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Charlotte Amalie
Friday, March 29, 2024
HomeNewsArchivesNational Park Lecture Focuses on Christiansted Site’s History and Future

National Park Lecture Focuses on Christiansted Site’s History and Future

David Goldstein, the National Park Service’s chief of interpretation and education for the three park units on St. Croix, delivered a powerful presentation Thursday as the NPS celebrated its monthly lecture series in keeping in the spirit of Virgin Islands history month.

Goldstein’s enthusiasm for the subject matter pervaded throughout his lecture, titled “Revisiting Christiansted: Development and Future Prospect.”

The Danish Guinea West India Company Warehouse/ Slave Market Building, officially acquired by NPS on Sept. 11, 2001, couldn’t have been a more appropriate venue for such a historically themed discussion.

“The NPS’s presence here is another kind of colonial presence and we are very conscious of that in this day and age in the NPS,” Goldstein said. “We are aware of the fact that we are here as custodians for buildings here in the Virgin Islands, and that is a very different trajectory and shift politically for the Park Service to be able to see that and say that in the 21st century.”

The first part of the discussion honed in on Christiansted’s buildings at the national historical site and how they became incorporated into the site, which actually happened “piecemeal” since the park was incorporated in 1952, Goldstein said.

“It’s the buildings. You got to worry about the buildings,” Goldstein recalled in telling the tale of how the NPS took orders from its boss, the Secretary’s Office of the Interior Department. “You can’t do anything but worry about the buildings.”

Goldstein then told the audience the problem with that approach and how he thought it was flawed from the start.

“If you want to worry about people, and cultural use and how people do things historically, then you have to do that with people in mind, but this wasn’t set up that way. This is a lease of buildings. It’s all about buildings,” he said.

He then discussed how he’s helping lead an effort to change that way of thinking as it pertains to those buildings today.

“We are rewriting how we will use these buildings to tell the history not just of St. Croix and the Virgin Islands and Christiansted, but of the entire Atlantic world,” he said. “It’s obvious that we have the transatlantic slave trade coming right through the front door here. They are in this building. You are in that space.”

For history buffs, Goldstein even had some “Did you know?” type knowledge about the bandstand, which was built by the Navy Band Corps of the Virgin Islands just a few years after the territory’s transfer from Denmark to the United States.

“Those guys were the only African Americans allowed to be in the Navy at the time,” Goldstein said. “It’s highlighted in the documents incorporating this park that this is a really important piece of American history and civil rights history.”

He continued, “As we come around the corner of the 100th anniversary of World War I, this bandstand is a very important symbol of African Americans not being allowed to participate in the war, and it was just a little bit after becoming Americans in the first place.”

Goldstein said the bandstand “creates a very interesting context for thinking about the history of diversity in the United States.”

When Goldstein wrapped things up and talked of some ongoing and upcoming projects, he spoke of a lot of work still needing to be done. But he added that since his arrival in 2011, there has been much collaboration with consultants from the community, college students nationwide and high school students from as far away as Denmark to get started on that work.

“We want to make this place as accessible to the community as possible,” he said. “We are taking control of our own products in this park.”

As the topic shifted to the coming 2017 Transfer Day celebrations, Goldstein repeated what he’s been told by his colleague George Tyson.

“It is not about Transfer Day. It’s about the 21st century. It’s about what’s happened in the last 100 years and where we want to live in the next 100 years. That’s what we have to think about,” he said.

He added it was up to the community to start enlisting their ideas as to what they’d like the event to look like, and he urged people to get involved.

“I’ve been asking people for 12 months what the event is going to look like and I still don’t have an answer,” Goldstein said. “What are we going to do and who is in charge?”

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