Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/1120003
4 UCW MAY 22-28, 2019 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM STAFF PUBLISHER Bill Bowman Bill@upandcomingweekly.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER/ EDITOR Stephanie Crider editor@upandcomingweekly.com OPERATIONS DIRECTOR Paulette Naylor accounting@upandcomingweekly. com ASSISTANT EDITOR Leslie Pyo leslie@upandcomingweekly.com SENIOR SPORTS EDITOR Earl Vaughan Jr. EarlUCWSports@gmail.com REPORTER Jeff Thompson news@upandcomingweekly.com GRAPHIC DESIGNER Elizabeth Long art@upandcomingweekly.com SALES AND MARKETING DIRECTOR Kimberly Herndon kim@upandcomingweekly.com MARKETING ASSOCIATE Linda McAlister Brown linda@upandcomingweekly.com DISTRIBUTION MANAGER/ SALES ADMINISTRATOR Laurel Handforth laurel@upandcomingweekly.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS D.G. Martin, Pitt Dickey, Margaret Dickson, Karl Merritt, John Hood, Jim Jones, Shanessa Fenner, Prudence Mainor, Avery Powers, Elizabeth Blevins ––––––––––– Up & Coming Weekly www.upandcomingweekly.com 208 Rowan St. P.O. Box 53461 Fayetteville, NC 28305 PHONE: 910-484-6200 FAX: 910-484-9218 Up & Coming Weekly is a "Quality of Life" publication with local features, news and information on what's happening in and around the Fayetteville/Cumberland County community. Up & Coming Weekly is published weekly on Wednesdays. Up & Coming Weekly welcomes manuscripts, photographs and artwork for publication consideration, but assumes no responsibility for them. We cannot accept responsibility for the return of unsolicited manuscripts or material. Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of the pub- lisher. The publisher reserves the right to edit or reject copy submitted for publication. Up & Coming Weekly is free of charge and distributed at indoor and outdoor locations throughout Fayetteville, Fort Bragg, Pope Air Force Base, Hope Mills and Spring Lake. Readers are limited to one copy per person. © 2019 by F&B Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction or use of editorial or advertisements without permission is strictly prohibited. Cover photos credit: Carlo Pieroni Various ads with art graphics designed with elements from: vecteezy.com and freepik.com. Knowledge as healing by MARGARET DICKSON PUBLISHER'S PEN Editor's note: Once again, publisher Bill Bowman relinquishes his space to accom- modate an article on a timely issue — e North Carolina Civil War & Reconstruc- tion History Center. Sharing relevant information on important topics is what Up & Coming Weekly is all about. Projects, both public and private, begin as a little kernel of an idea in someone's mind and chug along for days, weeks, months and years before taking on lives of their own, if they ever do. When that someone shares an idea with others, they will either get on the bandwagon or see enough flaws to shoot down that idea. Development is always a journey. What we now know is the North Caro- lina Civil War & Reconstruction History Center has been germinating since the late 2000s. It began with supporters of the Museum of the Cape Fear, who real- ized that the regional museum concept was not cohesive enough to create a booming and sustainable state museum and began looking for a bigger idea. A professional consultant was brought in and pointed out the obvious. e United States Arsenal, built on Haymount hill in Fayetteville in 1838 and handed over to Confederate rebels in 1861, brought Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman to our city to destroy the Arsenal in March 1865, and destroy it he did. Sherman's 62,000 Union troops and 25,000 camp followers swept into what was then a hamlet of 4,000-5,000 souls and swept out three woeful days later, leaving little but rubble on the Arsenal site. Sherman continued north into Virginia, and the Civil War was over within six weeks. What happened in our community, and its aftermath, helped end the deadli- est and arguably the most painful period and armed conflict in our nation's his- tory. Why not focus a comprehensive state institution on what happened to the people of North Carolina before, during and after the American Civil War? By 2010, that idea had become a twinkle in the eyes of residents and mu- seum supporters, including nationally known historian Mary Lynn Bryan and then-State Sen. Tony Rand. ey enlisted others, like former Fayetteville Observer publisher Charles Broadwell, local businessman and community activist Mac Healy, and this Up & Coming Weekly columnist, forming a nonprofit founda- tion to explore and develop this idea. Over this decade, support grew, and the foundation raised money to hire an architect to design an appropriate build- ing, engaged a nationally known exhibit design firm to develop modern exhibits and collaborated with scholars and his- torians to develop a narrative of stories of North Carolinians — black and white, Union and Confederate. Also, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction is working with the History Center to allow fourth-, eighth- and 11th-grade students studying North Carolina history online access to History Center resources. e idea is to tell real stories, at least one from each of our 100 counties, rather than displaying weapons and battle flags. Along the way, the NCCWRHC gar- nered an advisory board, co-chaired by former governors Jim Hunt and Jim Martin, raised $7 million from private sources and an additional $5 million grant from the state of North Carolina. It has also received $15 million in financial pledges from the city of Fayetteville and Cumberland County, as well as funding from the North Carolina General Assem- bly. History buffs from across our state and beyond are looking forward to this one-of-a-kind resource as part of our state museum system. All of this has happened since that ker- nel sprouted in local minds and hearts. e NCCWRHC has been researched and thought through at every stage of development and has the best organiza- tion, design and scholarship available behind it. e History Center is now poised to become reality. Why should you care about this when our community and our state have so many divergent and pressing issues fac- ing us? Fayetteville and Cumberland County should care for a practical reason. A facility of this magnitude is an economic development project, bringing both visi- tors and resources to our community for the foreseeable future. Once operational, the History Center will be operated by the state, not by local government. Less tangibly and perhaps more importantly, the History Center is an opportunity for North Carolinians and all Americans to understand the issues of our past, how those issues continue to plague us today, and how they may com- promise our future if we cannot resolve them as a nation. Writer and philosopher George Santayana put it this way. "ose who cannot remember history are doomed to repeat it." MARGARET DICKSON, Columnist. COMMENTS? Editor@ upandcomingweekly.com. 910-484-6200. e idea of the North Carolina Civil War & Reconstruction History Center is to tell real stories, at least one from each of our 100 counties, rather than displaying weapons and battle flags. It's an opportunity for North Carolinians and all Americans to understand the issues of our past, how those issues continue to plague us today, and how they may compromise our future if we cannot resolve them as a nation.