A People’s Historian

In the darkness before dawn on May 13, 1862, Robert Smalls, an enslaved man in South Carolina, waited until his white captors went to shore. Then he whispered a plan to the other enslaved men on the Confederate ship, the Planter, clapped a captain’s cap on his head, hoisted the flags and sailed off through Charleston Harbor. As he passed other Confederate ships, he greeted them with the signals he had learned from his captors, fully aware of the risks of an enslaved man stealing a ship. He stopped to pick up his wife and children and the families of the other men, then as they reached a line of Union ships, Smalls raised a white bed sheet as a sign of surrender. They were free. 

Smalls went on to found a newspaper, serve five terms in Congress and work closely with Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass on plans for Reconstruction. Yet his story is not widely known. 

How can the National Park Service better tell stories about people such as Smalls? How can historic sites incorporate the latest scholarship into their displays and discussions? And how can the Park Service more fully explore and share the lives of lesser-known people who might be every bit as fascinating and relevant as those for whom a site is named?

These are the questions that preoccupy Turkiya Lowe, who became the Park Service’s chief historian in January. Lowe brings a wealth of institutional knowledge — having worked for the Park Service for nearly two decades — and a fresh perspective to the job. She is the first woman and first African American to serve as chief historian. And, at 39, she is also one of the youngest to hold the position. 

Scharper, Julie, “A People’s Historian,” Issue Summer 2017, National Park Conservation Association, accessed November 6, 2021,  https://www.npca.org/articles/1568-a-people-s-historian.