Teaching Hard History and Learning in the Process

Since 2015, the Bellamy Mansion Museum has conducted free, place-based school tours in February and March for New Hanover County 5th graders. Staff and volunteers showed students both the 1859 slave quarters and 1861 main house to describe how life looked before electricity, or even running water.

"As the 5th grade curriculum changed, tour attendance dropped, so we decided to revisit the program," explains Jen Fenninger, Education & Engagement Director. "In collaborating with New Hanover County Schools, [headquartered in Wilmington, NC], museum staff learned that the 1898 Wilmington Massacre and Coup has become of increased emphasis in the 8th grade social studies curriculum. With that in mind, recalibrating the tour to target 8th graders became a major initiative in the last year."

Professional development day with local 8th grade teachers.

​With financial support from Bellamy Mansion Museum board members, local 8th grade teachers were invited to the museum and offered a paid day of professional development. The conversation focused primarily on the enslaved individuals who had lived on the site and extended to the 1898 massacre and coup. The Bellamy site lends itself directly to the teaching of these local history topics. During the development session, teachers were offered a 90 minute tour, an 1898 presentation, resource guide materials, and museum staff perspectives on how to teach topics of historical slavery and race through the site.

"We had a great discussion and gained information about the topics to target and they how they can be paralleled with the curriculum content," Jen says. "In subsequent months, we rewrote our script to be appropriate and useful to the 8th grade classes."

Driven by unfounded fears of "negro domination," Wilmington's White businessmen, including John Bellamy Jr., devised a plan to rig the 1898 election and overthrow the local government. They also purchased a Colt rapid-fire for the Wilmington Light Infantry to use against the city's Black citizens. On November 10, 1898, the militia towed the gun through the streets to terrorize Blacks.

Through this process, Jen notes, "we were also able to increase our collaboration with colleagues at the nearby Cape Fear Museum (CFM). CFM has an 1898 field trip at a similar time of year that includes a mapping activity and timeline of events. The Bellamy site and CFM's artifacts and documentation blend well into a more complete picture of this period of history and the themes that arise. The new partnership has widened our reach within the county. From our day with local teachers, we learned that it is difficult for them to complete a field trip that isn't a full day out of their school building. Now, with students attending both museum locations, they experience a fuller, more versatile field trip, and learn in buildings where enslaved people once lived and worked."  

                                          ​---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

" I cannot say thank you enough to everyone who played a part in the field trip!  It was so well organized and put together.  The adults and students really had a great time!  I spoke to many of the students, and most of them said it was a 9 out of 10. Overall, the experience was incredible!"
Trask Middle School teacher

                                         ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
​
Bellamy staff is supporting further efforts to educate teachers not only locally, but across the state by participating in symposiums held by the North Carolina History Center on the Civil War, Emancipation & Reconstruction out of Fayetteville, NC. With instruction coming from local historians, including Leslie Randle-Morton, associate director of the Bellamy Museum, the center held a two-day symposium last month in Wilmington. 

The purpose of the symposium is to teach historical perspectives on the war - its central point being that it was fought to preserve the system of enslavement. The Center reinforces this proven fact and ensures today’s school children learn the truth about the motivations behind the Civil War. The overall mission of the NC History Center on the Civil War, Emancipation & Reconstruction is to tell the stories of all North Carolinians and create a comprehensive, fact-based portrait of history that spans the Antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction periods.

The Center is planning to hold a total of 12 symposiums as a lead up to the opening of a state historic site at the Fayetteville Arsenal where U.S. General William Tecumseh Sherman destroyed the Confederate Army’s ability to make weapons. Once the center is complete, which is expected in 2027, it will be turned over to the state and be housed within the museums division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.