Highlights
During his 25 years at Drayton Hall as its Executive Director, George W. McDaniel, Ph.D, learned first-hand about the range of issues that nonprofits and other organizations deal with – leadership, strategic planning, operations, education, interpretation, and much more. Today, he continues to use that knowledge and experience to help organizations build bridges within themselves and to the larger community. Clients may also draw upon his expertise in historic preservation, environmental conservation, and community engagement, for he was the first person in South Carolina to win leadership awards from the state in historic preservation and environmental conservation.
A New and Different Kind of Historical Preservation: Preserving Tangible Expressions of Public Sympathy
By George W. McDaniel
From the Drayton Hall Preservation Trust Blog – Posted August 2015
I’ve been deeply grateful to work with Liz Alston, the Rev. Goff, members of Emanuel AME, and staff from other museums and preservation organizations in Charleston. Even national support has been provided by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture thanks to Lonnie Bunch, inaugural director, and Dr. Rex M. Ellis, Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs, and a friend of mine. The organization CALM is especially to be thanked for its remarkable dedication to preserving the public response of sympathy, hope, and support to this landmark moment in the history of Charleston and our nation. Read more here…
Dark Tourism: A Comparative Perspective
By Ruth Ellen Gruber, the Norman and Gerry Sue Arnold Distinguished Visiting Chair at the College of Charleston
From the Drayton Hall Preservation Trust Blog – Posted April 2015
“…In post-Holocaust Europe you could often find the grooves or scars where mezuzahs had been removed or painted over during or after the Shoah—thus forming symbolic mezuzahs that indicated a house where Jews once lived… From the Jewish perspective, visiting Jewish historical sites in post-Holocaust, post-Communist Europe can be a very positive experience, emphasizing Jewish life, history and culture; but the experience also falls under what is now known as Dark Tourism—tourism to sites of what we can call “negative” history, “negative” experience: death, destruction, war… I found particularly compelling a part of a film about Drayton Hall’s African American descendants that parallels the post-Holocaust Jewish experience in Europe. People were filmed sitting in the African American cemetery… speaking about how many of the deceased buried there had no markers for their graves, no one to talk about their history.” Read more here…
Reflections: Looking Back and Looking Forward at Drayton Hall with George McDaniel
Posted July 2015
“It is even more important now to use historic sites to build cross-racial bridges,” according to McDaniel. He goes on to note that African American history is integral to American history, and people who claim otherwise are historically illiterate. “There is no ‘their’ or ‘my’ history, only ‘our’ history,” he says. Read more here…
The Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series
From the Drayton Hall Preservation Trust Blog – Posted February 2015
“Too often history seems to be taught as something far away, but with historic sites, history is up close and personal, its presence can be felt. At historic sites, we can also try to make history real to people, to make them care, so they feel more connected to themselves and to the wider humanity we share with one another.” – George W. McDaniel, the Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series, Rutgers University-Newark. Read more here…
The Drayton Hall Distinguished Speaker Series, The Friends of Drayton Hall Event:
Memories & Meaning
From the Drayton Hall Preservation Trust Blog – Posted February 2015
“These oral histories further advance our understanding of the history of Drayton Hall by combining myriad vantage points in one place. The point is that we preserve historic buildings and places, to be sure, but the power of those places is enriched all the more by the stories and memories, good and bad. At the same time, those stories and memories are given a reality by the preservation of place that they might not have in the abstract. History happened there.” – George W. McDaniel, Drayton Hall Distinguished Speakers Series, February 2015, Charleston, SC Read more here…
National Trust for Historic Preservation Conference
The Drayton Hall Descendants: Preserving Our History, Telling Our Story
From the Drayton Hall Preservation Trust Blog – Posted November 2014
How do you research, document, and interpret the history of a community that has seemingly vanished from the landscape? A session at the National Preservation Conference in Savannah gave some answers. Organized by George W. McDaniel, executive director of Drayton Hall, the session featured Toni Carrier, founding director of Lowcountry Africana and former Wood Family Fellow, as well as five descendants of Drayton Hall: Catherine Brown Braxton, Rebecca Brown Campbell, Annie Brown Meyers, Charles Drayton, and Shelby Nelson. “Our purpose was to show how historic sites could recapture seemingly lost history and connect it to people today,” said McDaniel. Read more here...
From L-R: George W. McDaniel, former executive director of Drayton Hall, Shelby Nelson, Catherine Brown Braxton, Rebecca Brown Campbell, Annie Brown Meyers, Charles Drayton, and Toni Carrier, founding director of Lowcountry Africana.
Oral History Helps Recover Past at Drayton Hall
Post & Courier, April 20, 2014
“This is a place where their ancestors walked. You’re not just in a museum looking at artifacts in a case.” – George McDaniel, former executive director of Drayton Hall.
Through a Different Lens:
Paradox and the Interpretation of Slavery at Southern Historical Plantation Sites
by George W. McDaniel
From the Drayton Hall Preservation Trust Blog – Posted August 2013
“Historical Southern plantations were at once places of beauty and places of tragedy, places of opportunity and places of oppression; places of freedom and of slavery; they were at once a home and a prison. How to find a path through these seemingly opposing points of view? One solution is to embrace them both and to acknowledge they are both true at the same time, which is the very nature of a paradox: a seeming contradiction that is nonetheless true. It is hoped that by interpreting history as more complex than what visitors may immediately perceive it to be, we can engage them in conversations with us, and among themselves, and thereby enhance and energize their understanding and enjoyment of history. And isn’t that the purpose of a historic site: To get people to understand, enjoy, and talk about history?” – George W. McDaniel, SHEAR Conference, St. Louis, MO, 2013 Read more here.
McDaniel is also the Executive Director Emeritus of Drayton Hall, a historic site in Charleston, SC, owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He retired from Drayton Hall in 2015 after 25 years of distinguished service.
George W. McDaniel, Ph.D., is President of McDaniel Consulting, LLC, a strategy firm that helps organizations use history to build bridges within itself and to its broader constituents. The company’s tag line, “Building Bridges through History,” is grounded in McDaniel’s personal beliefs and his experience in site management, preservation, education, board development, fundraising, and community outreach. Rather than using history to divide us, he strives to help organizations use history, especially local history, to enhance cross-cultural understanding and to support local museums, preservation, and education. Dr. McDaniel recently led volunteer efforts with Emanuel AME Church and historical organizations in Charleston to use historic preservation to enhance racial reconciliation and healing.
Header Image by Fred Stucker, courtesy of “Curating Black America: the 35th annual Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series”, Rutgers University-Newark.
McDaniel Consulting LLC is a strategy firm that helps organizations use history to build bridges within itself and its broader constituents. 