How else to explain their treatment of the land upon which the Buist school sits? What if, indeed as is possible, that land reveals artifacts of early settlements of African-Americans, even of slaves?
We'll never know what history has been lost. The Charleston County School District has shown its disdain for the past from the beginning of its campaign to replace the old school building.
Nevertheless, we can ask questions. Alert observers of CCSD have plenty of them.
- Work on reopening Buist in August of 2013 remains on track, in fact, at "full speed, damn the torpedoes" speed while the promised replacement of Memminger, James Simons, and Courtenay has ground to "dead slow," aiming at 2014 or later.
- In the dead of night, residents near Buist have been awakened by noise of construction on the site. Working at night because?
- Perhaps the removal of truckloads of excavated soil given to a member of the public and not examined for artifacts is easier then. For all we know, graves are being removed--they would just slow down the work.
- Rumors abound of the pocketing of coins and even slave tags by workers involved with the pile and foundation work. No one thought there might be below-ground historical assets?
- On the same topic, the area was part of the city's defense lines during the American Revolution's siege of Charleston before its surrender in May of 1780. Just sayin.'
- If CCSD could order a seismic survey, why did it not order an archeological survey and recovery plan to be included in its original time line?
- Did anyone consider using the valuable expertise of staff at the Charleston Museum? Why will CCSD not release its Board-ordered archeological surveys done before the work was started? Were Final Reports even made?
Back in the 1950s the Charleston Historical Society banded together to save architectural gems in danger of destruction. Without its efforts, the old city of Charleston would be half the gem it is today.
There could easily be as much history below ground as what we see above, but the administrative structure of the Charleston County School District echoes Rhett Butler: "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn."
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4 comments:
With CCSD it's just like Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi. "That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone".
First they do away with the concept of neighborhood schools, then they take away any reference to the history of the people associated with the schools. Didn't know what we had until they began to take it away.
Even if the city doesn't have an ordinance governing archeological material preservation, you would think the city and the public school district would have enough intergrity to do what's right. If past experience is any indication that may be too much to expect from these two public agencies when it comes to the public trust. They do only what serves the people who run the agency and not the public.
This reminds me of all the iron gates and fixtures that have disappeared from other school projects. This could be called looting. Like theft, it's against the law, but only if the victim presses charges. This is worse, because the public school district is the 'victim' but those running it don't care.
The piece in Sunday's paper finally responds to the noice problem but it doesn't say anything about the damage to other brick buildings in the neighborhood. Nothing about finding artifacts either. Another shallow example of puff reporting just taking up space.
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