Whereas Wilberforce Ohio offers unique merit as and holds unique claim to be the site for the proposed National Black History Museum, and Whereas the people and institutions of learning in the Wilberforce community have devoted nearly a decade of effort to plans for this development, and Whereas federal, state, and local elected officials representing Wilberforce and adjacent areas have toiled long to see this Museum established in Wilberforce, and Whereas, the State of Ohio has, by legislative action, created and funded an Afro-American Museum Planning Council; and Whereas plans have reached a stage at which the U.S. Dept. of the Interior has conducted certain feasibility studies of the Wilberforce area as the location for the Museum, and Whereas U.S. Dept. of Interior findings in apparent conflict witn local findings and with questionable justification; judge harshly the suitability of this location, Now, Therefore, Be It Resolved that the Southwest District County Commissioners Association of Ohio does hereby question these negative findings; that The SWCCAO asserts that solid capability to support a National Black History Museum exists in. the Wilberforce area; that The SWCCAO hereby declares its complete collective and separate support both for a National Black History Museum and for its location at Wilberforce, Ohio; that a copy of this resolution be sent to the Executive Committee of the CCAO, the National Park Service Study Team, Ohio's complete Congressional delegation, and Ohio's Senators. the Greene-Montgomery Clark County chapter of the Association For the Study of Afro-American Life and History does hereby submit its endordemondi of the proposal to establish a National Museum OF AFRO-AMERICAN ок at History and culture out Lesoph DLewis, Secretarzy These remarks, which are likely to be quite lengthy, are an expansion of those made at the February 22, 1978 public hearing at Shorter Hall, Wilberforce University, Greene County Ohio. These remarks will go directly to your Progress Report and will be structured accordingly. I. Manner of Notification Although the Midwest Regional Office of the National Park Service in Omaha issued a press release on February 7, 1978 in which the February 22 hearing was announced, many people were not aware of it until the last minute. Many of us who were deeply interested did not get copies of the report until days before the hearing. However, subsequent to the hearing I have been made aware that 150 copies were delivered to the Xenia YMCA, two blocks away, on February 8. Until Tuesday, February 21, I thought the hearing was a community meeting to discuss the report. Xenia City Manager, Robert Stewart learned from me at 1:00 p.m. on Wednesday, February 22, that it was not a meeting to be attended by invitation, but rather a public hearing. The point, folks, is that common courtesy would assume that you would notify local governments of your activities, findings and hearings, especially when some of the noted deficiencies in your report are matters of their responsibility. Most certainly, 106 Xenia Township, Xenia City, Greene County, Wilberforce and and Central State Universities and the Wilberforce Community Property Owners and Voters Association (WCPOVA) should have received copies of your release and report directly. In factmost people received a copy on the night of the hearing at the hearing. That's soliciting considered response? When Onio Local Governments have public hearings we are required to publish notices in newspapers of general circulation in the appropriate area. Had we announced a hearing as you did, we'd be subject to legal action. Therefore, the method of notification of both local interested citizens and local government officials left much to be desired. To be forced to respond off the cuff with little or no preparation is to give a less than thoughtful presentation. The fact that all of the presentations were insightful, factual and informed points as much to the report's deficiencies as to the knowledge and abilities of the speakers. II. Validity of the Study I can in no wise find that the Department of the Interior has complied with the charge in P.L. 94-518. As stated on Pg. 1 of the Progress Report, P.L. 94-518 was signed into law on October 18, 1976, directing the Secretary of the Interior "to study the feasibility and suitability of a National Museum of Afro-American History and Culture at or near Wilberforce, Ohio." The key words are "study", "feasibility", and "suitability". Quite probably it is unfair of me or anyone else to heap all of the blame for a faulty or apparently so, from the progress report study on the National Park Service. By your own admission, "National Park Service criteria does not apply exclusively to establishing a National Museum.' Based on your appendixed application of NPS criteria, I would submit that they don't apply at all. You further state that "The team found that no criteria or guidelines for creating National Museums have ever been estáblished." Consequently, according to the study, you turned to testimony at the congressional hearings and extracted certain considerations or guidelines. 107 I assume your final report will contain more than three considerations, because the three listed on Page 4 of the Progress Report are of questionable applicability by 2/3. Consider: "a. The significance of Wilberforce to Afro-Americans as a center of higher education." The speakers at the February 22 hearing whose ancestry gives Wilberforce special significance to them spoke much more eloquently and succinctly to the point of that significance than I could. So, if that is an appropriate criteria, the documentation should not be or have been a problem. However, a site of special significance to Afro-Americans would seem to be secondary, if even applicable, to considerations of feasibility and suitability. Maybe its fair to state my concept of feasibility and suitability at this point. Suitability, it would seem, goes primarily to determining how available the site is to the Nation's population. As this site lies in a triangle formed by Interstate highways 70, 71, and 75; as the population within 90 minutes is approximately 4 million; as some 100 - 150 million people, or 60% of the population of the United States and probably a higher percentage of the 48 contiguous states, live within 600 miles; the site is certainly available to the population of the Nation. It is more available to more people than any other location in the country. (See attachment A). Add, then, the presence of the three universities, two colleges, and Payne Seminary immediately within Greene County; Wittenberg, Dayton, Wilmington, and Sinclair within 30 minutes or less; and you have the educational support a museum, as proposed would need. Go.90 minutes from here and you have several more major universities. Top this off with the facts that two of the Greene County universities are Black, that Payne Seminary is Black, and that Wilberforce is of special significance, for more reasons than just its educational history, to Black Americans the suitability question is answered, all that's needed are the facts and figures. - Feasibility goes to physical needs and restraints and the 108 |