 We're recording this. So welcome to the first bag lunch of the archaeological research facility on, I guess, a rainy blustery day here, and I first wanted to my name is Christine Hasdorf, and I am the current director of the archaeological research facility. And I just want to say that the next lunchtime talk, which is a week from today at exactly this time will be by a visiting scholar here at UC Berkeley, a postdoctoral researcher from the Universidad de Valencia, Esther Parpal, and she's speaking on revisiting the figures of the Queen's expressions of gender and power in the classic Maya court. So that will be fun next week. And I would like to say that while we have been doing land acknowledgments for quite a while, we're taking a pause right now to kind of work on creating a more action plan, highlighting engagement with Native Americans rather than just reciting what we were given by indigenous local indigenous groups about two years ago. So we're sort of going to revisit it rather than just going on the same. So that will be on our website too when we get that reorganized. But today I'm very happy and pleased to have our very own Bill White who resides in this building as well as many of us and he is an associate professor here in the anthropology department at UC Berkeley and has been working on a series of projects before he got here and now here. And I believe here we're going to get just one of many projects this time. So it's nice to get a different viewpoint. I mean a different data set from his other examples that he gave us last year. So while he does work in, I would say, African American descent communities in many places. I believe this one is going to be in the continental United States. So that will be exciting because I haven't heard about it before. So without further ado, I'm going to turn the podium and the microphone over to Bill White. So thank you very much, Bill. Okay. Thanks for that introduction. Observation Act was engaging with African diaspora sites in the United States. I guess I'll have two microphones. That's okay. Two hands, two microphones. No lunch, right? Yeah. So, you know, really quickly this talk, I want to make sure that there's enough time for questions at the end because all of us as people who live in the United States pay taxes here, we're paying into the system. So this is the system that we've got. But what's great is that it's flexible and that we can actually make changes. They don't happen easy, but they can be made. So the talk I want to discuss a little bit, a background, try to catch people up on the way the National Historic Preservation Act works as far as historic preservation in the United States. Some of the stuff that my colleagues noticed with the way that the regulations were being executed when it comes to African American sites. Then talk a little bit about the Black Heritage Resources Task Force. It was a committee of individuals who were working across universities and companies and agencies to make some recommendations. And then some bright spots that we saw and some directions that we can take this in the future. Okay, like I mentioned before, working in cultural resource management, the National Historic Preservation Act ends up being kind of the backbone of the different historic preservation structures that we have. And if you look at the original sections, the beginning, the preamble to this, it really has some high-minded goals to create legislation that acknowledges the importance of heritage sites to people who live in the United States. And that it's the federal government's obligation to preserve or to make sure that these things are available for future generations. And this one and then also the National Environmental Policy Act, signed in the late 60s, they really come on the heels of years and years of advocacy for environmental protections, historic preservation. And in the case of the National Historic Preservation Act, it also consolidates many different federal historic preservation acts like the Historic Sites Act, the Antiquities Act, but also sets kind of a standardized guideline for other states to follow, right, and calls for a mandate for them to do this. And so for better or for worse, this one really kind of sets this tone and this role model that, you know, a lot of other countries and a lot of organizations are kind of emulating the system. So it's actually spreading beyond the United States. So I'm not going to go into extreme depths with the National Historic Preservation Act. I want people to stay awake. But a couple of the things it does is it formally sets in federal law the National Register for Historic Places, which is an index of historic sites and historic properties across the United States. And it also has an advisory council that's partially appointed by the president that really adjudicates these things at the federal level, but also shares information and gives guidance to state historic preservation offices, communities, and also, you know, government agencies on how they should handle historic properties. Some of the other stuff it does is it establish the State Historic Preservation Offices. So the law calls for states to conduct statewide surveys of historic properties. That's an ongoing test. Actually, that is delegated by most states to cultural resource management companies and other agency archaeologists in the case of archaeology. But at the state level, the State Historic Preservation Office kind of ends up being the one that agencies are trying to report to. So if you identify an archaeology site, they're the ones who decide, you know, making sure that your recommendation is correct, that you've actually followed all the, you know, protocols that it fits the strictures. But the State Historic Preservation Act also maintains that register for the federal government. So the law says it's the federal government's job, then they delegated it to the states, and then the states delegates it down to, you know, actual archaeologists. In order to do that, the law also sets aside these pretty clear criteria, which, you know, it's as clear as mud, and then a process of what would even cause folks to go look for historic properties. So it asks the federal government to do this. They pass it down to the states, the US territories. But at least there's a system that was standardized across the country at the time when it was enacted. There was local regulations and then certain organizations like the National Park Service, they have their own rules, and it wasn't really, you know, clear. So the other thing that it does is it's kind of become, like I said, the template for other states, counties, cities. So, you know, we could, I teach an entire class on this, we could go for literally 16 weeks when talking about justice law. But the one thing to think about is that this is funded by partially by the Historic Preservation Fund. So that money comes from the federal government through partial oil and gas offshore leases, and it's handed