Prologue
Ariel Lavery: Well, this is it… our last episode of our first season. And, I think it’s been a good run so far.
Austin Carter: Yeah! I kind of can’t believe we made it through this year AND rolled out the first season of this brand new podcast.
Ariel Lavery: Yeah, it’s been a crazy year. (rhythmic guitar music starts) And we haven’t dealt directly, in this podcast, with some of the major issues our country has been facing, so I wanted to take the opportunity in this last episode to talk to someone from rural America who might challenge some of the expectations we put on people in the polarized environment we’re in.
Ariel Lavery: So, I spoke with Ron Sydnor, who remains the only Black person ever to have managed the Jefferson Davis State Historic Site in Fairview, Kentucky.
Ron Sydnor: If I’da let my emotions get involved being an African American, then it woulda been a whole different scene there.
Austin Carter: Yeah, I’ve driven by the Davis Monument many times. It's a giant concrete obelisk that looks like the Washington Monument. And it’s kinda out in the middle of nowhere…
Ariel Lavery: Or the Middle of Everywhere!
Austin Carter: Ah, (laugh) right. So Fairview is the birthplace of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, which is why this huge monument is there in the first place. And, from what I know, it’s a place for the real civil war history buffs but also might attract Confederate sympathizers and white nationalists.
Ariel Lavery: Yeah that’s kinda what I’ve heard. So, why would Ron take this job?
Ron Sydnor: I even had friends, you know, tell me they said, man, they said, you're gonna go up there and they're gonna hang you up there. (laughs nervously)
Austin Carter: Whoa!
Ariel Lavery: Yeah! And getting to know him, I started to get an idea about what it was like being a Black man, with his own fears, managing a major Confederate park. He spent a lot of time telling me about what he understands as the truth behind why the civil war happened, who Jefferson Davis really was, what the Confederate flag really stood for, etc., etc. And a lot of what he said really surprised me.
Ron Sydnor: I knew that there was a lot of misconceptions out there, a lot of things that people believed on both sides of the coin.
(theme music starts)
Ariel Lavery: We’ll meet a Black man who, despite his beliefs, managed a major confederate monument for years. And we'll ask, how did he do it?
Austin Carter: This is Middle of Everywhere, telling big stories from the small places we call home. I’m Austin Carter.
Ariel Lavery: And I’m Ariel Lavery. And today, Black Overseer of a Confederate Monument.
(theme music ends)
Scene 1: An Education in African American History
Ron Sydnor: I was born in Russellville, Kentucky. But, um, from the age of two, I grew up in Pembroke, Kentucky, a small farming community.
Ariel Lavery: Ron’s family was not necessarily full of history buffs, but…
Ron Sydnor: It always fascinated me. And I, as far back as the age of 11, any books or anything that had anything to do with history, I was all over it. (blues with harmonica starts) When I was in the second grade, I was going to an all-Black school, that was before desegregation. And so some of the lessons that I learned about Black Americans in history, sparked my interest.
Ariel Lavery: He got a lot of inspiration from learning about different historical figures.
Ron Sydnor: George Washington Carver. I was interested in him because our school was named after him. Frederick Douglass was another big one. Marcus Garvey was, was another big one.
Ariel Lavery: In 1965, when Ron and his classmates were integrated into a white school, he noticed a change in the way history was taught.
Ron Sydnor:In In the all-Black school, we had the traditional history that was taught, but we also had more of the African American push in history in what African Americans did in history. Whereas when the school was integrated, that part of the history was not there. And it wasn't until I got to college that I really came full circle with it.
Ariel Lavery: After active duty in the Marines he got into U.C. Berkeley, and decided to focus again on African American history.
Ron Sydnor: When I got my history degree, it was in American history, but it was from the beginning of America to through the Civil War. I took classes from Africa during that period, from England during that period, and of course, the United States during that period, because I wanted to know, how each one of those countries and the people were thinking, and what they were thinking about for this adventure, if you will, that made this country and what it is today.
Ariel Lavery: He found himself with some disparity between himself and his classmates, not because of his race, but because of his age. He started his first year when he was 45.
