Thanks to the efforts of Angela da Silva of the National Black Tourism Network, Missouri will have no choice but to face the horrors of slavery as it commemorates the sesquicentennial of the Civil War in 2011.
“We’re having a slave sale on the courthouse steps,” da Silva told The St. Louis American this morning while driving to Jefferson City. At 10 a.m. Saturday, January 15, the National Black Tourism Network, National Parks Service and other community partners will stage a period reenactment of a slave auction on the west Broadway steps of the Old Courthouse in downtown St. Louis.
“This will be the very first event of the sesquicentennial,” da Silva said, referring to public events being planned by the community partners.
“We will show the progression of freedom over the next four years.”
Da Silva herself will portray one of the seven slaves sold on auction at the reenactment on January 15. The other reeneactors playing slaves are veterans of the Mary Meacham Freedom Crossing event the National Black Tourism Network stages (with community partners) every May along the Mississippi River.
Some 40 reenactors, primarily whites, will travel to St. Louis from throughout the state on January 15 to stage the slave sale.
The white characters will include “a real, tobacco style-auctioneer,” played by Bob Andel, coming from Springfield, Mo. Other white reenactors will portray slave buyers as well as abolitionists who crusaded to end slavery.
The facts of slave auctions will not be sugar-coated.
“We will have orphan children being sold, and husbands separated from wives,” da Silva said.
“We want people to understand the travails black people endured for over 250 years. This was a commercial venture. There was no humanity in it.”
Da Silva and her fellow producers and reenactors are prepared to upset people of all kinds.
“The reenactors are coming, some from great distances, because they believe that we should have this actual portrayal,” she said. “We want the realism.”
Da Silva said they want the realism going into a year when the Civil War will be commemorated. She and her many partners do not want the facts of slavery to be de-emphasized in the public recognition of the Civil War anniversary.
“The concept of the South has been so romanticized over the past 100 years that slavery has been kicked to the curb,” she said.
“Many excuses have been used to explain the Civil War, but the bottom line is it was about slavery. That is why we fought. So we have to put black people at the heart of it.”
Da Silva was on her way to the state capital this morning to announce this potentially charged event and to give the Missouri Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission a sample presenation.
As part of her presentation to the commission today, da Silva will portray Lila, the slave cook she will portray on the Old Courthouse steps on January.
Da Silva said, “My slave character is named Lila. Of course, she doesn’t have a last name.”
For more information about the event, call the National Black Tourism Network at 314-865-0708.