Support for this program is provided by the Weldon F Osborne Foundation.

The Schillhahn-Huskey Foundation.

And viewers like you.

Thank you.

On today's show will feature two nonprofit museums dedicated to preserving our shared history.

One honors the courage and sacrifice made by recipients of the National Medal of Honor.

The other preserves and celebrates African American history and culture in Chattanooga.

We are stronger together, Chattanooga.

So stay tuned.

Welcome to Chattanooga.

Stronger together.

I'm Barbara Marter.

Joining us is Maranda Wilkinson, director of education and public programing with the Coolidge National Medal of Honor Heritage center.

Chattanooga is the birthplace of the National Medal of Honor, and this organization provides an immersive experience for visitors and educational opportunities.

Welcome, Maranda.

Thanks for having.

Me.

Yeah.

Thank you for coming in today.

people think of the Medal of Honor as a Civil War history.

Tell us what it really is all about.

You know, our center is far more than just focused on war.

We look at ordinary individuals who were placed in extraordinary circumstances and took one more step forward and one more step forward for those to, to help those around them.

And so we tell those stories.

War is the context, right from civil war to present.

but we look at these individuals and their inspiring stories and, you know, that's that's our why at the Heritage Center.

That's that's how we were founded, what we were looking at.

We want to inspire future generations to be the very best versions of themselves.

so our organization actually started back in 1987.

So it's, it's a little bit older than what many people actually recognize and realize that it was.

Only about 5 or 6 years old.

I know.

Right.

well, and our current location where we are, we've only been there and, in the Aquarium Plaza since 2020. but our organization started back in in 1987, and Chattanooga was selected because, the very first Medal of Honor recipients, the roughly the very first 30 plus, were awarded for their actions within a 25 mile radius of downtown Chattanooga.

So in and around Chattanooga, most people don't recognize or know this bit of information.

and so all those were taking place during the Civil War.

and so Chattanooga is the birthplace of the Medal of Honor.

And so we get to tell a lot of those stories.

but we didn't start in as far as our location where we are today.

We actually started off, in a really small space.

We were actually out at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Auditorium, I think we had a really small exhibit there for the first two years of our organization.

and then we had rented out some space with the city of Chattanooga for about 12 ish years.

from there, we then moved into, a stall at the Northgate Mall.

That was kind of our oh.

My gosh.

Our longest, living.

Evolution of Medal of Honor.

Come a long way.

that was kind of our longest home there for a while, I think about 16 years or so.

and then some, some key individuals in the community, General Bell, General Raynes, Mr. Mark Caldwell and a host of others got together and said, we we really need to make this even more special than what it already is, and we need to get these stories out.

so a lot of labor, a lot of love went through all this.

And, we are now in a facility roughly 19,000 square feet right beside the aquarium.

right downtown where I, you know, I it's kind of a I don't know if this is our our forever home because we are fully expanding each year.

we're actually putting in some new exhibits this, this year and this coming year.

and so, you know, we're really excited about where we, where we've been and where we are, the journey.

So we're, we're going we have so many, interesting, fun projects, in the works.

And so we're just really excited about it.

Yeah.

Let's talk about some of those exhibits that you have.

Yeah, absolutely.

So when, when, guests enter our facility, they first start off in the Above and Beyond gallery.

It kind of goes through some of the very first service metals that were awarded from the Revolutionary War time.

And then it leads into those medals of the very first medals, the Medal of Honor.

And so we tell that story of Andrews Raiders, these were a group of union.

So our Union soldiers and a couple of civilians that went down to Marietta, Georgia, hopped on a train.

And then once it stopped at Big Chanty, which is now known as Kennesaw, Georgia, they, they stole it.

And so their mission during this Civil war was to kind of bring this war, hopefully to a close, quicker.

they were going to tear up railway lines, burn bridges, cut telecommunication lines.

their mission failed, but it made for a fantastic story.

but this was the Western Atlantic Railway line.