Ron Sydnor: (“Ship Ahoy” by the O’Jays begins) The first day of the class he played a soundbite of music, and wanted to know if anybody in our class could name the song in the group. And I don't know if it's unfortunate or fortunate, but I was the only one in the class that recognized the song in the group. And I guess it was because of my age. It was the O’jays and “Ship Ahoy.” (“Ship Ahoy” lyrics “Ship ahoy, ship ahoy, ship ahoy, ship ahoy yeah...)
Austin Carter: I was lucky to have a father who introduced me to the O’jays but I see what he's saying there. So how did he get from studying history at Berkeley to being the first and only Black manager of one of the most prominent confederate monuments?
Ariel Lavery: Well, he actually never really planned to pursue this as a career. Originally, he wanted to be a teacher.
Ron Sydnor: When I was at Berkley and when I graduated from Berkley and I applied to the credentialing program, because I wanted to be a history teacher, they told me that I was short, one lower-division class, which was polici-sci two. So when I told my wife I had to go back to school for one more semester, she said, she said, “No, no, no, no, no. You've been schooling for four years, get a job.”
Austin Carter: Oh, that’s too bad. That’s such a common story for graduates who try to pursue something a little outside their degree path.
Ariel Lavery. Yeah, that’s true! You know, but his desire to teach didn’t go away.
(“Ship Ahoy” begins. Lyrics: As far as your eyes can see men, women, and baby slaves coming to the land of liberty…)
Scene 2: A Sniper in the Tower
Austin Carter: Ok, so how did he end up managing the monument?
Ariel Lavery: Tell me a little bit about how you got the job at the monument. (Ron laughing) Like did you…
Ron Sydnor: Oh, that's, that’s a funny story. I was the assistant manager at Lake Barkley State Resort Park and when the job first came open and me and the park manager was talking. And I told him I said, you know, I said “I want to apply for the job.” And he said “You ought to.” I says “Now, there's no way they'll put a Black person in that job.” And so we laughed it off and we let it go. Well, about a year later, the job was still open. And my boss from Frankfort, she came down. And because of my military background, and the fact that I was a history major, she thought that I'd be a better fit to go to Jefferson Davis. Well, she didn't understand the historical context of what she was asking. And so I started laughing. And she goes, “No, no, Ron, I'm serious!” I said, “I understand. I said, this is an inside joke”
Ariel Lavery: And it didn’t take long for the news to travel about the first Black manager of this Confederate monument.
Ron Sydnor: The day after I was there, the local newspaper came down and interviewed me. And when the paper came out the heading was “African American Managing the Birthplace of the President of the Confederate States of America.” (intense hip hop rhythm with organ begins) Well, that thing shot across the AP, and I got calls from radio stations and newspapers, even The New York Times wanted to know how and why.
Ariel Lavery: Not everyone in the Kentucky park system was as ignorant of the potential implications of putting a Black man in charge of this monument.
Ron Sydnor: The commissioner of Parks, he called, ah he, ah he, ah he got upset when she did it. The commissioner called he goes, “Look, Ron, he goes, if you have any problems down there, you call me right away, because I'm not gonna put up with it.” I said, “Sir…”, and I started laughing. And he said, “Ron I’m serious!” I said, “I know you're serious. But you gotta look at it from my standpoint.” I said, “You're three hours away. I think if something happens, by the time you get here, it's all over.” (laughs)
Austin Carter: Wow, that’s a scary implication for your boss’s boss to be making, but it’s totally a realistic possibility. I know there are some incredibly violent white extremists who might take issue with a Black park manager at a site that they would hold dear.
Ariel Lavery: Oh, yeah. But his hiring for this monument was truly trend shattering. He learned just how rare it was for a Black person to be in this line of employment in Kentucky when he went to an annual conference for parks and historical organizations around the state.
Ron Sydnor: There's an organization that they're all members of, and that organization has a conference every year. And everybody had to get up to introduce themselves. And when I got up to introduce myself all of them, almost, they said, oh, we know who you are. So I didn’t have to introduce myself. (laughs)
Ariel Lavery: And how many other African Americans were in that room introducing themselves.?
Ron Sydnor: Um... I was the only one. I was, at that time was the only one designated as a park manager, out of 52 parks.
Ariel Lavery: And Ron says that since he’s now retired, there are no Black park managers in the state of Kentucky.