out to states based on population and the states are supposed to match that funding. In order to qualify for that funding, they need to have some kind of a plan on how they're going to handle Historic Preservation in their state. So you'll see later on that these Historic Preservation Plans and this Historic Preservation Fund become really critical because the National Register and that fund is administered by the National Park Service. So moving on, you know, like I said, you know, this, we have, we have really in the United States shoehorned a lot of historic properties under this different rubric that I'm going to explain but to catch people up under the National Historic Preservation Act historic properties are these five kind of things that are, you know, bounded entities that exist in the present world that have material values they can be measured they can be observed in the material world right. So, but what consulting archaeologists are doing is they're looking for things that could potentially be listed in the National Register or are already listed now most of the time states know where the things that are in the National Register already at. It's these sites that have not yet been identified that's what archaeologists are really looking for. So, like I said clear as mud right so folks are probably going to have to pause on the screen for a while. So they're looking for those five kinds of properties objects structures buildings and sites and then districts are composed of more than one of those things in a bounded area that have integrity, there's seven aspects of integrity, and there's also four criteria of significance associated with important events important people have distinctive characteristics or have the potential to yield data. And so what archaeologists and architectural historians and what you know folks who work in this. That do the consulting for the State Historic Preservation Office, this is the equation that they're trying to do. So they're trying to look for these five different kinds of things that are over 50 years that meet these criteria significance, and also have the ability to convey that significance. It seems like it's quite straightforward, but it actually takes years and years of practice of applying these different things, even for you know archaeological sites even for things that you would think are obviously significant to make this argument in such a way that it fulfills the criteria of the National Historic Preservation Act. Folks who do cultural resources architectural historians historians cultural anthropologists that work in this entire field. You know, this is a really, you know complicated rubric because this the law itself is long, and then all the explaining documents from the National Park Service and the advisory council they're also very difficult. Plus, this has to comply with other federal regulations and the mandates of government agencies right. So the, the, this is what folks are paying for when they get cultural resources consulting people who know how to apply these rules have seen these many historic resources and know how to work, at least in the case of this at the federal level to help keep the state and federal agencies in compliance with laws like the Historic Preservation Act. Okay, when it comes to applying this law this this federal law. It's not just randomly applied whenever you know folks get the urge to do it right in the case of government agencies. There's been a clear process described on why they would even initiate it. So first of all the agency has to decide that they're going to be doing a thing that could destroy historic properties. Now in the case of, you know, widening a road, obviously the bulldozer is going to go down the road and it could destroy things. But in the case of other things it's not necessarily so clear like expanding an air force base could increase sound volume that would resonate off traditional cultural properties in places that are far away and change the atmosphere of that thing. There could be, you know, changes in water levels that could affect other places, or could increase water inundation in historic properties that are far away right. So, so the government really has its work cut out for it trying to figure out whether there's an undertaking. But once they decide that they are going to have an undertaking they're supposed to notify the State Historic Preservation Office. In this case there's also tribal Historic Preservation Offices for federally recognized tribes that have them and start right away consulting with folks. The next step that they do is try to figure out whether they have the capacity to look for these historic properties or whether they need to hire a consultant to do it. If you're working in cultural resources this step two and three and four is where you really come in. So step two identifying them that's going out and actually looking below the ground all around, you know with visual analysis sound analysis, trying to decide whether this is going to actually adversely affect things that could be in the National Register, and then assess those effects and report that stuff back to the government agency. Now the government agency once they've decided that there's going to be, you know, impacts, they're supposed to either avoid, minimize the impacts or mitigate those impacts and in the case of archaeology sometimes that means digging a portion of the site that's the mitigation. But there's a wide range of other mitigations that can happen to. It's all supposed to be done in consultation with the State Historic Preservation Office, tribal Historic Preservation Offices, and other parties, traditional communities and other folks who live nearby right. And they're also supposed to involve the public but that doesn't mean that they necessarily have to listen to the public. So what we learn here is that that other parties piece, those other traditional communities a lot of times black communities Hispanic, just folks who live nearby. That's the thing that a lot of times slips through the crack. And there's also, you know, not always the most efficient means of dealing with the State Historic Preservation Office or the tribal Historic Preservation Office. So while all this stuff's going on this is crazy juggling series of events. One of the things that happens is a lot of communities never get to be part of that process. The other thing that it that, you know, we notice and ends up happening is professional archaeologists are supposed to be out there identifying these sites and evaluating their significance using that rubric before of those properties and 50 years and in all these the historic significance criteria. Then they make those recommendations. And then in the case of mitigating if it involves excavating skilled archaeologists are the ones who work, you know with government agencies they do the archaeology right. In most African American sites, there's not a lot of archaeologists who know any black people. They're