A new educational center on the state's Civil War history opens in Fayetteville in 2027 — but already, its mission is well underway in Western North Carolina.
The center held a symposium last month for more than a dozen educators in Asheville and Weaverville.
Michael McElreath runs the education initiatives at the new North Carolina History Center on the Civil War, Emancipation and Reconstruction. He said a local landmark provided a unique starting point for 14 Buncombe County educators to learn about the Civil War.
“We started at the Vance Birthplace site in Weaverville," McElreath said. "The main draw for me there was both to have a site that they could possibly, you know, use in their teaching. This is a place you could bring students as part of an experiential learning opportunity. … The interpretation there has very much morphed over the years. They now talk a lot about the folks who lived on the farm, most of whom were enslaved people. And so, that history is important to understanding the causes of the war, certainly.”
Over the two-day program, the middle and high school teachers learned about how the writing of history matters. Using site-based experiences, they learned about “Lost Cause” ideology, or the belief that the Civil War was not fought over slavery.
“So that was part of the reason to go there, but then I was blown away when I saw that they've got — I don't know if you know that they have some panels there now about the changing interpretation of the understanding of that site and how it was connected to the Lost Cause ideology coming out of sort of the rewriting of history of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras," he said. "And for our purposes, it was perfect, right? Because we were already talking with teachers about not just the history, but also the memory of this era and the Lost Cause ideology was hugely important in that.”
McElreath said the site was initially founded as a “shrine” to former North Carolina governor and Confederate officer Zebulon Vance, but that it now tells a more complete story.
“They talk about what it means to be a site that's trying to make sure that they honor everybody and not just some people," he said. "So, for instance, today at the Vance Birthplace — and this is the most significant sort of interpretive change they've made I would say probably in the last 10 years — there's actually a built structure outside one of ... what's supposed to be the replication of the old Vance home. There's actually a wooden structure that's got the names of all of the enslaved people who lived there, that they know their names.”
The group also participated in a tour of downtown Asheville led by DeWayne Barton, founder of Hood Huggers International, as well as talks by professor Steven Nash and Asheville native Darin Waters, a former UNC-Asheville professor who is now deputy secretary for the Office of Archives and History at the state Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
At the Weaverville Town Hall, the educators learned from local experts including librarian Katherine Cutshall. She spoke about the connection between Western North Carolina and the institution of slavery.
“And she said, you know one thing to think about is that in Western North Carolina in the decades before the Civil War, it wasn't that they were producing a big cash crop like tobacco or cotton or indigo, but the crop was sort of heads in beds — people who were staying in various hotels and places where the tourist industry sort of already existed in Asheville and other areas," McElreath said. "And so, a lot of people who were supporting that industry were enslaved.”
The center’s goal is to teach something McElreath calls “honest history.”
“I will say that part of the work of the History Center has been and will be to try and make sure that people understand that the Lost Cause understanding of history was a fabrication. … But it's had a lot of staying power, right? It was very strongly represented in our two highest-grossing films up until Star Wars, which were Birth of a Nation and then Gone With the Wind," he said.
Construction on the actual center is expected to begin sometime later this year. Most of the funding will come from the state of North Carolina, after the legislature approved nearly $60 million in 2021.
