Thursday, Brother Rogers, assistant director at the Stennis Center for Public Policy in Starkville, was the guest speaker at the Exchange Club of Columbus.
A self-proclaimed “super nerd about historical markers,” Rogers has made locating and logging the state’s historical markers a personal quest and has, himself, been active in erecting markers to honor the people, events and places that history seems to have neglected.
“By the time I am finished, you’re going to be stopping at every historical marker you see,” Rogers said during a 45-minute anthem to Mississippi’s history as told through the markers found along the state’s highways and city streets.
His first effort was to have an historical marker erected in the memory of Cool Papa Bell, the legendary Negro League pitcher who was born in Starkville, but his contributions to preserving the state’s history, be it profound or quirky, really began last May when he started working on a website (www.mississippimarkers.com) that lists, locates and shows photos of the roughly 700 to 800 historical markers located throughout the state.
Just about every weekend finds Rogers traveling the highways and backroads of the state from the Gulf Coast to the Tennessee border to locate, verify and photograph historical markers.
You might be inclined to assume that Rogers’ passion for historical markers is simply a hobby. Some people golf, others fish or knit or garden.
All those things bring personal enjoyment, of course, but Rogers’ hobby is something we should all have some interest in, mainly because we are all invested in our history, even if we do not know it.
In his “Requiem for a Nun,” William Faulkner famously wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
In this sense, we find that Rogers’ fascination with history, as manifested in his ceaseless pursuit of our state’s historical markers, serves a higher purpose, especially for those who do not see the present in the context of the past.
It is the past that helps shape our views not only of the present, but the future as well and the people, places and events we encounter in our state’s history inform our understanding of the issues we face today. A person simply cannot be well informed without some grasp of history.
This is particularly important, we feel for our young people, many of whom regard history with something less than enthusiasm. And if that history is confined to the pages of a textbook, who can blame them for such indifference?
What Rogers reminds us is that our history is a tangible thing, something that can be seen, sometimes touched. After all, there is profound difference between reading about Medgar Evers and seeing the place where the Civil Rights leader was slain. It lifts an event that happened 50 years ago into the present and causes us to consider that event with fresh eyes.
We often hear, wrongly, that history repeats itself. It’s far more accurate to say that the attitudes, opinion and actions of the past repeat themselves. And that is where the value of learning our history proves far more valuable than a hobby we pursue purely for personal satisfaction.
The better understanding we have of our history, the better citizens will we be.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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