Memory and right-wing opposition to heritage areas

Keywords: memory, right-wing politics, monuments, midwest, heritage, commemoration,
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Monday
Session Start / End Time: 2/28/2022 05:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/28/2022 06:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 10

Abstract

The recent rise in toppling racist monuments, made possible through decades of activism, brings attention to current shifts in cultural memory and the future of memorialized landscapes. Most often, people on the political Right are associated with preserving and protecting these commemorative sites. For example, the white supremacist movement, ‘Unite the Right Rally,’ began as a protest against the removal of the confederate monument, Robert E. Lee, in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, where militant organizing turned violent. Moreover, the toppling of monuments of enslavers, colonizers, and other racist figures prompted the Trump Administration to pass an executive order in June 2020 to protect monuments, memorials, and statues. Despite what we know about the Right’s protection of monuments, throughout rural areas, tensions rise as white, right-wing landowners rally against the expansion of National Heritage Areas (NHA), who frame such initiatives as a “land grab.” NHAs are a bipartisan initiative started in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan to provide federal funding to promote and preserve historical sites and monuments. However, in the last 15 years, the Right overwhelming rescinded support for NHAs, building alliances through anti-immigration sentiment, anti-statism, militant organizing, climate change denial, white supremacy, and pro-private property interests. In this research, I draw from a case study in Kansas and Missouri, the Freedom’s Frontier NHA, using interviews and archival information to understand the shifting dynamics between the Right and commemorative landscapes.