We know Chattanooga's a big hub for for transportation, especially during the Civil War.

Lots of railway lines going through.

and so they were hoping to kind of bring this to a close, cut off some of those Confederate supply lines.

Again, the mission failed.

but it made for a great story.

and those several of those from the, from that mission have now received the Medal of Honor.

Several are buried in our cemetery right here in Chattanooga.

And so it makes for just a great story.

So we start off with that story, those very first Medal of Honor recipients in the Civil War.

we have very immersive exhibits through our gallery.

So once they move from the above and beyond, they look at the Andrews Raiders story.

But we also hit some other, from Civil War.

So John Keegan's, William Carson, who were at it, Lookout and Chickamauga.

And then we have Doctor Mary Edwards Walker, who is the only female Medal of Honor recipient.

she was definitely a standout in her time.

but then it weaves through, and it makes its way through the Middle War, Spanish-American War, world War one.

We have a trench set up there so that students can get in, and visitors can get in and look through periscopes and things like that.

and then it opens up into our the bigger section of our gallery.

We have Paul Huff hanging from the ceiling.

he was and then we have Desmond Doss, who was represented there.

If you've seen the movie Hacksaw Ridge.

Yes.

I cried through that thing.

Oh, what a great.

Yes.

Just a great movie.

His story is just incredible.

You know, a Seventh Day Adventist, was a conscientious objector, and wanted to really focus on helping people.

and so his story is incredible.

We do get to tell that story there.

We have a Hacksaw Ridge represented.

He's lowering a man down from the ridge.

That I know.

It's very.

Impressive.

So it is our current executive director who is, David Curry.

He actually is the one who designed the full facility.

And so it's really cool to have him there to be able to, you know, share you.

We've got the designer right here on staff.

And we were able to tell those stories too, but it weaves around into a wooded theater that tells Mr. Charles H. Coolidge's story from World War Two, who are building is named after and a Chattanooga medal of honor recipient.

so it's a really neat space for not just students, but for all visitors to kind of get in this wooded theater and to see the story reenacted on the screens.

and then it weaves around through Korea and then into Vietnam and then opens up into our temporary gallery space where we currently are exhibiting, Larry Taylor's, Medal of Honor and his story out there.

and again, we're not the war is the context.

Right.

But these individuals are just ordinary people who went above and beyond, took one more step, did one more thing.

And in his case, you know, he's kind of disobeying orders.

I think one of his, phrases when he got back, because he was he was going to be court martialed at one point, and he said, well, what do you want me to do, take him back?

very, very Tennessean thing to say.

Yeah, I love it.

I love that, too.

So, but we're just really excited to be able to tell these stories in a visual way, to get, you know, visitors excited about what, you know, again, ordinary people, but we can all represent those values in our own communities.

And so your character values are patriots, patriotism, citizenship, courage, integrity, sacrifice and commitment.

And you carry that into your education program.

We do.

Let's talk about the education.

I love talking about these character values.

You after the.

director.

Of education.

Okay.

I love talking about these.

so when we have our regular field trips and I say regular because we have two other kind of specialty field trips that I'll talk about here in just a second.

but when we talk about when we have students coming through in our regular field trips, we really do highlight those character values.

But we also we clearly weave in the history of it.

As a former South social studies educator, seventh grade social studies, I know how important it is for teachers.

you know, when you're visiting a place, you want to make sure that you're you're hitting standards, right?

You want to make sure that you're covering and enriching what they are covering in the classroom.

and so we do touch on a lot of that history that, that, that is, that is being covered in state standards.

but again, we do even those character values.

One of my favorite activities I have our students do is, you know, we we send them on a scavenger hunt around our gallery, but then I pull them back, I pull them back in at times, and we may focus on one specific exhibit, or I pull them into the main gallery where we have them really think I let them go back and pick their favorite exhibit that they didn't get to spend a lot of time at, and they have to actually sit.

