A Conversation with Kimberly Floyd

What is shared history? Why is a common understanding of history important? How does a sense of place influence our understanding of history?

These are all questions that were raised in our conversation with public historian and museum curator Kimberly Floyd. After working on the interpretive staff of several historical plantation sites in central North Carolina, Ms. Floyd came to the Zebulon Vance Birthplace to manage that State Historical Site’s interpretation of a plantation in the mountains of Western North Carolina. The historical fact of plantation life in this region can challenge a commonly held belief that very few people were held as slaves here. That narrative, in turn, may contribute to ongoing blindness to racial discrimination and institutionalized racism in our community today.