Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, August 19, 1994 TAG: 9408230014
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALMENA HUGHES STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Small things - like the clothes the enactors will wear, the grounds they'll trod or the dialogues they'll speak - will reflect the park's new emphasis on a more historically centered interpretation of Washington's life.
Park supervisor Bill Gwaltney, who wrote the script for the roughly hour-long interactive tours, compared it to a Colonial Williamsburg presentation.
"In the past, visitors have seen rangers performing different arts and crafts. But we're moving away from that. This gives an opportunity to talk about slavery, reconstruction and the permanence of racism in American society that limited Booker T. Washington's opportunities and directed his judgments and choices. It will still be exciting and interesting, but not so technology oriented. We'll be talking about the sociology and ideology of 19th-century Virginia. Visitors will still see activities, like people working tobacco or hooking (rugs), but as part of a larger picture," Gwaltney said.
Washington, born into slavery on the Burroughs plantation in Franklin County in 1856, overcame poverty, illiteracy and other liabilities to found the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama, and to become an internationally known educator, orator and leader. His social philosophy was based on a concept of self-reliance born of hard work. But critics said his conservative agenda of separate but equal social accommodations for blacks and whites undermined the quest for racial equality.
Stories covering Washington's home place visit ran in the Roanoke Times on Sept. 25 through Sept. 27, 1908. One account described his address to a racially mixed audience of 8,000 people as "lucid, convincing," and called Washington "one of the brightest intellectuals in the country."
Saturday's recreation will feature vignettes in which enactors, using almost all authentic words, discuss the implications of and reactions to Washington, his visit and other events surrounding the times.
"It's interesting that among the reenactors will be a group of students from Harper's Ferry (W. Va.) Job Corps, who are indirectly benefactors of the vocational industrial education model put forth by Booker T. Washington," Gwaltney said.
Gwaltney, a 15-year veteran of the National Park Service, admits to a passion for American history. That passion is contagious, said living history coordinator and public affairs officer, ranger Ajena Cason Hakeem . She and Gwaltney have been researching and updating those little touches that will make the park's displays and replications more historically accurate.
"In all the pictures we looked at, we noticed that the slave women wore head wraps, not bonnets," Hakeem said.
So now, slave reenactors will wear head wraps. The generic men's attire of mass-produced denim jeans and colored shirts with plastic buttons will be replaced with pants, shirts and vests, hand-stitched from specially woven "trash" or "Negro" cloth - the prickly, burr-laden flax linen that prompted Washington to once comment, "I can scarcely imagine any torture, except, perhaps, the pulling of a tooth, that is equal to that caused by putting on a new flax shirt for the first time."
Wooden buttons are replacing plastic ones. Grass outside the Plantation Trail is being allowed to grow because 19th century grass was not often closely mowed. Lumber is being selected based on historical information, and the marks left on the wood by saw blades will match what is known about 19th-century Virginia. Square-headed, instead of more modern round-headed, nails will be used. Plausible household goods from the period are being sought.
"A lot of what you see here is antiques," Hakeem said, holding up some worn cooking utensils. ``But people wouldn't have used rusty salt and pepper shakers when they were cooking. These things wouldn't have been antiques when Booker T. was a boy. They would have been new or at least current."
Aiding the quest for accuracy will be the addition in October of Armistead Robinson, director of the University of Virginia's Carter G. Woodson Institute. Gwaltney said Robinson will visit the park several times a year as a consultant to help direct its planning and interpretations and to ensure that it has access to the most recent historical academic research. The park also is integrating the expertise of other professionals, including at Ferrum College, the Roanoke History museum, the Harrison Museum of African American Culture, the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Colonial Williamsburg and the Smithsonian Institution.
The park's on-site research library and bookstore have been expanded to include information on some of Washington's prominent contemporaries, such as W. E. B. DuBois and Willie Monroe Trotter, and other diverse books reflecting period and African-American history. And a visiting scholars program has been started.
Rain or shine, "The Long Road Home" will be conducted hourly Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. These will be the only tours of this presentation this year.
On Aug. 25, in observance of National Park Service Founders Day, the rangers will give tours demonstrating behind-the-scenes parks operation.
\ "THE LONG ROAD HOME"
Booker T. Washington returns to Franklin County
Aug. 20, 11:30 a.m., 1 p.m., 2 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m., 5 p.m.
No admission charge; Reservations preferred
721-2094
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