The Legacy Museum at Tuskegee University

Tuskegee, Alabama (Free)

June 17, 2015

Official Website

My mom and I arrived at the museum right at 10:00am, the hour it was scheduled to open, but the door was locked.  There was a sign saying the museum was “Closed for School Holidays and Breaks,” so we concerned that it might be closed for the summer.  However, when I called, we were assured the museum was open, and the woman who answered said she was sending Jeff to let us in.  

Jeff gave us a warm welcome and ushered us into the museum’s empty second floor, the art exhibition floor, explaining that we had just missed the P.H. Polk exhibit.  They were in the process of preparing that floor for an upcoming art exhibit scheduled to open in the coming fall semester.

The third floor houses the museum’s permanent exhibits tied to the history of the building as the former John A. Andrew and then John A. Kennedy Memorial Hospital and the current National Center for Research in Bioethics and Health Care.  One side houses the exhibit on Henrietta Lacks and HeLa cells, and the other side features the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study we started reading about at the Tuskegee History Center.

Jeff offered to give us a tour of the exhibits, and we happily accepted.  We started with the HeLa exhibit since I was anticipating reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks later in the summer.  Jeff expressed his desire to focus on the contribution Lacks had made to medical research rather than on the injustice of the medical community’s treatment of her and her family.  We discussed her cells’ role in the discovery of the Polio vaccine and other medical advancements including HIV and HPV research.  He talked about the tours he leads for young students and the connections he makes between the injustices Lacks and her family members suffered and the recent cases of police violence against unarmed Black men caught on film.  He observed that the devaluing of African-American lives is at the root of both.  We also talked about the partnership between Morehouse School of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, and Tuskegee that is giving students access to extensive cancer and other medical research.

We were running out of time as we got to the exhibit featuring the Tuskegee syphilis study, but Jeff emphasized a point that I had not considered as I learned about the experiment at the previous exhibit: collateral damage.  Because the men in the experiment were not informed that they had syphilis, they were allowed to continue to spread the disease throughout their communities without their or their partners’ knowledge.  The exhibit is mostly made up of artwork related to the experiments and bioethical issues, and it included a painting by a well-known artist who suffered from syphilis, William Johnson, who also has pieces on display in the Smithsonian.

Before we left, Jeff lamented a bit to us about challenges with funding for museums and political barriers that plague institutions of higher education.  He described the wealth of items in the permanent collection that cannot yet be displayed because they need to be restored and because of spatial limitations in the building.  His final words were reassuring, however; he assured us that when we return to the area next summer, the exhibits will be remodeled and refurbished and worth a revisit. We assured him that we would be back!

Check back next Monday, September 7th, to read about my visit to the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibit, One-Way Ticket: Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series and Other Works.

George Washington Carver Museum

Tuskegee, Alabama (Free)

June 16, 2015

Official Website

Like The Oaks, Booker T. Washington’s home on the Tuskegee University campus, the George Washington Carver Museum is owned and operated by the National Parks Service.  The museum is in the university’s former laundry facility, in a building that was built in 1915. It has been a museum showcasing Carver’s work since 1941, two years before his death.  Near the entrance is a recording of Carver reading one of his favorite poems, “Equipment”; the ranger called our attention to it.  I love hearing old recordings of prominent historical figures.  We heard a recording of Mary McLeod Bethune’s last speech at the Mary McLeod Bethune Council House, and I have heard a recording of Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Compromise Speech. Listening to those recordings adds a new dimension to my image of the person. Plus, Carver had a very distinct voice that complements his somewhat quirky and lovable image but may come with a more unsavory and even sinister explanation.

In the museum we learned that in addition to being a scientist, Carver was an artist.  Almost all of his paintings were destroyed in a fire, but one painting that was recovered is on display in the museum as a testament to Carver’s diverse talents.

Also on display in the museum are many of Carver’s tools, preserved specimens, and photographs, including his experiments with the soybean, the sweet potato, and of course, the peanut.  Part of Carver’s intention with these experiments and discoveries was to harness ways for farmers to get the most from their crops.