Austin Carter: Wow. And what about at the park? How many Black employees were there?
Ron Sydnor: When I got there, the maintenance guy was was Black and he had been there for 20 years.
Ariel Lavery: And other state administrators expressed their own surprise at his hiring.
Ron Sydnor: the state, you know, they also got on my boss, because when I was in the Marine Corps, I was the platoon commander for snipers. (dancing soul music with harmonica begins) And, and they told us that we can't believe you put a sniper in the tower. (Ariel and Ron laugh)
Austin Carter: Oh my gosh.
Ron Sydnor: But I never had a problem. The community accepted me with open arms and I mean, we were one happy little family. I had a great time there. Some visitors that would come in. And when they found out that I was a manager, they'd get upset. And they'd leave. Some visitors would come in and they found out I was a manager, they started laughing, and leave. (laughs) Some visitors, I had a couple of old ladies, they were probably in their mid to late 80s. And when they found out I was the manager, they wanted my autograph. And they wanted me to put on there the dates that I became the manager because they wanted to be able to tell their grandkids, they knew me, who I was, and when.
Ariel Lavery: When we come back, we’ll hear what Ron taught at the park, and some unexpected interactions he had with park visitors.
(music fades out)
(Ad Break)
Scene 3: A Vision
Ariel Lavery: When we left, Ron had the new job as park manager…
Austin Carter: Which people reacted to in a variety of ways. (chuckle)
Ariel Lavery: Right. And, if you remember, Ron wanted to teach history after graduating. So he kinda came to this new job with a mind to bring his knowledge of history to the monument.
Ron Sydnor: I knew that there was a lot of misconceptions out there, a lot of things that people believed on both sides of the coin. And so I believed that my job there would be more of a teaching….
Ariel Lavery: He realized fairly quickly that much education was needed as he was watching how people conducted themselves around the monument.
Austin Carter: What do you mean, like, people were parading their support for the confederacy or something.
Ariel Lavery: You know, actually, surprisingly, the opposite.
Ron Sydnor: This one young mother came in with a young son, and he was over at where we had the flags, the small flags on the wooden sticks that you could buy. And he was looking at the, the battle flag, which most people have mischaracterized as a Confederate flag. And so his mother walked over to him and gently moved him over to the American flag and said, wouldn't you rather have this. (Civil War era violin music starts) I knew then that there needed to be a lot more education, than, than anything else.
Austin Carter: why did he see that mother’s reaction as problematic?
Ariel Lavery: Yeah, I was confused about that too. It seems like a reaction a lot of people in this country would have if their young child was gravitating toward what many call the rebel flag. But he explained to me what he was talking about through a conversation he had with another man visiting the park who said that he was embarrassed by what he thought was the Confederate flag.
Ron Sydnor: So I asked him, I said, Well, why are you embarrassed by that flag? And, and he said, because of what it represents. And I asked him, I said, well, what does it represent? And, and he told me it represented the era of slavery and in racism and... I said well, I said the battle flag, and I showed him the battle flag, I said the battle flag was a flag that different units carried and had their unit designation on it. And then I showed them the three Confederate flags.
Ariel Lavery: I was really surprised by all this. I didn’t know there were three different Confederate flags.
Austin Carter: Well, maybe it’s because I grew up in the South, but I did know that there was a difference between the Confederate national flag and the Confederate battle flag.
Ron Sydnor: So the first national Confederate flag is what we known as the stars and bars. The second Confederate flag was called the stainless banner. And the third Confederate flag was called the stained banner.
Austin Carter: Or as some people call it,the Blood-Stained Banner because of the red bar at the edge of the flag.
Ron Sydnor: When they tell me that the Confederate flag represents racism, and all this stuff, and I said, “Well, listen…” I said, “the Confederate flag existed for five years. The flags that they're calling the Confederate flag today is not the Confederate flag.”
Austin Carter: There are certainly more nuances to the history of the Confederate flag than most people know. But I have to be honest, I’m still kinda taken aback when I hear him seem to be defending what the flags really stood for and negating that the flag today represents racism for some people.
