Despite its historical importance, slavery remains underrepresented in museums and memorials in the United States. This paper analyses the representations of slavery which are currently in place in the American South and the American North though a public history framework. Sites such as Lincoln memorials, plantation museums, and statues of black soldiers were constructed in a specific social and political context. Understand the context of these representations of slavery reveal how both the North and South wished to remember their past and shape their regional identity in ways which were often false and harmful to Black Americans. By revealing these narratives, public historians can being constructing commemorations of slavery which confront an ugly aspect of our history more honestly and, hopefully, begin the work of racial reconciliation and inclusion.