Manhattan Project park superintendent: We'll do better on Black history
Manhattan Project National Historical Park Superintendent Kris Kirby said the park could do better at talking about Black history in Oak Ridge.
That comment came during her talk to the League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge, held online via Zoom. The National Park Service through Manhattan Project National Historic Park runs programs in Oak Ridge and other cities included in the park.
Manhattan Project National Historic Park includes Oak Ridge, Tenn., Los Alamos N.M., and Hanford, Wash., which were involved in the development of atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan at the end of World War II. It was known by the code name Manhattan Project.
The National Park Service has programs that tell the history of each of these sites and specifically their involvement in the Manhattan Project. However, Kirby said certain stories were left out of that history, and the Park Service is working to improve its coverage. One such aspect is the history of African Americans in Oak Ridge during the Manhattan Project period and immediately after the war.
Black history of Oak Ridge
She said without African Americans, Oak Ridge could not have been the success that it was.
“They lived under pretty deplorable conditions and yet they were a thriving community,” Kirby said of Oak Ridge's early Black residents, who she described as being actively involved in the construction and operation of the K-25 complex. She also said that generation had a "great legacy" after the war, pointing to the desegregation of Oak Ridge Schools, which was the first government-run school system to desegregate in 1955, the year after U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision.
She said these contributions aren't well represented by the National Park at present. She said the park will be focused on “highlighting that story” and bringing it into the park's broader “narrative” about the Manhattan Project. However, she said telling the Black history story will not mean other stories will be forgotten.
“It’s not an 'either or' it’s and, and, and,” she said.
African Americans in Oak Ridge are just one of the many "focus groups" with which she said the National Park Service had been meeting. She said that other groups include Native American tribes in New Mexico and Washington and survivors of the nuclear attacks in Japan. She described these Japanese survivors as having "deeply personal" stories, but moving forward with their lives with “so much grace.”
Finally, she described a focus group of current high school students. She said their relationship to the Manhattan Project is more "distant" and "objective," but talking to them gives her "hope."
Days of Peace and Remembrance
She spoke of the 2021 Days of Peace and Remembrance events, which due to the COVID-19 pandemic were reduced to just two events, one at the Oak Ridge International Friendship Bell and another at the Columbia River. They marked the 75th anniversary of the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan.
“We don’t take sides,” Kirby said. However, she said the National Park Service wanted people to be “introspective and somber.”
Developments and programs
During the presentation, Kirby ran through developments and upcoming programs with regard to historic sites and history-related events in Oak Ridge.
The Park Service, she said, leads regular hikes and paddling trips on Oak Ridge's trails and rivers.
She said the U.S. Department of Energy is working on making the Oak Ridge National Laboratory's X-10 reactor entirely a historic site. Similarly, she said, at Y-12 National Security Complex DOE is working on creating a public tour route for Building 9731.
Building 9731 was the first building constructed at Y-12 in 1943 during the World War II Manhattan Project and served as the Pilot Plant for nine large electromagnetic separation facilities used to separate enriched uranium for the war effort. Building 9731 is the first facility in the Manhattan Project NHP to install official National Park Service signage.
She said the K-25 site, which already hosts a museum, will in the future have a viewing tower and a slab showing the footprint of the old building.
Niki Nicholas, the park's site manager for Oak Ridge, told the attendees of the virtual meeting about a video series that the tourism promotion organization Explore Oak Ridge had created. Called "Katie the Calutron Girl," the series on YouTube highlights places around the city.
Why Denver?
Kirby works in Denver, Colo. which does not have any sites connected to the park.
She said working from Denver is better than being based at any of the sites because each site is "competitive" in trying to have the best programs, so being in a different city helps to avoid favoring any of them.
She said her office is just a direct flight from any of the relevant cities.
Ben Pounds is a staff reporter for The Oak Ridger. Call him at (865) 441-2317 and follow him on Twitter @Bpoundsjournal.
This article originally appeared on Oakridger: Manhattan Project National Historic Park head speaks about goals
