Q&A by Brad Balfour
Within the last two 1/2 months, we’ve seen an election won, a President in denial, a country in turmoil and a siege of the Capitol by people who had reacted to Trump’s lies about losing — which prompted another Presidential impeachment. Even former Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged that they were lies. And in play, with Martin Luther King’s birthday being celebrated two days before President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s inauguration taking place this week, the COVID vaccines were rolling out in fits and starts.
Not long ago, Former Beaufort, SC, Mayor Billy Keyserling proclaimed, “Let’s all look in the mirror and honestly ask ourselves: ‘Is this the America we want to leave to our children and grandchildren?'” The 72-year old was questioning, if there’s ever was a time for Americans to stand tall and stick together, “then it’s now.”
Mayor Billy had hit on something. As the creator of “The Second Founding of America: Reconstruction Beaufort”, he had written a book (co-authored with Mike Greenly) that he hoped would start conversations that could bring people together.
Keyserling’s book, Sharing Common Ground: Promises Unfulfilled but Not Forgotten, “anticipated and feared the coming turmoil we face today because of issues related to the Civil War, Reconstruction and its undoing which started with the Jim Crow era.” That had heightened what is today very much at the core of the political struggle which, prompted by former President Trump’s racist exhortations, led to the shambling insurrection that took place at the US Capitol on January 6th, 2021.
Keyserling has advocated for the National Monument to the Reconstruction Era, which then-President Barack Obama created in 2017 to mark Beaufort County’s role in the period during and after the Civil War, a time when newly freed African Americans started schools, businesses and participated in government for the first time. The downtown building where the national historical park is headquartered was donated by Keyserling and his family.
The mayor has also been a staunch opponent of offshore drilling during the administrations of Obama and President Donald Trump. He also established a youth leadership program for school-aged children that’s in its sixth year. Most recently, Keyserling has implored residents to wear masks during the coronavirus pandemic, soliciting donations and distributing free masks from communities along the coast to Charleston.
Q: In light of this week with both MLK Day and Inaugural Week — what would you hope will get spotlighted this week?
BK: When I’ve spoken at annual MLK local ceremonies over the years, my central message was that MLK was talking about an ongoing way of life. His vision was that each of us would look into the mirror every day and recommit to living the dream. That as a nation, we’d become increasingly engaged in the fight for justice, freedom and equality in a peaceful, patient way. I tell audiences that Dr. King’s hard-earned, deserved and generally accepted Birthday commemoration would be a day to recharge our batteries. Not just a day to put on Sunday clothes and spend a few hours reminiscing about his valiant contributions and then forget about them.
As to the inauguration, I am seriously frightened. I just previewed an almost completed short video about the destruction in 1921 of Black Wall Street in Tulsa. It had been one of jewels of accomplishment by formerly enslaved people.
I saw that what had been essentially a trumped up case — a false claim that was denied by the supposed “victim” of assault. She was a young, white female elevator operator who was purportedly sexually accursed by a black shoe shiner. Both denied the event but it took on a life of its own and led to the destruction of black success. I was also stunned that in 1921, a group of angry white men attacked the community in small airplanes circling the area. They dropped homemade bombs while hanging out of the airplane windows shooting people below.
That was in 1921, not 2021 where we have much more sophisticated electronic tracing technologies and communications capabilities. Now we have social media, and more modern weapons of destruction as we saw employed at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Q: What is your overall goal in publishing this book?
BK: The absolute ultimate goal is to expand history education, integrating everyone’s sto
ry into a single, shared American history instead of separate “histories” for different races and cultures.
The working goal is to engage students in learning to become reporters to go out and find “new” stories about their own families and locations. Then to bring those stories into their communities and translate the lessons they bring to that others understand them. We need an educational vernacular that teaches students the truth and builds their confidence in what they learn.
They will then be equipped to challenge three previous generations of teaching incomplete history in their schools, their homes and among their peers. Let’s just say, we are planting the seeds of change for the next generation to sow in order to fulfill the promises of freedom, justice and equality on which our nation was founded, all while restoring civility among us. Q: What have been people’s reactions thus far?
BK: To my delight and surprise, the reaction of everyone I’ve engaged – including United Daughters of the Confederacy, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Sons of the Colored Troop of the Union Army, teachers (with varying levels of interest) and administrators – has been nothing short of encouraging.
Then again, we’re mostly talking at this point about the process, itself … not yet the good, the bad and the ugly which some are likely to embrace while others keep denying it, as they have for years.
