-era Park Site.

RB: Michael, I appreciate your time today. Do you have any closing thoughts on the changing public history landscape?

MA:  In closing. I want to encourage your followers. Even in a time that we find ourselves in. Our voices are needed. Our knowledge of history is important. Our tools that we possess are even more critical. So don’t allow the times that we find ourselves in to discourage you or to get you down or depressed. This is the time that we have to press forward even more.