You Can’t Ignore History When You’re Living Through It
Have you ever walked past a building and felt something — even if you couldn’t explain why?
That’s what I call living history. It’s not just the stories we read in books or the anniversaries we celebrate once a year. It’s the kind of history that surrounds you every day — the kind that’s still standing, still breathing, and still shaping how you see the world.
For those of us in Black Gen X, we grew up moving through places our parents once experienced very differently.
The schools, parks, restaurants, and theaters that became part of our everyday lives were often the same places where they faced exclusion, humiliation, or even danger.
We were living in the same spaces — but not the same experience.
The Symbol Never Dies: A Plantation Home in Mississippi
I can still remember the first time I saw a real plantation-style home in Mississippi while visiting my father.
It was beautiful — the tall white columns, the wraparound porch, the manicured lawns.
As a child, I asked my grandmother if enslaved people had ever lived there. She quietly said, “Yes.”
In that moment, everything changed.
That house stopped being just a structure. It became a symbol — of both the cruelty and endurance that defined a chapter of our history.
You can’t sanitize or romanticize places like that. To do so is to disrespect the people whose lives and labor built them.
From Segregation to Assembly: Townsend Park and Oakland Park
In my hometown of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, there were two parks that defined our community life — Oakland Park for whites and Townsend Park for Blacks.
When Jim Crow ended, those legal boundaries disappeared, but the emotional ones didn’t.
Over time, Townsend Park became more than just “the Black park.” It was where we gathered, laughed, cruised in our cars, and built community.
It wasn’t about exclusion anymore — it was about safety, comfort, and cultural identity.
Townsend evolved into a place where we could be ourselves, while the past quietly lingered in the background.
That’s the thing about living history: it doesn’t vanish. It adapts.
Same Space, Different Impact
There used to be an old McDonald’s on Main Street in downtown Pine Bluff.
For me and my friends, it was the spot — a place to grab lunch during school or hang out after Friday night football games.
But for my great aunt, that same McDonald’s brought back painful memories. She remembered being denied service there because she was Black.
Same building. Different generations. Different histories.
The same was true for Pine Bluff High School.
By the time I attended in the 1980s, it was multicultural and welcoming. But when my uncles first attended in the early 1970s — after desegregation — they were met with hostility, racial slurs, and teachers who didn’t want them there.
These experiences live on in the walls, the halls, and the memories of those who endured them.
Physical change doesn’t erase cultural scars.
The Impact Doesn’t Go Away: The Saenger Theater
In Pine Bluff, there’s an old building called the Saenger Theater.
It’s been closed for years, but it’s one of the oldest theaters in the region. My mother could still recall what it was like to go there in her youth — entering through the side door, being told where she could sit, and seeing white patrons enjoy privileges she couldn’t.
She never told those stories with anger — just memory.
For her, that building wasn’t just brick and mortar. It was a reminder of what inequality looked like in real life.
Even long after it closed, it remained a physical echo of that time.
Remembering as an Act of Respect
So many of the buildings that still stand across the South — schools, churches, restaurants, homes — are more than relics.
They’re living witnesses.
They’ve seen the best and worst of who we are.
You can remodel a building, but you can’t renovate its history.
And to ignore what those places once represented is to be, as I like to say, historically disrespectful.
Remembering isn’t about guilt. It’s about respect.
It’s about honoring the people who lived, worked, and suffered in those spaces — and using their stories to make sure we never go back.
Final Reflection
The past isn’t meant to make us comfortable. It’s meant to make us aware.
So the next time you walk by an old school, church, or downtown building — pause for a moment.
Ask yourself what stories it could tell, and whose voices might still echo through its walls.
Because living history isn’t behind us.
It’s all around us.
💬 Share Your Story
Have you ever stood somewhere and felt the weight of history?
Leave a comment below or message me with your story — I’d love to feature a few in a future episode.
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