I tell them to grab a piece of carpet, sit, and to actually be in the moment.

Think about what those Medal of Honor recipients might have seen, what they would have, might have heard, what they might have felt, both physically and emotionally.

and students come back with some really fantastic answers, and they've really thought it through.

but one of those values that really is woven through all of it is, you know, the kids always tell me we think they felt fear probably at some point in time.

And that's it's one of those moments where we really get to talk about, you know, having courage, you know, even adults, people, we all experience fear, right?

But it's the ones that are set apart of the ones that take one more step forward.

Those people who are exhibiting courage, they're probably scared to, but they've got it in them to take one more step forward.

And I want to communicate that to students.

You know, you can do this too, just like they were.

They were placed in these very sticky situations.

But you can do that too, in the hallways of your school, in your classroom.

So we're taking in now from the students to the teachers resource.

And what does that look like?

So that looks like I absolutely love what we have going.

Thank goodness for some individuals in our community that are very passionate about what we are, you know, communicating through our programs.

we got a call a year or so ago from a, from a local community member, Mister Harry Fields, who wanted to know how he could support us.

And thanks to him in General Bell we now have our teacher fellowship program, we expose them to the history, they've crafted some lessons, but we've kind of morphed it out this year towards a year long program.

We do some book studies and then we we really focus on the history and then building out some, some engaging lessons.

You know, not every teacher, not every student can make it to our facility, whether it's a funding issue or whether it's a time issue, bussing issues, so we at least want them to have in their hands some of that material that they can cover in their classrooms, where it's aligned with state standards, but also weaves in those character values.

And these Medal of Honor recipients who don't get a lot of light in, in state standards.

Yeah, I think that's it.

So we have probably about 45 seconds left.

What is the one thing that you would like our viewers to really know about?

The center?

I really want them to understand our why.

Our why is to inspire all generations to be the best versions of themselves.

You know, not everyone will serve on a better battlefield, but everyone has his or her own, her own personal battlefield.

He or she deals with every single day.

And these stories, they they transcend time and place.

And when we all recognize that these people were put into tough situations and took one more step forward, it's a little bit of encouragement like, oh, I can do that too.

Maybe I can take one more step forward than what I would than what I thought I could.

Yeah.

Maranda, thank you so much for coming in today.

This has been really interesting for me, and I really appreciate the time and effort you put into it.

And I understand more about the center now, so.

Well, thanks for having me.

Yeah.

Thank you.

We'll be right back with Elijah Cameron, director of community relations and development with the Bessie Smith Cultural Center.

Stay with us.

We want to know how you serve your community.

Send us photos or videos of you or your family volunteering, and we may feature it on a future episode.

Email stronger@wtcitv.org or use the hashtag STRONGERWTCI on social media.

Welcome back.

We're happy to have with us Elijah Cameron, director of community relations and development with Bessie Smith Cultural Center.

Their mission is to preserve and celebrate African American history and culture in Chattanooga.

Welcome, Elijah.

I'm so glad to have you with us today.

Thank you.

I'm glad to be here.

Yes.

So tell me the history of the Bessie.

Well, actually, the Bessie before was the Bessie.

It was actually the Chattanooga Heritage Center.

Started in a one room down in the old boys club on East Ninth Street.

Oh, wow.

this history, this museum was founded, but ten empowering visionaries who thought it was very important that we captured, preserved, and then presented that history of those African Americans who contributed to the growth, of Chattanooga.

And, that that in itself was very important and is still prevalent today, because the history of those African Americans is also the history of Chattanooga.

Yes.

Yeah.

So we we're we're happy to be here today, happy to be able to talk a little bit about, this history.

when you come to the museum, the Bessie is recorded today.

you'll find that the museum is, actually two sections.

We, we we were able to, during the pandemic to, start renovating the museum.

Okay.

So we started in in 20 early 2023 to thinking about how we were gonna, look at the museum and how we were going to restructure the museum.

