Local History News: A Conversation with Laurie Grobman

A conversation with colleague in Pennsylvania that may be worth including in wiki. I
can discuss more if you like. Something about the way others elsewhere understand
waht we see here on the ground. She was born and raised in NYC and went to college
near there and PhD at NYU, then taught her whole career in Pennsylvania. Never been
to the South and certainly never the rural south. Interesesting perspective here. We
can talk more. 

Maybe not for the documetnary itself but more of those background narratives upon
which our work can pull. 


-----Original Message-----
From: Shannon Carter
Sent: Thu 11/18/2010 10:57 AM
To: Laurie Grobman
Subject: RE: local history news
 
The question of what it "really" means usually takes us back to
"white" meaning "good" or "pure." Having no experience
with critical race theory or anything that might question this version of how words
come to mean anything, they tell me (always very kindly) that if we look up
"white" in the dictionary it'll say as much. 

It began as an ad campaign by a local real estate office, run by the father of the
man for whom the Greenville Public Library is named (and surprisingly well funded).
The Chamber of Commerce picked it up and then the city chipped in to build this
sign--rimmed with lights so anyone entering Greenville would see it as soon as they
came into Greenville and the minute they leave. The sign is in front of the train
station (long ago turned into a museum), so politicians could give their speeches in
front of it during whistle stop tours. KKK marched under it not long after it was
installed, though locals tell me that was the main part of town so it doesn't mean
anything. I mean, where else would they march except down Main Street? ;)

Somehow,however, the Greenville consciousness on the subject must have turned to
regret at some level. I do not know the story behind it, but some months ago those
much more progressive signs began popping up. Still, the original sign remains in
storage at the Audie Murphy and Cotton Museum (only major funded museum on area
history in Greenville). It has never been part of their exhibits. Everyone with whom
I spoke remembers the sign and most everyone is quite defensive of it. 

Local history is hard, which I know you know. I don't want to call the town racist,
and I also want to understand the complexity of race relations through this sign. I
want to start the research and conversations that will help me learn why/how the new
signs came to be. I don't want to take any wrong steps, however, that might shut down
the conversation. I've tried three times to see the sign in the attic of the Cotton
Museum. Jim Conrad is on the board there and is more than willing to get me in. But
the folks there (otherwise very open and helpful) aren't nearly as helpful when it
comes to that and my desire to get up there with my camera. 

--Shannon



-----Original Message-----
From: Laurie Grobman [leg8@psu.edu]
Sent: Thu 11/18/2010 10:38 AM
To: Shannon Carter
Subject: RE: local history news
 
OMG, I can't believe that sign. What the heck do the locals tell you it
*really* means?
 
What are you struggling with specifically?
 
 
On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 11:24 AM, "Shannon Carter"
Shannon_Carter@tamu-commerce.edu> wrote:


Good lord, I don't know. Your work is SO bloody interesting! How do you
feature the stories of these locals without attending to rampant antisemitism?
Certainly, you write about it. But the public scholarship track of your work
(oh so important) makes it tempting to paper over these details.

Whew! Tell me what you end up doing. My struggle isn't nearly as complex but
it has me stuck.

I'm struggling to get into my chapter on the greenville sign ("Welcome to
Greenville. Blackest Land. Whitest People"), even as 2010 led to two changes in
signage that most certainly speak to the racist rhetoric embedded in that sign
("it doesn't mean what people try to say it means," the older white locals
like
to say). A few months ago, right at the spot where that original sign hung from
1921-1970, is a sign that reads "Welcome to Greenville. Building Toward
Inclusivity." That was the main entrance to Greenville from Dallas until
Interstate 30 came through and moved the traffic south of Greenville. About the
same time the above sign went up, that portion of I-30 running through
Greenville city limits was renamed "Martin Luther King, Jr. Freeway").
Signs
marking same now border this complex and still often utterly and openly racist
town on East and West entry points.

 
-----Original Message-----
From: Laurie Grobman [<https://webmail.psu.edu/webmail/blankIe.html#>]
Sent: Thu 11/18/2010 10:12 AM
To: Shannon Carter
Subject: RE: local history news

I thought you'd like it. But what do we do?????

On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 01:23 PM, "Shannon Carter"

Shannon_Carter@tamu-commerce.edu> wrote:

 Wow! Fascinating, troubling, and FASCINATING! What a crazy find.
Thanks for sharing this delightful bit of news.

 --Shannon

  
-----Original Message-----
From: Laurie Grobman
Sent: Fri 11/12/2010 12:36 PM
To: Shannon Carter
Subject: local history news
>>
>>Hi! So, several of my students are interviewing for the jewish local history
>>book. Again and again, two families are named as the major anti-Semites in
the
>>mid-centry. Both families have buildings named for them at Penn State Berks!
>>(and we only have about 6 buildings!)
>>
>>
>>
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>Dr. Laurie Grobman
>Professor of English and Women's Studies
>Penn State Berks
>Tulpehocken, Rd. P.O. Box 7009
>Reading, PA 19610-6009
>610-396-6141
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