Ariel Lavery: Yeah, yeah, me too. And, I think this would be tricky for a lot of people to digest. I did needle him about this, because I just couldn’t imagine that a Black person would be able to look at that flag without any negative emotions.
Ron Sydnor: When I see pickup trucks flying it on the back, or they got it in the back window, and, or they've got a license plate up front with it on there. Yeah, there's a fear factor there. And then there's also a question in the back of my mind, “What do they think it means?”
Austin Carter: So here's Ron, trying to educate/teach people about the Civil War, but at the same time it exposes him to people who may be violently opposed to his being. And it's really kind of brave.
Ariel Lavery: That’s a really good point. But I continued to be surprised at the history lessons he gave me! Like his explanation for why so many people in the South actually fought in the war.
Ron Sydnor: (blues guitar begins) It was a taxation without representation because of that, those taxes placed on southern goods, and now they couldn't make a living for their family. That's why they fought. You also had, and a lot of people dispute it, but you had Blacks that fought in the Confederacy as well. And they, they fought for, for freedom, which, as strange as that sounds, if they supported the North and the South won, their condition would be a whole lot worse than what it is at that time. But if they fought for the South and supported the South, and if the South won, then their condition would improve a great deal. So yeah, they were fighting’ for self preservation.
Austin Carter: It’s interesting that Ron has that attitude toward the poor southerners who fought on the side of the Confederacy. It would be easy to say that, they fought for the South, and thus, they supported slavery.
Ariel Lavery: Yeah, that’s true. And just wait until you hear him talk about Jefferson Davis. About his biography.
Ron Sydnor: In the first 60 years of the 19th century. He was known as a statesman. He was a war hero. Davis as a senator and the Secretary of War, it was the things that he did in those capacities that made him stand out. Now, when he was in the Senate, Davis, argued against secession. He did not want the South to secede, which made a lot of southerners mad, but you got to understand, Davis created the United States Army. He knew what that army was capable of, and he knew it would be a bloodbath. He was called the reluctant secessionist. When Mississippi seceded, he knew the cause was up.
Ariel Lavery: After the state seceded, Davis returned to Mississippi. He was home with his wife when a letter came for him stating that he was the Confederate states choice for president.
Ron Sydnor: And Davis said that it felt like somebody had dropped a big rock on him, because that's not what he wanted. He believed that his country was calling on him. And so he had no choice but to do what this country was asking him to do.
Austin Carter: Yeah, I actually read a biography of Jefferson Davis about a decade ago, so I remember some of this information. And really his life has some kind of fascinating moments outside of just being the president of the Confederacy.
Ariel Lavery: Really? I knew none of this. It really made me realize how many versions of history there are out there and just how uneducated I am about that.
Austin Carter: Well, we can’t all be experts about everything, so… (Ariel and Austin laugh) Now you said before the break Ron had a vision for the park.
Ariel Lavery: Yes.
Austin Carter: So how did his understanding of history play out in his education plan at the park?
Ron Sydnor: I wanted to put, put on programs there that showed other aspects of that era, not just one aspect, the Confederacy side. so I had a reenactor that represented the Cherokee Nation. His name was Red Hawk.
Ariel Lavery: He had all sorts of reenactors of figures that often go overlooked.
Ron Sydnor: Then I had the U.S. 12th Colored Heavy Artillery Unit. There was the ladies of FREED, which was a group of Black ladies from Washington, D.C. One of the ladies was a friend of Mrs. Lincoln, and she was also a friend of Mrs. Davis.
Ariel Lavery: So everything he did at the monument was about diversifying people’s understanding of history: from the realities of the Confederate flag, to all of the communities of people in the region with unique stories of their own. (serious guitar begins) And he did this all from the perspective, in his mind, of an objective teacher of history.
Ron Sydnor: If I’da let my emotions get involved as an African American, then it would have been a whole different scene there. If I had let my personal beliefs come into play, I probably wouldn't even have taken the job. But I took the job for one reason. I wanted to find out the truth.
Scene 4: And… moving forward?
Austin Carter: All the programming Ron implemented sounds great… like a really good move for a monument that so many people associate with a dark period of our history. But it still doesn’t solve the debate about what should happen with all these Confederate monuments that still stand in our town centers or in government buildings. I mean, we can’t put an educator in front of every one of these monuments or statues of Confederate heroes.