And so in 2021, we came up with a plan, and we tore out walls, 12 floors, and everything changed all of the exhibits out, put in interactive kiosks.

And we call this a walk through time.

This particular area of the museum talks about, the Civil War in those interactive kiosks that we have talk about the industrialization, Jim Crow and things of that nature.

Some of the exhibits that you would find in that area would be, the exhibits on people like, Randolph Miller.

Randolph Miller, by trade, was a newspaper man.

But in 1902, for his bar cut here in Chattanooga, a bus system or the trolleys came about.

Yes.

It was, it was the piece that Randolph Miller, started.

those African-Americans or the blacks here in Chattanooga is we're, we're related to trying to get to their jobs or whatever the case may have been.

through those horse-drawn trolleys.

Well, a lot of those trolleys did not go down in the areas that, as black communities are.

Randolph Miller started, picking blacks up in his horse and buggy and transporting them to their jobs and things of that nature, and that actually, brought about, some other changes that happened down through the years, of course, over a period of time.

those that horse and buggy transformed into, transportation modes of transportation.

And, they became something of gypsies, and they called them jitney cabs.

And eventually those cabs did become regulated.

And some of those cabs you see, are now cab companies, that highlighted up and down the streets of Chattanooga, the Millennium camps and the United cab companies and things of that nature came out of that particular period of time.

But you also have people in that in that era, a former slave by the name of William Lewis, who I like to refer to as the black first black realtor here in Chattanooga.

William Lewis was a slave up in Winchester, Tennessee, who actually went to his master, asked, his master if I can lease myself out.

Meaning he wanted to leave the plantation and, go work for himself?

Well, his master finally allowed him to do that.

but he had to pay his master $350 a year.

Like you said, that's a lot of money.

How did the slave get that kind of money?

Well, he and he had somewhat of a good master evidently, because his master allowed him to keep some of the money that he was making as a blacksmith on, on the plantation, open Winchester, Tennessee.

And eventually he had enough money to move to Chattanooga, set up shop down on seventh and Market Street.

And he became a very wealthy man.

He eventually brought all his family out of slavery, bought a big house here in Chattanooga, moved them in, and he was one of the people that actually started after the Civil War, building houses, on Ninth Street.

Ninth Street was an undesirable area.

and blacks started to move in to that area.

and eventually, well, we know this, Martin Luther King today, was named Street in and ninth Street was actually the epicenter of all black businesses, from the West side, all the way down to Central Avenue.

of course, urban renewal came along in the late 50s, early 60s, and and it destroyed a whole community.

So when you come to the museum, you will find those kind of, that kind of information in, kiosks, different artifacts that will land on the wall about slavery and things of that nature.

you would also come to the museum and find out, about the cities here in Chattanooga.

Chattanooga was, one of the cities that did not have a black university at the time.

So, high school students from Howard High.

Yeah.

February 1960.

Took it upon themselves to go downtown, and started, a sit in, at the Woolworth's, five and dime.

Yeah.

Yeah.

and whites came from Kirkman High School down.

And and I think the mayor thought that was going to be some issues.

And, they turned out the fire department with the fire hoses, to disperse the crowd.

Right.

Chattanooga.

First place.

They used fire hoses to disperse crowds.

So you are a true historian.

You go way, way back and everything.

I do want to continue on with the this the separate, the other which I think is called the soundtrack.

Black soundtrack.

Yeah.

So what is that all about?

Well, that sound, that deputies particular piece came on board in 2022.

We had a space in the museum that we used to rent out called the atrium.

the Velma feel atrium.

we used to rent that space out.

What we did, we turned it into part of the museum.

And it highlights those entertainers who have come out of Chattanooga.

People like Usher, Samuel Jackson, Roland Carter.

Yeah.

but Roland Hayes, Roland Hayes was one of the greatest tenors in the world at the time.

he came out of Chattanooga.

well, he was raised here in Chattanooga.