not trained to identify these black heritage sites. And so those adverse effects that are supposed to be mitigated a lot of times don't get mitigated. So there's not consultation a lot of times. There's not even an identification that this thing could be potentially significant to black communities. Studies are showing in certain states that disproportionately African diaspora sites are getting adversely affected by construction. Sometimes this is just straight up, you know, taking advantage of people who don't have the ability to defend themselves but we're realizing is structurally, there's no real mechanism at the State Historic Preservation Office level to do this kind of reach outreach to African Americans, or other communities that live in there nearby. So that brings me to the work that we did over the last couple of years with the black heritage resources task force. And at the end I will share the links for the reports that we wrote. But there was conversations in about 2018 or 2019 to try and figure out what we could possibly do about this it was associated with passing the African American graves. I'm sorry. Yeah, sorry, I'm blanking out no no not NAGPRA, the African American graves identification act I can't remember it. Yeah, so it passed right but a lot of the small a lot of the sponsors. And actually that's a true miracle because it passed during the Trump administration and has carried on and it was bipartisanly supported by a lot of different people. And so that's it's really interesting to see unfolds but what we realize is it's not just black cemeteries that are getting overlooked. It's a lot of different other sites. So Joe Joseph who works at New South Associates and Maria Franklin really instrumental on getting together a panel of folks who would work together that were part of state historic preservation offices the National Park Service, cultural resources companies professors, African American archaeologists to try to analyze what's going on with the system and is there anything that we could possibly do. So there's you know there's really kind of five things that we spent a couple years working on literature review we look to see what are the studies that states are doing who has published on that people's dissertations, who's reported about how this disproportionately impacts black sites. And then the other thing that we did is we collected all those state historic preservation plans. So every state in US territory every 10 years is supposed to file that plan with the National Park Service to stay in compliance, so that they can access that historic preservation fund states like California it's supposed to be a match so the government gives a certain amount of money based on population for the state and then the state is supposed to match with that or more right in California, they spend more than the federal government's match to handle historic preservation places like Arizona, kind of don't even match it they just only use the federal government money to stay in compliance with the law that they feel is a federal law and so the government should pay for it right so not every state is at the same space but to get the money they do have to have one of these plans, and those are made available we could look through these plans and then we could look through them and see what are they doing for increasing in their offices, addressing African American sites, and then just overall what you know, how are they considering black heritage in their states. The other thing we did is we had, we built surveys and surveyed state historic preservation offices they didn't all respond but the majority of them did respond to the quantitative survey and then we had follow up surveys with many of them and asked the state historic preservation officers. What's going on like how we've noticed these trends, you know what are you how come this is happening is there any way we can help you what are the shortfalls, you know what are some obstacles, how can this be improved in your state. And so after a year and a half or so doing that we spent another months crunching the data to really figure out what our state historic preservation offices doing and then what can we as us citizens really do to to help this process I mean we're paying for it so we might as well try to get it to work for And so, you know I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the findings, we published two white papers and also the survey data is available on TDR so it's, it's out there folks can sign up and look at the just the raw data but also our findings, and then I had you know we made recommendations to the state historic preservation offices, and the major archaeology organizations that were sponsors of this, but we also made them to the National Park Service and we also tried to reach out to some states are doing really well when it comes to black heritage sites to let them know you know hey you all are kind of in the lead here, it'd be great if you could make some best practices for many other states who are not really thinking in this direction right. So, you know our key finding right. Surprise state historic preservation offices are not compelling the archaeologists in their state to really identify black sites. There's a lot of different reasons for that. Some of it is not really the state historic preservation offices written mandate to require them to do that while they do need to require people to go through that algorithm of properties and 50 years and all that. They don't have to get us to care about African American native like they don't have to get anyone to care about anything and so that was the thing that we heard most often. Well, they never told us to do it right so that's not the other thing that we heard is we're underwater with the stuff that we're actually already have, because our state doesn't support it. And that's also a thing and then now I can't say the word race at work, because I'll get fired. So that's another thing right. So there's it's not that they're my my level and individuals who want to cause harm. There's just many mechanisms that are preventing it from happening at the state level. Some of our recommendations to to you know the survey that the conversations with folks is to add ethnic affiliation to the site form so what we've learned is many states don't even have a way to record. That a site is African American they can really only write down that it's pre historic or historical slash European American. And so history begins when Europeans arrive, regardless of whether you speak Portuguese or from another country or black right so that's not even a mechanism that many states even record this information. The other thing that is you know folks who lived here in California know there's no real mechanism to digitize and make these things available. So some states like I worked in Washington State in Arizona they have many of their site forms digitized and available online. And if you're a qualified