In this study, we advance public memory in public relations scholarship by adding clarifying and re-etching actions to the list of processes (blurring, erasure, or etching) encapsulated in the public memory dialectic. Additionally, we offer PR of Witnessing and PR of Sanitizing to the PR tools of clarifying and re-etching; PR of Witness and PR of Sanitizing serve as a set of contexts and rhetorical clues that scholars, critics, and practitioners alike can use to sense the distinction between re-etching and clarifying efforts that are intended to reckon with or cleanse public memory. Via critical essay, we interrogate the remarks by then-U.S. President Joe Biden and then-Vice President Kamala Harris at the public event signing as well as the promulgation of the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument Proclamation. Additionally, we interrogate President Donald J. Trump’s “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” Executive Order. By grappling directly with the politicalization of public memory, we move beyond analysis and classification strategies to provide a more robust lens for engaging the massively entrenched power systems behind the highest levels of public memory debate, such as those regarding the United States’ complicated history with race and discrimination.
Waymer et al. (Tue,) studied this question.