In the spring of 2022, project directors Charlie Thompson and Mike Wiley co-taught a cultural anthropology course focused on one site of hallowed ground – places in Wilmington, North Carolina connected to the 1898 massacre and coup. Students engaged in a rich array of fieldwork and research methods to learn about the history and legacy of 1898. They consulted print and digital primary and secondary sources. They immersed themselves in art connected to 1898 – documentaries, plays, monologues, and more. They interviewed Wilmingtonians whose ancestors were murdered, banished, or otherwise affected. They visited the city, stood on the lands where critical events took place, and noticed ways in which the Wilmington community continues to use art to open conversation and pursue reconciliation. They created their own art, as individuals and as a collective, to honor this hallowed ground.

Thompson and Wiley’s class objectives, practices, and methodologies connect to several pressing quests in middle and high school classrooms: Engaging students with the whole of American history in pursuit of a more perfect union. Moving away from rote learning and toward ambitious, authentic disciplinary and cross-disciplinary outcomes. Understanding that communities themselves are classrooms for meaningful academic investigation, listening, and relationship-building.

As our team began translating America’s Hallowed Ground to a middle and high school audience, we anchored ourselves in standards-aligned goals and practices in the subject areas of English Language Arts, history, and the arts, as well as the aspirations of deeper learning, project-based learning, and place-based education. Our multidisciplinary classroom activities seek to engage students in ambitious academic work, support students to build personal connections to and opinions about their learning, and guide students to create their own works of art in response to challenging episodes in America’s distant and recent past.