History teacher Mike Burgess speaking at the museum last year.
What does Brad do when he’s not blogging? Well, lots of stuff. Some of it involves work for ADCO‘s clients, one of which is the Relic Room.
For the past year I’ve been particularly wrapped up in a project I particularly enjoy, which is arranging, coordinating and publicizing the frequent live programs on military history that we call Noon Debriefs (they used to be called “Lunch and Learns,” but there was no actual lunch, so it was changed).
They are free lectures featuring such speakers as veterans, historians and others about some aspect of military history bearing on South Carolina. This is one of my favorite things to work on, because I always learn from them. They’ve been a bit of a challenge, though, since last June, since the room usually used for lectures at the museum has been tied up by renovations.
But that’s been an opportunity to reach out to the wider community, and Richland Library has generously let us use the Theater room at their main location, which is a fantastic venue for such programs. To simplify the transition, we relied at first on museum staff as speakers, but we’ve recently resumed our usual practice of having quest speakers from outside. There, we’ve presented such lectures as:
- Joe Long, curator of education at the museum, on American POWs at the Hanoi Hilton, stressing prisoners with South Carolina connections.
- Joe again, talking about “The Unpronounceable Patriot,” Thaddeus Kosciuszko, and his SC involvement during the Revolutionary War.
- On this past Veterans Day, Fritz Hamer, former curator of history at the Relic Room, spoke about the Battle of Ia Drang at that time of year in 1965. That’s the battle that the film “We Were Soldiers” was about.
- Joe again on “Wade Hampton’s Great Beefsteak Raid” in 1864, which may have been the biggest cattle-rustling episode in American history.
- Moss Blachman (the first at the library with a guest speaker) on his experiences as an Air Force intelligence officer in Vietnam in 1965-66. This was a return engagement after a presentation Moss made at the museum last year.
We’ve got another great guest speaker tomorrow at noon. Mike Burgess, who has in recent years been dubbed the best history teacher in the state more than once, will talk about the increasing difficulty of teaching the subject in public schools amid America’s roaring political battles over our past.
Mike addresses the subject quite fearlessly, as I can tell you based on the similar lecture he gave at the museum last year. And the past year, of course, has only made his job more difficult, as the Kulturkampf flames have been fanned ever higher.
Anyway, since his topic is the very nature of history itself, and why it is essential in a functioning republic, I figured this would be a good time to give y’all a heads-up on these programs. I assure you it will be an informative one.
We’ll continue to present such fascinating programs at Richland Library in the coming months, and perhaps even after we get the Education Room at the museum back. And in May, we’ll branch out further, with a couple of programs at the Cayce/West Columbia Branch of Lexington County Libary.
If you want to learn, as I have been doing, come on out. Oh, and we’ve started offering something extra the last few times — a free tour of the Relic Room itself, following the program. If you haven’t been to the museum before, you should definitely take advantage of that. I particularly urge you to check out the Vietnam exhibit in the Cistern Gallery (which is one reason so many of our recent programs have emphasized the experiences of South Carolina veterans in the conflict)….
Moss Blachman spoke at the library Feb. 14 about serving as an intelligence officer in Vietnam.
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