Natchez National Historical Park

Hiram Rhodes Revels

Old Brick Bridge

Although the abolition of slavery emerged as a dominant objective of the Union war effort, most Northerners embraced abolition as a practical measure rather than a moral cause. The war resolved legally and constitutionally the single most important moral question that afflicted the nascent republic, an issue that prevented the country from coalescing around a shared vision of freedom, equality, morality, and nationhood.

Kathleen Bond's career with the NPS developed in her home state of Mississippi, where she advanced from museum technician to park superintendent at Natchez National Historical Park. As a historian, Bond was trained to asked questions and consider multiple perspectives, and she turned to research and scholarship to guide decisions about interpretation and resource management. In an oral history interview, she describes her role in sharing the complicated history of Natchez.

Natchez NHP, HFC, and The Design Minds Conduct Successful Virtual LRIP Recommendations Workshop. Active participant engagement and dynamic conversations that define future visitor experiences are hallmarks of on-site, in-person interpretive planning workshops. Based on the collaborative efforts of Natchez National Historical Park (NATC), Harpers Ferry Center (HFC), and The Design Minds, these measures of success now also apply to virtual interpretive planning workshops.

The Natchez History Minutes series bring together park historians, students, elected officials and other community members to share stories of how people from all walks of life shape a city.

This press kit compiles relevant resources, links, and information for reporters to use in their reporting within the Natchez Trace Parkway. Specifically focusing on safe driving within the Parkway.

Begun as a purely military effort with the limited political objectives of reunification (North) or independence (South), the Civil War transformed into a social, economic and political revolution with unforeseen consequences. As the war progressed, the Union war effort steadily transformed from a limited to a hard war; it targeted not just Southern armies, but the heart of the Confederacy's economy, morale, and social order-the institution of slavery.

America's cultural memories of the Civil War are inseparably intertwined with that most "peculiar institution" of American history - racial slavery. But in the struggle over Civil War memory which began as soon as the war was over and continues to this day, rival cultural memories of reconciliation and white supremacy have often prevailed. Therein lies the challenge as the National Park Service - a public agency - seeks to "provide understanding" of the Civil War era's lasting impact upon the development of our nation.