"In the Margins"

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History is written by the dominant demographic in society. The majority; those with most agency. Their voice is the one that echoes down the corridors of the past. Often, their legacy is reflected in the buildings and edifices that they leave behind, standing through time as a memorial to their preeminent narrative in a place. 

At Preserve Huntsville, we like to approach heritage work at a landscape scale. Recognizing that any historic place is comprised of a myriad interwoven narratives, we seek to interrogate the dominant perspective and "unstitch" the prevailing histories of a place. In doing so, our goal is to foreground those narratives that reflect the lived experiences of historically less vocal or less influential communities. Such groups often were unable to erect their own buildings and, instead, inhabited the spaces between buildings. Their heritage is nonetheless equally worthy of preservation.

Come back soon to read our periodic blog posts that aim to center the experiences and cultural heritage of such groups, who hitherto have existed only in the margins of Huntsville's history.