Reclaiming History

This is a blogpost about nine African-American East Chattanooga youth who braved the unknown, entered the woods, and began reclaiming Glass Street’s historic Civil War land from decades of neglect. The youth were working in preparation for a new Sierra Club funded pedestrian walking trail that will connect Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park’s Pennsylvania Reservation on Glass Street to the park’s 50-acre Sherman Reservation overlooking Glass Street at the northernmost tip of Missionary Ridge.

On a Saturday morning, these citizens, armed with latex gloves and trash bags, strapped on safety vests and entered sacred grounds that haven’t seen visitors in decades.  Just off the proposed Sierra Club trail, which follows the same route Union soldiers took in their advances on the ridge, there is layer upon layer upon layer of trash accumulated from drivers dumping litter from their cars. These youth hacked through Chinese privet, stomped on thorns, and dug through leaves eventually filling 22 bags of trash in just under two hours.  At the end of their time, the youth discovered a swinging vine that swung from the guard rail on Campbell Street out over the hill they had been working on.  The boys took the opportunity to compete with one another and see you could swing the furthest and highest.  In this act they began to redefine this place.  Making it their place, claiming it as their history.  The land itself holds the promise of racial progress and in their quest for equality and opportunity, these youth are changing Glass Street’s story to one of rebirth.  May we all do what we can to help them in this endeavor.