National Reconstruction Monument in Beaufort!

01 Nov National Reconstruction Monument in Beaufort!

National Reconstruction Monument

 Please Sign the Petition

After sixteen years of work by scholars and community leaders, Beaufort County is close to getting into the queue to be named a multi-site National Monument on the Reconstruction Era.  We are not there yet, but I am hopefully optimistic.
As I stated last week the two-year study by the National Park Service points to Beaufort as “the site” for a Reconstruction Monument.
However, for this to happen, the community must demonstrate public support for the National Monument in Beaufort.  Twenty or more Beaufort County, statewide and national historic and cultural institutions are coming forth with endorsements. To name a few:  the SC Historical Society, The Historic Beaufort Foundation, The Santa Elena History Foundation and Center, the Beaufort County Historical Society and The Beaufort History Museum.  The Heritage Library Foundation and the Mitchelville Preservation Project, along with the Towns of Port Royal, Bluffton and Hilton Head Island and Beaufort County Council are working on resolutions. The Beaufort County Legislative Delegation and the SC Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism are generating support.  I am told that the National Trust for Historic Preservation will sign on as well as the Gullah Geechie Heritage Corridor Commission and the Fort Sumter Fort Moultrie Trust in Charleston are in process.
Now it is our time to go to work. We need to generate grassroots support to demonstrate our community wants this exciting venture to happen.   I am asking, if not pleading, for you to sign, encourage your family, friends, colleagues and others to sign and forward to their friends in Beaufort and throughout the country.  This is a National Monument and we need to demonstrate huge community support.
We rallied with votes for Candice Glover and when Coastal Living was determining the Happiest Sea Side City.  We can certainly do it when our County is being considered for a National Monument.
So let’s show them what we can do, Beaufort!
As some us learned during the struggle against seismic testing and drilling for oil off our coast, the grassroots are very effective.