archaeologist a professional, you can access these different site records and you can see different things that are going on, just with a request and sometimes a check. Folks who worked in California know there's some places that have paper maps with archaeology sites written on them. They have paper journals that they charge you 25 cents a page to download. I mean, there's, there's a lot of different range of things going on the other thing is some of these existing digital data are in file types that have not been migrated and that we're talking like hundreds of thousands of buildings and sites right. We've learned that a lot of times the buildings database is not with the archaeology site database it's difficult to find ones that are historic properties that are buildings that aren't archaeology sites. So one of the things that we were, you know wondering is like, can we develop a program to really evaluate these existing sources, and then also add in this different granular way of recording sites so that you could even know your state has black history sites. The other thing too that we thought, you know would be great. And that we've seen in several states is that they have statewide historic context for African American sites. Those contexts are really important because, as I was mentioning before those cultural resources archaeologists, they're trying to scramble to address the significance of all different kinds of sites, different time periods, different tribes ethnic groups all this different stuff. And most of them as we know didn't study black history for their master's degree right so they're tasked with handling the heritage sites of all Americans without having any kind of background data and that these, you know statewide historic context are written by historians by architectural historians and they really kind of give people an idea of black history in that state, so that cultural resources folks can kind of open it up and know oh I'm in this county okay so here's the events that happened in this county or in this town from this time to this. This is the major neighborhoods right it really, it really helps them out so that they don't have to get a degree in black history, but they still are aware of African American sites. And then the other thing is it, it raises the visibility of the black heritage sites that they already have because they're in there and historians write about them and then they become known and easily accessible by archaeologists right. The other thing to is increased black involvement in some states do have African American heritage commissions that are liaisons with the State Historic Preservation Office, in the case of black heritage sites. And the other thing to is to have African Americans be part of that review process for national register significance. So get people who are there these states have skilled historians and architects and people who know about black history to get those folks involved and put together some best practices for states that that need to move forward that that don't have this stuff already. So I mentioned before archaeologists are looking for sites that could be eligible for listing in the national register, but they don't actually fill the full format to get them in the register, because the government agency just needs to know that there's a potentially significant site. It doesn't have to actually be in the register. It just has to have the potential for them to have to do the mitigation. Many times archaeology sites exist to even do massive archaeology projects there, but they never get added to the register. That's a whole nother level of, you know, work so try to get more black sites in there, increase the visibility but also in the process, you get more African Americans involved with the process so that they figure out how to do it because one of the things that I've heard many times from, you know, black folks is they don't realize that they actually are supposed to be consulted on under the National Historic Preservation Act. They think it's just Native Americans, you know, communities not just black people that have been living there for years are supposed to be consulted with right. And then the other thing is to think more along the lines of traditional cultural properties when we're thinking about these African American sites because in the case of, you know, black neighborhoods or black properties, they've been modified sometimes so that they under the law don't technically demonstrate that's integrity for the National Historic Preservation Act therefore they're not considered significant, even though black people have owned it for 80 years, and then they, they, you know, are discounted as not a contributing element not potentially eligible. So think about them for their cultural value not just purely on the architecture or, you know, purely on the site right, but then the biggest thing here you know and this is you know not just limited only to African folks that have increased diversity right as this task force spent two years focusing on black heritage sites we realized that the majority of folks heritage is not necessarily being covered, and even folks that are spelled out in law, Native American tribes federally recognized ones, Alaskan natives, Native Hawaiians they're also not getting served by the law right and there's many reasons behind that so having more individuals empowered and able to work on this stuff themselves is a huge thing, and then you know, building on examples from Native American folks indigenous people, just acquiring the property, and then they can manage it for their community, helping black property owners access the tax benefits that come along with Historic Preservation is another way that can really, they can really help. So, I'm moving into the end here here's some of the, the bright examples there's just a few of them. There's several states like I said that have black heritage commissions that have African American historians, cultural leaders, church leaders that work through these different counties, so that when archaeology comes, and when there's an undertaking, the State Historic Preservation Office isn't relying just on, you know, whatever archaeologists from whatever state coming in. They've got people who have, you know, work with these different significance recommendations, but also help the State Historic Preservation Office see things that maybe were overlooked by archaeologists who don't know everything right. Now the other thing that ends up happening in the case of alabamas, they have some really good promotional information and literature for these different historic properties that are important in black history. And so this is one way that if you've got a group of folks who know the black history of the state, you don't have to start at ground zero you can really rely on these people and let them, you know help you make these kind of significant decisions. So one of the other thing that's really powerful is