Five years ago, when I was filming in Virginia for my series on the Civil War, I found myself standing in front of a shopping center called the Spotsylvania Mall.
One hundred and twenty-five years before that moment, Americans had murdered one another on that ground in a maul of a different kind, in what many believe was the most relentless exchange of life in the history of warfare up to that time.
Some men were hit by so many bullets that their bodies fell apart. A Union veteran remembered Spotsylvania as simply " the most terrible day I have ever lived."
But the busy preoccupation of the shoppers that morning gave no indication that they were aware of the events that had taken place there on a similarly glorious May day in 1864.
I will never forget the emotions that realization sponsored in me: the chilling irony, the sickening dread that forgetfulness always engenders, and the powerful sense that the meaning of our freedom as Americans is the freedom of memory, which is also an obligation not to forget.
Because I am afraid that the Walt Disney Company's proposed theme park in the middle of the fragile historical environment of Virginia's Piedmont will, in fact, distract people from an appreciation of the events that took place there in the last century, I must come out in opposition to Disney's America.
This is more than a case of carrying coals to Newcastle, by which I mean, the area doesn't need any more history superimposed on it, especially of the intoxicatingly distilled kind Disney is proposing.
This project has the possibility of not only sanitizing and making " enjoyable" a hugely tragic moment of our past, but of physically destroying, through subsequent development, the exquisite landscape where the ghosts of our collective past still have the power to mesmerize us with the palpable fact of our often sad history.
Let me stress that I have no objections to the Disney Company's desire to do popular history. I am in the same business and, in fact, am working with Disney on another unrelated history project. Indeed, many in my generation have been drawn to history in part through the films of Walt Disney.
Further, I am distressed by the high level of rhetoric this conflict has promoted. Critics of the theme park have ascribed the worst and, at times, most ridiculous personal motives to Disney in searching for points of disagreement- something I find unnecessary.
This park is simply not needed here. It is in the wrong place. It will distract visitors from the real places of history, and it will damage the beauty and character of the area. (It is distressing to note that Gov. Allen, in announcing his package of $163 million in incentives, failed to note that he was proposing to cut the budget for historical restoration in the nearby parks he is so confident will not be affected by Disney's America. How utterly hypocritical.)
I always think that if I were in a position to advise the Disney Company, which has traditionally guarded its image carefully, I would strongly advise it to abandon this project because of the long-term damage that Disney's America will ultimately do to the pristine image of the corporation.
For all these reasons and more, I am taking this stand against the theme park and look forward to working with Protect Historic America to stop the needless mauling of Northern Virginia-again.
The Potomac News
Tuesday, May 24, 1994
Page A11
Webmaster's comments: Ken Burns produced the highly acclaimed 1990 series about the American Civil War, which ran on PBS and has since been distributed on video. The series introduced Shelby Foote to the American public, who found his exceptional presentational style strongly complimented his previously-established Civil War expertise, known through his books.
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