What stood out most to me was Carver’s educational innovation.  He implemented distance learning before the Internet and television. He designed the Jesup Wagon, which he would load up with seeds, livestock, plants, tools, and other products of his work and drive out into the community to teach farmers about new, more effective agricultural strategies.  He shared with them the value they could get from rotating their crops and from growing versatile crops like soybeans, sweet potatoes, and peanuts.

The inspiring video below on Carver’s life is available for viewing on the basement floor of the museum.  As you will see, the narrator mentions the friction between Carver and Booker T. Washington, a friction that fascinates me from the perspective of an educator.  The ranger put it something like this: Washington wanted to make sure all records were in order and all documents carefully maintained, while Carver wanted to get down and play in the dirt.  Both are admirable and invaluable, but this museum demonstrates how there is something so special about a man who wants to play in the dirt.

Check back next Monday to read about my visit to the Legacy Museum at Tuskegee University.

The Oaks (Home of Booker T. Washington)

Tuskegee, Alabama (Free)

June 16, 2015

Official Website

My love for African-American history has fostered a long-term fascination with Booker T. Washington.  Apparently, I am not the only one in my family who has been interested in Washington seeing that my paternal grandfather titled his 1987 autobiography, Up from Poverty.  I have often regretted that he did not live long enough for me to discuss with him the connections he saw between himself and Washington whose famous 1901 autobiography is titled Up from Slavery.  I remember my first encounter with Washington’s Atlanta Compromise speech and the alleged conflict between him and W.E.B. Dubois. I was incensed and felt somewhat betrayed that no one had told me that the beloved Washington was actually what I saw as a conformist sellout who maintained low expectation for his people. Of course, I now realize the shortsightedness of that view, and although my visit to Tuskegee University left me with mixed feelings, I have since regained respect for Washington.

Our ultra-knowledgeable Park Ranger, Robert Stewart gave us our tour through Washington’s 1899 house, emphasizing the extreme self-sufficiency of the college during Washington’s time.  The house was designed by Robert Taylor, the first Black graduate from MIT, and was built exclusively by Tuskegee students practicing their industrial skills.  He showed off the state-of-the art technology present in the house.  Washington’s home was the first in the county with electricity, a running shower, and a sauna.  The house has five bedrooms and three bathrooms all with beautiful, vibrantly colored clay-based paint  on the walls, which was engineered by George Washington Carver.  Most of the internal doors feature transom windows above that could be opened to facilitate privacy and promote circulation.  The double-layered oak wood floor is still the original and looks like new.  There are also a number of original pieces of furniture still in the house, including a sofa in the entryway, several chairs and a desk  in Washington’s office that were sent to Washington from Asian students who’d attended Tuskegee.  

Washington’s wife, Margaret Murray Washington was only 4’11,” so the house was designed with her stature in mind.  The stairs are shallow, and the handrail was made low to accommodate her and Washington, who apparently, and unbelievably, to me, was only about 5’5”.  Washington’s daughter from a previous marriage and their two sons lived with them there, and legend has it that Washington had an “open door policy” with his children.  As long as they lived in his house, they had to keep their bedroom doors open . . . at all times.  

Washington has been criticized for building his house with a rear staircase and servant quarter-style rooms on the top floor, but our guide defended Washington, insisting that these features were designed with student interns in mind who would practice their hospitality skills in the Washington home before going out to make an honest and lucrative  living serving (most likely White) employers.

When I asked Robert about the Washington-Dubois controversy, he took up for Washington (1856-1915).  He made a great point that Dubois lived much longer (1868-1963) and had much more time to make and defend his positions.  Robert also argued that Washington and Dubois actually agreed on most points, and perhaps the media and scholars have made more of the controversy than truly existed.   Robert talked also about other conflicts between Washington and George Washington Carver, which sounded like typical faculty/administration misunderstandings. He also alluded to a conflict between Washington and Monroe Trotter.  But the way Robert responded to Dubois’s ongoing criticisms of Washington and articulated the bottom line of the alleged controversy from his perspective was classic: Ranger Robert said, “As far as I know, Dubois never started a school” and then dropped his mic.