multiple property documentation forms, you know those really feed into these statewide contexts, but sometimes their states or cities that have multiple different black history historic properties, putting them together into some kind of synthesis so that archaeologists can read it and can see all these 85 different streets and houses and buildings and locations. They're all, you know, significant under this theme right so they can really help put things in theme. Now Detroit has one that's actually really good it's got, you know, a bike and a pedestrian tour where you can go to these different places and you can see these different historic properties, and they all pertain to the civil rights effort in the city of Detroit. So this is a situation where they've actually gotten a lot of these historic properties build the forms all the way out architects other people work together. They actually completed it all and put it together as a historic context for folks that see a building that's maybe mid 20th century you know is a significant or not. Oh yes this was part of a significant rally. Maybe it should be protected maybe we shouldn't damage it right. So the state of California does not have a statewide African American historic context, but several different locations do San Francisco has an African American historic context that it's talks a lot about the definitions of integrity and the thresholds that matter for black history in the city. The other thing that they've got to is this African American cultural society that that could be the beginnings of you know this group at least in the city of San Francisco that makes recommendations to the historic preservation commission for the city. These black folks that have been curating black history in the city know a lot of stuff really help out archaeologists who maybe have a project in San Francisco but they don't really know all the same things that these folks do right. And that's that that's a foundation that could really be built if there is some kind of connection there, along with the city of San Francisco is historic preservation commission. And that's another thing that we see where there's counties and cities and stuff that are doing great stuff, but it's not really synchronized together, and then it also doesn't go up to the state level a lot of times. Another one, the state of Texas which is, you know, it's in the middle it's like many other states as far as addressing African American historic properties. There's several archaeologists that realize and agency archaeologists in the state of Texas that realize their projects are more commonly affecting these black neighborhoods in these black sites. So they work together with other folks African American archaeologists and other people to put together a best practices for doing African American preservation in the state of Texas. So, you know, once again you don't have to get a master's degree in black history. Some people have already given you the the crumbs to start on that pathway it really helps. But it's interesting in this case because they proactively identified that their activities were just slipping past the state preservation laws and also the National Historic Preservation Act. There's a couple of things going on you know there's folks in here some folks probably listening you know they do cultural resources but it's super easy for us to be like this. I don't do this right I mean I just teach these classes so what how could I possibly help. You know one of the things that's super absent is universities in every state being involved in any of this. This is CRM companies and transportation folks and folks in the Air Force and State Historic Preservation Office. There's not really universities that are stepping into this space and we've that was just most of the time completely blank right. So, you know the folks are here, have this unique position, because we're the ones who teach the folks who get the degrees that go out and do this stuff right so we're the ones who have, you know, a chance to really get involved in this thing, in a way that like other folks you know they don't have the same pressures that people at the State Historic Preservation Office that are trying to put race on a form in Florida. Yeah, that's, that's you know not as easy as it looks right in New York State. That's not as hard in California that's not as hard so there's some folks who live in places that really could get this going in the place where they live. I have recommendations I have this, I want to move into questions here but support these State Historic Preservation Offices. You know, a lot of times they don't have the archaeologists that are out there they're not the ones who are training and teaching people a lot of times how to do archaeology field work. Most of them, a lot of times they just show up to the shippers office and there's a stack of reports, they read through as many of them as they can that day and every day they come back and there's another stack. And it's a never ending process of all day, just making sure that these companies and these projects are in compliance. And that was one of the things they were saying, Yeah, we read these reports and by luck we know there was a black town here. But, you know, we don't have the capacity to create this kind of stuff so that's where universities really reaching out and trying to connect with these different State Historic Preservation Offices, and also proactively learning about black history and black sites right. So that's another critical piece. The other thing that universities have a unique position we can actually share this information and include black history the stuff that we know we can work with other people working on campus that are doing black history to get this kind of stuff out there in a way that it gets to the State Historic Preservation Law. And if we don't have these statewide context, it's spread and it's shared because once again we're not the ones who are under the gun. A lot of times, and then share these reports that we have share this with other people of African descent who are living in neighborhoods that are right now getting ripped. They could know that they have these rights under historic preservation law. And of course work with CRM companies work with communities and build out this network of scholars so that the work that's done by the people in the committee, or the task force doesn't just, you know, wither away you know the other thing too as I was walking to campus I was seeing them build that underground building over there. 