Ariel Lavery: Well, that’s true. But maybe we can retire them to places like the Jefferson Davis park, where they can be put into context. Kinda like what’s planned for the statue of Jefferson Davis that was taken out of the capitol rotunda in Frankfort, Kentucky.
Austin Carter: Oh yeah, what did Ron think about that happening? I’m curious after hearing him kind of sing Davis’s praises.
Ron Sydnor: I had mixed feelings about that. Because the reason they moved the monument was due to the fact that he was the president of the Confederacy. Well, the monument being placed there had nothing to do with him being the president of the Confederacy. The monument was put there, because he was a House of Representatives. He was a war hero. He was a senator, and he was a Secretary of War, and all the things he did in those capacities.
Ariel Lavery: Now, the statue may have been put there for all Davis’s importance as a statesman, but I just want to bring to light here that it was erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
Austin Carter: Hmm... interesting. And some people might say that proves the statue was more about his Confederate presidency than about his statesmanship.
Ariel Lavery: Exactly.
Ron Sydnor: As a matter of fact, I was part of the committee that was discussing on whether to move it out of there or not. (gloomy sounding banjo picking begins) There was a school teacher in that committee and he was, was pushing to have it removed, because he couldn’t explain to his students why a monument to the president of the Confederacy was there. But see they don't teach the civil war in schools anymore, and when they did, they didn't teach anything about Davis, other than he was a president of the Confederacy.
Austin Carter: You know, as I said earlier, I always liked US History and I actually read a biography of Davis at one point. But if you don't have a specific interest in history, a lot of facts can get missed by public education.
Ron Sydnor: You need to go back and read your history. But don't read the history books that you were given in school, go and do research and go into primary documents and stuff like that, and see how the people were talking and feeling during that time. That's where you get the true history.
Ariel Lavery: Ron put this whole thing even more into perspective for me when he brought up the American flag.
Ron Sydnor: More atrocities happen under the American flag, before the Civil War, during the Civil War, and after the Civil War, then was ever enacted upon the Confederate flags. So why isn't the American flag having that stigma placed on it? Because they won. They're not gonna put that on their flag, because they won. The victors write the history.
(musical break)
Conclusion:
Austin Carter: There’s so many strong feelings that get brought up when we talk about the Confederate battle flag or or Confederate history or all of it. And as a white southerner who’s had to come to grips with my own relationship to the Confederacy, having ancestors who fought for the Confederacy, it’s a really weird feeling that we get when we talk about venerating these images and flags and all of these things. So I don’t totally feel that we should just ignore all of those feelings and implications that come from all of this, but I also see the point in trying to place it all within a historical context.
Ariel Lavery: I hadn’t really put this into proper context for myself, about people in your situation. Presenting this version of history and considering how someone like you might feel on a very personal level hadn’t even been in my mind, but it seems so important to bring these things up with each other. Like, how should we be talking about our country’s history to one another? And certainly, we need to keep asking each other, what should we do with all the confederate monuments.
Ron Sydnor: I believe that if those monuments are not on historical sites, they probably should be removed and moved to a historical site where they're kept in context.
Ariel Lavery: What does it do in your mind when you see those in the town square or in front of a government office? What's the message?
Ron Sydnor: Well, it sends a message that, that their belief system is the belief systems that bore out of that era. If the South had have won, we would have known slavery in our time, slavery would have lasted another 100 years. Davis lived and died believing in slavery. I honestly, believe that I would have seen slavery in my time.
Ariel Lavery: Well, we don’t know what will happen with the hundreds of Confederate monuments sprinkled throughout the rural landscape in the near future. But, we’ll definitely be watching.
(theme music begins)
Credits
This episode of Middle of Everywhere was produced by me, Ariel Lavery, with editorial help from the entire team! That’s right,the entire team got together on this one folks. Our editor is Naomi Starobin. Our theme music was composed and recorded by Time on the String sound studio in Paducah, Kentucky. Other scoring was from APM music. Marketing and sponsorship support comes from Dixie Lynn. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at middleofeverywherepod. Middle of Everywhere is a production of WKMS and PRX. This program is made possible, in part, by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private organization funded by the American people.