The key to getting this kind of support is to remind people that we cannot erase history, but rather add and fill in the gaps. The anticipated challenge from the United Daughters and Sons of Confederates has yet to brew. I have not asked to remove their history but rather to tell the rest of the story that bring in different perspectives and lead to some disagreement. My response is that diversity often involves disagreement, but that doesn’t mean that we become enemies simply because we disagree. I’m confident that if we sit together and talk, we can find common ground. And that is where healing must begin.
If it were not for COVID-19, and if we had a little money to invest in this cause — money we won’t obtain until we have more initiatives in the works — we’d already be working actively in classrooms in Beaufort and surrounding counties. We’d already start to implement pilots, testing and perfecting the educational model before we export to other communities.
While other black people in the community are saying, “Amen, let’s do it,” I find black teenagers skeptical. Some may not yet be so ready to engage but are not blowing back by saying that I am wrong. My hunch is that they’re waiting to see what happens but some black people are ready right now to jump in if they can.
At our public hearing during the process of advocating for the Reconstruction monument, we found that our participants were as white as they were black. Many of those who spoke, regardless of skin color, spoke forcefully about the need to find and share the truth.
Q: The book tells your story but it’s motivated by facts about Reconstruction. How do you intend to institutionalize it?
BK: To achieve through Congressional action a National Park and Network. We’ve engaged hundreds of scholars, public officials, faith leaders, community activists and passionate people. The point is now to complete the campaign to further promote learning of the untold stories while correcting those that have often been mis-told.
Because I see a national park as the beginning — let’s say the green starting flag, not the end of the race. As the on-the-ground advocacy organizer, I’ve assembled many I’ve met along the journey to stay with us. We created a non-profit organization called “Second Founding of America: Reconstruction Beaufort.” We might still remove “Beaufort” so we don’t send signals that Reconstruction only happened here in my town. Indeed, we see this as a national movement. We currently have a stellar national advisory board with about 25 collaborating organizations in the advisory capacity. We are currently engaging some of them in strategic planning and will establish a formal board of directors once we know our needs.
Q: What else do you have say about your quest to enlighten people about the correct history of the reconstruction?
BK: I’m working to further sharpen my understanding of the audiences we want to reach. I hope to use impactful quotes when I speak to each particular audience, using their language and addressing their concerns. The goal is always to effectively motivate every audience to jump into the book, understand their own moral compasses and align with our mission.
We hope they’ll then actively share stories, helping us identify sites of importance to the overall initiative. We want teachers to get engaged and, of course, we need financial resources to get these really great plans off the ground. I am hoping that our promotional launch of having Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill will begin our more aggressive branding to create and share common ground based on the truth of our American history. If we can achieve the impact we’re after, we’ll have clear-cut success while gaining an enlarged database of interested parties.
Q: What was the toughest part of making this version of a book rather than it being a full-scale auto-biography?
BK: The original idea for the book was to be about leadership. I unloaded many, many stories but was never really able to extract lessons for others because there were just too many. There was no coherent story line. The anecdotes and memories were interesting, but more for family and friends than for the general public.
Once I figured out the story I wanted to tell, with the help of an author/editor from Boston who I was directed to, I realized the enormity of making a broad and lengthy range of stories come together to a central point. That is where Mike Greenly was so important. From an objective distance, he was able to take the storyline I’d given him and select only material that was relevant to convey a clear point of view. He was able to compress my meandering storytelling into concise sentences and organized chapters.
Q: I understand that the book’s title, Sharing Common Ground, was inspired by “Common Ground”, a song by Greenly and Gil Polk. You’re developing a choral version of it.
BK: Mike and Gil’s song certainly inspired the title. When I saw the video on YouTube, the message of those words jumped out at me. They graciously agreed to let me use the song and the “Common Ground” title as part of my initiative. While I do like the song, I felt it was a little vanilla for the students and blacks we hope to engage. Gil is now rearranging the music into a choral format for students to perform at their schools and elsewhere in their communities.
Once the revised version is completed, we will use the song in our branding. If I get to achieve my intention, we’ll even be producing “Sharing Common Ground” for TV. The song, itself, might become the music for opening titles and closing credits. We would also integrate it into our Reconstruction Youth Chorale performances.
Q: Given your red hair, have even been confused for being Irish?
BK: “Red on the head like a dick on a dog” was an expression some of the Beaufort High School football team called me but they also called me Rabbi and my dad who did the physicals “Dr. K. — the pecker checker.”
Quite frankly, I really never thought about it because the tone never felt mean spirited or hurtful. Always people noticed and talked about my red hair, and I was proud of it. I actually liked being a red head and I always ask red heads if they like it. Mostly, they too seem to like and be proud of it. Yes, they wondered if I was Irish. How I could be Jewish? I told them there were, in fact, Irish Jews.