The U.S. Black freedom movement (the civil rights and Black Power movements) occupies a significant space in the country's heritage industry: there are over four hundred sites dedicated to civil rights and Black Power. It is among the fastest growing heritage sectors in the country. This field has attracted attention from historians and geographers who argue that the memorial landscape generally upholds the dominant narrative of the Black freedom movement. Drawing on various disciplines including history, geography, and museum studies, this thesis argues that the landscape has undergone significant change between 1970 and 2022 regarding leadership, region, gender, and Black Power. Studies in civil rights memory have yet to address these changes. This study provides a methodological intervention by combining these disciplines to answer how the memorial landscape has changed over time. This thesis has found the evolution of a memorial landscape that generally aligns with advances in scholarship, despite the ambiguity of this relationship. It begins with discussion of the memorialisation of Martin Luther King, Jr., as a critical figure for creating a civil rights memorial landscape. It then pivots to examples of memorials to local protest: the Montgomery bus boycott and the student sit-in movements. Finally, the thesis provides a national overview of memorials dedicated to the Black Power movement. This chapter argues that due to popular misconceptions of the movement, Black Power has not been equally represented at national memorials, but grassroots activism has created a space for Black Power on the memorial landscape. Analysis of Black Power memory then allows for a section which discusses how newer heritage sites deal with issues of contemporary racial inequality.
- Black Freedom Movement
- Memory
- Civil Rights Movement
- Memorialisation
- Black Power
Complicating the Narrative: Memorialisation of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements in the United States
Stokes, A. (Author). 1 Aug 2023
Student thesis: Phd