Born, I think, in Rome, Georgia, but raised here in Chattanooga.

And, also we had, people like, now Montego, Glover, Kane Brown.

We had like, those people in those areas, in that particular area of the museum.

So if you come to the museum, you're going to walk through time on one side, come to the other side to hear a And black soundtracks of Chattanooga will have interactive kiosks, as also where you can put headphones on and listen to a little their music.

sort of like soundtracks or Chattanooga's, is highlighting those entertainers.

And I also there's another section of the museum that we don't talk a lot about, but that's the African section, where we have artifacts from Africa, the headdresses and things of that nature.

Yes.

That headdress.

Yes.

We got one in there that's, that's looking forward and one and it's looking backwards or two headed.

And we look at that, that that particular piece.

This is an African artifact that talks about, the past in the future.

And here is looking backwards.

It's ensuring that we understand where we came from, what our past was like, so we can look forward to our future.

And that's that.

There's a two headed statue looking forward and backwards.

And that is one of the big things of the museum in the African section.

another part of the museum that we like to talk about are the, the tools that we do.

a lot of times if you get a tour guide, you get me, and, and.

They get the best then.

That I, you know, I do the best I can with what we have to offer, but I also can bring in other historians from, Chattanooga that will come in and talk about, different, aspects of the community.

as far as the, the museum is concerned.

So, we'll stay on that, that, that topic about the education.

So we have the tours for the schools, but you also have resources for the teachers and a resource library.

We do, and teachers come in to, get resources, information about different or different different things in a museum.

we have teachers that will come in and, and, look at the stuff that we have.

Then they'll bring their class and they may do a scavenger hunt or something of that nature, you know, and the kids get excited about the scavenger hunt, trying to identify and find things in the museum that the teachers have identified as important to their studies at that particular point in time.

One of the big things we like to highlight in our museum is the fact that we have a performance hall, and that performance hall, is on a lower level, of the museum.

I think you may have been there a couple of times.

And, the museum, we've added some things to the performance hall.

We now have, big monitors in the in the performance hall where you can see what's happening.

which we then, put the information up on the screens and things of that nature.

So, our performance hall is really, a big piece of the museum.

And then our line, we highlight our lawn because we do festivals and things out on our lawn.

Yep.

and and we have people, other people using our lawn for different events.

So the museum in itself is a treasure, right here in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Elijah, tell me about the Bessie's front porch.

A bit of a front porch came about during the pandemic.

we we felt that it was important that kids continue to learn, during the pandemic.

So what we did, we develop a, front porch there in the museum, had people from the community come in and read children's books to the children, and we filmed it, and then we put it on our YouTube.

station and on our Facebook page, and also so the kids could go out and read it in into our listen to it at any time.

we had people like Judge Carr, you and other people from the city come in, and read.

And we also, partner now with the Chattanooga Football Club to continue this particular piece.

We're in it.

They will come in and read in different languages and highlight the different languages, because we know that Chattanooga is evolving into a multicultural city and we have, different people here, different ignited cities here.

And, and we want to make sure that all the kids get to, get to enjoy what we have to help.

I think that's wonderful that you're continuing that on.

And the children get if they can't come to the museum, at least they can go on YouTube.

They can.

They can hear.

And you're partnering with another nonprofit out there?

Yeah, exactly.

And that's what's so important about what we do.

We try to partner with other nonprofits.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

So Elijah, thank you so much.

Really appreciate you coming in today.

We'll certainly we hope Chattanooga Stronger Together provides a new perspective for viewers like you who are looking to make a difference in our community.

So let us know what you think.

Email us at stronger@wtcitv.org or use the hashtag strongerwtci on social media.

I'm Barbara Marter and we'll see you next time.

Support for this program is provided by the Weldon F Osborne Foundation.

The Schillhahn-Huskey Foundation.

And viewers like you.

Thank you.