50 feet or so 50 yards away from Strawberry Creek. And I'm just shaking my head because this place has spent years before I got here 100 years ago digging up native sites on campus right that we didn't even keep track of where the people are at you know No, no, but but I, you know this is being recorded. I want folks to recognize this university and other land grant universities are complicit in this kind of stuff and it keeps happening. University of California may not have to worry about sequel when it comes to housing, but the National Historic Preservation Act, I know the federal grants I get partially go to this place. They're a partially federally funded agency. And to be out of compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act I got a lot of questions on how you can dig a hole. I'm just going to take a few feet deep in an archaeology sensitivity zone that's a few meters away from Native American villages, and, and no one know, like no one know right because I, the other projects that are happening here I don't know who else is heritage sites. I know that years ago I looked on the map. People's Park was a whole neighborhood of buildings there, you could see the foundations in the grass and aerial photos in 2017. I don't know where the NHPA compliance with that I don't know if it qualifies, you know I don't know what to say. But the other thing that we can do is try to get our own institutions to follow the law, or at least make others aware that the law exists that they're violating right so I mean I don't know what to say that doesn't fall in line with African American sites but I just saw the dozers and I'm looking through the fence like there, there's a town, someone's town is right there. Yeah. You know, in the end, we pay for this thing. It's, it's ours for better for worse. If there's anyone who's going to fix it or change it it's going to be us the people in this room, the people who have to work under this law, and the other people who support the State Historic Preservation and CRM companies, they're the ones, we're the ones, you know who can work on this and the fact that black sites are being overlooked, that can be remedied this just raises awareness to something that everyone is has the ability and the right to be able to, you know engage in this kind of thing. So folks who are interested there are the reports you can get them for free. You can see our synthesis and then also I believe, I believe the data if you if you don't if Excel files are not on there please reach out to me, and I can, I can get people to Excel files so they can actually look at the data. And then of course my colleagues all over the country that worked on this thing for two years. This would have never happened if it hadn't been for all these folks who do this archaeology work. And then of course, Josh Torres the assistant archaeologists with the National Park Service, really being behind this whole idea of trying to find ways for the National Park Service to be involved with increasing coverage and improving our understanding of different histories African Americans all different kinds of folks so none of this would have happened if it wasn't for this cast of folks. You know, deep respect and much love thank you. Yes, please, Dr. sensory. Thank you for this super necessary talk and for your efforts and for your work your labors to put those together sir. And I was just thinking about, I can example of trying to follow the path right and so like, sorry. So the idea that, like, starting from, say, working with the African American male achievement program a Garfield at Oakland, through the auspices of every fourth grader in a national park program, everybody gets their national parks pass. We get the idea that we get the kids up we have the only African American ranger and you'll somebody national park behind us. We have a plan. We even have a UC reserve outside right across the street from ninth Calvary campsite right we have the Buffalo soldiers there we got Shelton Johnson involved we got the folks the Garfield involved, and then you hit a wall. And you hit a wall. And it's like, there's also the tension between like, I'm not the person that tell folks in Yosemite or the UC reserve that that they shouldn't do what they're doing, although I certainly like I was all up in the girl about this but it was also like, there's some like organizational linkage missing where there wasn't like a typo to give them the right act you know I'm saying and I'm trying to figure out how I could assist building the capacity to create that fist to make those people. Yeah, you know, I mean, I absolutely get you because that whole thing about the National Historic Preservation Act the reason why it's functional to teach the NHPA is because it's the granddaddy and it applies across the United States and all territories. However, below that are many different layers at the state and local level to so sites could get caught up in that whole system. And there's a wealth of environmental and other workplace regulations to the whole thing is, you know, a quite complicated system. But when we're talking about, you know, the thing that you're saying in the case of federal agencies. That's their obligation to be the caretakers for historic properties. And what's interesting about it is there's there's allowing a site to a road or decay is actually historic preservation decision. Because that's a cultural decision. Others that's like an inevitable decision, but they have to state that and mitigate adverse effects right so if the sea is rising, and there is no seawall and to build a seawall will kill animals and cause a lot of problems. Then you need to acknowledge this is the rate at which this thing is eroding it is falling away. Our world is changing. We have excavated X amount of portion. And that's like all we can do because we can't stop the ocean. In the other case of folks trampling things right tons of people wildcat camping and doing whatever they want. The agency is supposed to be stepping in like no these are, you know, petroglyph sites or these are, you know, important sites. These are African American, you know, Buffalo soldier camps. You cannot go here. It is against a lot to go here we're moving roads away we're moving rocks in the way right to get someone to do that. It's difficult for a lot of, you know, it's difficult to really get this whole thing to move running into that wall sometimes it's not a wall it's like a lack of momentum. It's like everyone was excited and then it got really hard and complicated and now we're just kind of like here, and we did a bunch of things and it could last for years and years before the next round of people get there. So that's also something to acknowledge and then own positionality right it's dangerous for some people to act. They could lose their livelihood. You know, we could actually damage our own health and our own time by putting everything into these things and at some point some people have to really think about managing our, our, you know, energy right because we're not the same use if we're all broken and damaged and overworked. Because the amount of work that we have to do is huge there's no way we'll do every single bit of it. Choose your piece and work out your level of ability and try to push through those walls right so if you have a specific thing in mind. Reaching out finding other people to collaborate with right. Sometimes the fist is you know you break your hand when you hit something really hard. So maybe you shouldn't be using your fist maybe some other tool is the tool. But you know just think about it as like a long term project that that yeah we're you know we're stalled we're moving through we're finding our way through the bureaucracy. Sometimes it takes people to get retired or laid off or new people to come in new mandate from the agency right. Someone sue someone in Missouri down now said in California that precedent they better do something. Sometimes those things are breakthroughs but just stick with it right that's the only thing that I can say and tell it if it causes harm to you then it's time to back away and just accelerate right. Yeah I guess I'm just thinking about what one of the important slides you had up there was about building capacity. Yeah, and like I feel like I was wasting a lot of those energies, trying to convince people who don't want to hear it. You know, and then instead if I built if I focused energy and fun streams and all those labor to capacity building more locally so that when they say it has more power. Yeah, then with some whiny academic, you know, console next shows up and like says you should do this right so I was just thinking about building those coalitions and that that to me is one of those things we're we're less trained on and we're still trying to work. Yeah, yeah building coalition building is critical piece right because all those examples I showed you would not have happened if it wasn't for those people knowing each other and then kind of just getting the ball rolling the whole black sites task force that wouldn't have gotten together if it hadn't been several different things with people kind of working towards a goal that then grows into another thing. So the goal would be to try to take this information and see if we can build another coalition or if people can build their own coalitions for their own states right. Yes, sir. Thank you, Dr. Yes, please. I know you showed this hard work by a big group of people two years and you came up with two sort of documents that you had on your last slide, and they're out there for people is the project to. I mean obviously as you say it's never ending. Yeah, is that is part of the goal to give those make sure people across the US kind of office by office, state by state, typo by typo ship by ship. Oh, receive this I mean push the button and send it out so I mean rather than say oh it's there, or we are dear so and so and then archaeology. You just want to share this with you so you're aware of I mean it's one thing to go to the SHA and say hello. It's another descendant to every, every kind of state or every office or every county I mean is that kind of is there a game plan to kind of after hard work getting it out there. No, we did do that and then each person has kind of moved on to their own perspective right because some of the colleagues on that list are now like defending their freedoms to even think right or further to be education. Those are places where a lot of people live. There's a lot of motivation to not really think about this kind of stuff. And so something like the things that we asked of the it's hard. Some people can't make that kind of decision they'll lose their job right so so so some folks have had to kind of hibernate. And so some of the things that have formed. For example, several of the people on that are now working with the nps and other CRM people to put together a whole workshop to revise the early house reports to really guide archaeology for years you know that the folks that were on that really you know they're part of this they're the facilitators were the ones who have gone out and try to get funding and reserve the space for that. So that's going to happen in the spring in May. So, you know, that's what some people have done, then other people did go back to their state historic preservation office and we're like look there's nine states that have this thing. And also what's interesting is some states that have very few African Americans have historic preservation plans for a statewide context or statewide survey of historic properties Idaho has one Montana has one right. But how come California doesn't have one. So it's not evenly distributed but some people did go back to their states and say, look this is just working with historians and you know putting this thing the records together right. So, so there has been movement there have been people who have called these site forms out to try to look, you know county by county where are these historic properties that are associated with African descent so we can put them together into a database, you know one by one out of these so folks are doing stuff. It did move forward and people are kind of going the next direction. And so the it raised the visibility of this to the National Park Service that administers the historic preservation fund at a time when politically 30% of our states said that they couldn't do anything about diversity. You know, so it like ended up, I guess like doctors and Sarah saying run into a wall right but the, the movement will continue in other states right. So, you know, and sometimes it was the states you wouldn't really think of like Alabama that are really out in the lead when it comes to historic preservation they're really kind of out there, you know Georgia you might expect there's a lot of people live there but Alabama how do we get to the top Texas which we growth but then they're the ones who have this archaeology context for the whole state so, you know, it wasn't an even process across any of the states. It was really just ad hoc committees like this one putting things together. Now everybody sees these ideas all those shippers they got this report, they see the recommendations, people in those states are really trying to work with those offices to see what little piece they can do. I think that there would be could be grants. Yeah, especially from here in California there's a number of foundations, especially in the Bay Area that are going to keep going with this issue of diversification and it would be wonderful about an internship program for example. So when you go to the State Historic Preservation Office you say well we have an intern who will help you with this, you know, kind of thing and that would be great to launch the students, former students or students into, you know, becoming more professional and so forth so, you know, and that's a big deal I mean somebody has to say okay that's what I'll do my time on, even if and of course there's always the pressure in well both in CRM firm to work on the project, get that done, or in academia to get your, you know, your tenure, your merit and so forth so carving out something like that is not always a possible thing to do, but it is a way to go forward, right. I'm glad you mentioned that because a lot of federal agencies, it's easier for them to create internships than actual salary jobs. Yeah, right. And so they'll, you know, that's really, really hard to go through the office of personnel to get a position created. But it only really takes like that office to work together and one example is folks at the Army Corps in San Francisco realizing that sites are eroding on the Bay Area have been willing to hire two students to work on this issue and to really learn what the Army Corps does when it comes to climate change erosion and all these things. And some of our anthropology students have gotten that internship. So that's also another pathway right like the National Park Service Army Corps Department of Defense they could be making these interns that then by proxy end up managing those lands, even though they're not doing the whole entire state. Yeah, right. Well, maybe it's on us to be the ones to build a resource database or you know, to then advise the students right you know who is giving these internships and so forth. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that'd be a good idea you're right. I'm sorry, I came to the light bill, but yeah, that's great material covered. So I know this might be a better question over a drink but is there kind of a bill white grand plan now that now that you're tenured, and you're, you know, you understand the state of California and all the issues of archaeology here. Have you got a plan that you're putting into action in terms of. You were wise to ask that on the 31st of the month right. Because then the plan is to make it to the first to get paid. And then like by the end like oh yeah I'm full of plans at the beginning of my own plan is to go tomorrow. Maybe I should ask this at the end of the semester then maybe I'll take you out for a drink guys. It's always tomorrow right. Yeah. Working with the early house revisions you know that's. That's a pretty big workshop thing you know there's 40 people who are going to come to West Virginia and just do this week long workshop to talk about retention you know diversity training the job outlook right and the goal of that is to build these reports of folks of different ages that you know working across companies and stuff to kind of move this stuff forward in a more, you know, broad way, because those early, I don't know folks know the early house reports in the 1970s. Archaeologists got together and they had a week long workshop several weeks and they, you know, paid their wives to type up their crazy ideas is ridiculous there's only one woman that was involved right one native person. They came up with these grandiose ideas that strangely have become like the reality of cultural resources and the way that then PS because if you look at the folks who are part of that 50 years ago, they went on to be big shots and in the National Park Service and stuff and so they really did kind of set the tone. So the idea is to have an inclusive group of folks that write their own work and plan for the future right but I mean I am trying my best to build partnerships with cultural resources companies and agencies. They need people on a level that I've never seen in my career, and the absolute threat is there that if these, if we don't get, you know this work done. The first will scrap it, and they'll make an unlimited range of exceptions, so that no one has to care about historic properties ever again. And so we've learned a lot in the last 50 years about archaeology North America, a lot of it's coming from this kind of mandated research. If we don't get more people to go into archaeology, like, I mean, in the past, the thing that has kept it is that archaeologists keep lobbying and pushing for there to be historic preservation laws. They say when like no one's there doing that, and they just say, Oh, it's a huge bottleneck. I can't do anything. Guess what we're not the Department of Defense transportation and housing and no one has to worry anymore about sites unless they want to. And if that happens, you know, all these sites that we're discovering as glaciers melt and all this other stuff, you know, all these neighborhoods that become potentially eligible for the National Register every year, whole subdivisions. Dozer, they're open to, you know, elimination. Yeah. So I really want folks to learn how to do archaeology and to get hired, and to do the kind of stuff. However they do it, and I'm trying to find companies to hire students, you know, so that folks can see, get an open degree, just go right into the workplace. Like that's what I really want to see happen. That's the grand plan. Right. Yes. Can you make a plug for the our field school. Yes, please. And also, okay. All right. So folks, the applications for the archaeology research facilities field school this summer at Ralta, Adobe, yes, and Oakland are open. We're looking for students from the state of California, California State universities, you'll get college credit, a stipend. You get to interact with other cultural resource management and other archaeologists here in the Bay Area, and folks who have taken it, they say it's a really good program. Yeah, yeah. They're feeding as you were just saying they need, we need more archaeologists. They're eating the system. Yeah, so field school is an excellent opportunity and we have a forum that will come this spring right we do every is it with cultural resources. Yes, Sarah will release we have the date already. Yep. I can't remember it. Yeah, so folks who can't all come to Oakland can tune in for the forum with will be it'll be cultural resources. I think it's agencies. I think it's agencies this year. March 15th will be the forum with agency archaeologists here at the ARC, but it will also be on zoom right available. Okay, all right. Yeah, so if you're in one of those far eastern states like Colorado, you can tune in and see agency archaeologists talk about their careers. Yes, please. Thank you. Really interesting. And there's actually a question in the chat that I'll read. And it's a geospatial question. Oh, okay, great to see it. Okay, so Todd Aldman, while you were speaking, he wrote there's also the Texas Freedom Colonies project that is a community based effort to identify black settlements and cemeteries across the state data are mapped and available for all to see the community. I know in Council of Texas archaeologists recommend that CRM archaeologists review this project before heading into the field. Here's the link and it's the WWW the Texas Freedom Colonies. It got cut off. Project.org or .com. I'm glad that Dr. Aldman wrote in because he's also doing great work and doing field work, trying to get students out there and teaching people how to do field methods. And as in Texas, what huge date, a lot of development and a lot of archaeology sites and a lot of demand for archaeologists so cool. I hope we can put that in the comments for the video. Oh yeah, good idea. Any other questions? I'm still waiting for that. So we're going to stop before Dr. Lightfoot leaves and forgets that he promised it. Oh, okay. Thanks.