Check back next Monday to read about my visit to the George Washington Carver Museum, also on Tuskegee’s campus.

Tuskegee History Center (also Tuskegee Human and Civil Rights Multicultural Center)

Tuskegee, Alabama (Free)

June 16, 2015

Official Website

This building, which also serves as Tuskegee’s visitor center, is not technically an African-American museum.  It is a center focused on the history of the area, and it even dons a logo depicting faces representing the three general ethnic groups present in that history: Native American, African-American, and European-American.  Though since Tuskegee’s population is 95.8% African-American and the town houses one of the most famous Historically Black Universities, by default, that ultimately translates into a facility primarily focused on African-American issues.

On the lawn outside the building stands a replica, built in 1957 by the Booker T. Washington Centennial Commission, of Booker T. Washington’s Roanoke, Virginia childhood home. A plaque describes the home using some of Washington’s own words from his book Up from Slavery.

The broadest historical exhibit inside of the Center starts with pre-history of the region including what prehistoric creatures lived on the land that is now Macon County thousands of years ago.  The exhibit moves on to the humans that first inhabited the area, the Creek people, a matrilineal society, who were ultimately expelled against their will.

The exhibit moves on to the European migration to the area, and, of course, the accompanying slavery.  One small panel that stood out most to my companion for this series of museum visits, my mom, was a description of a slave woman, Lucy Zimmerman, who lived in the area in the early to mid-19th century.  A common health problem of the time for women was bladder tearing during childbirth, which lead to ongoing bladder leakage.  This slave woman, Lucy, suffered with this condition, and when her master sought treatment for her from Dr. J. Marion Sims, Sims considered her condition untreatable.  Then, since her master considered her of no value if she could not bear children, he allowed Sims to keep Lucy.  Eventually, Sims acquired other Black women who suffered the same affliction, and he fashioned tools to operate on them.  Over the next years, after many experimental operations, he conducted the operations successfully but without anesthesia, and ultimately became world renowned as a result.  In the end, these same African-American women, his first, experimental patients, served as his medical assistants.  This is just one less-familiar example of the long, complex history of medical exploitation of African-Americans.

The Center also includes panels describing reconstruction and the dawn of the Jim Crow era along with Civil Rights Movement activities in Tuskegee featuring one martyr of the movement, whom I had never heard of, Sammy Younge, Jr.  Younge was murdered in a service station at just 21 years old, shot in the back of the head after an argument with a man who refused to allow him to use the Service Station restroom.

Finally, the Center features an extensive exhibit on the infamous Tuskegee experiment in which approximately 600 African-American men served as research subjects for members of the medical community who wanted to study the effects of syphilis on the body.  These men were never told that they had the disease; instead they were told they had “bad blood,” and when penicillin was discovered as a treatment, again, they were not informed, and they were not treated. The preeminent Alabama Civil Rights attorney, Fred Gray, represented the victims in the 1973 class-action lawsuit against the US government. The following year a 10-million settlement was reached.  The men are also honored in the Center with their names on floor tiles, and President Clinton’s 1997 apology and his introduction by Herman Shaw, one of the victims, play on a loop in the Center:

On our way out, we chatted with Deborah Gray, Managing Director of the Center. She was a wealth of information about local African-American history, and when we told her we had visited Troy, Alabama, my mom’s birthplace, during our Alabama visit, she lamented the absence of any historical marker recognizing Troy as the birthplace of Civil Rights icon and present-day congressman, John Lewis.  Clearly, there is still much work to be done in recognizing African-American history.  Fortunately, Tuskegee, Alabama is doing an excellent job.

Check back next Monday to read about my visit to The Oaks, the home of Booker T. Washington on the campus of Tuskegee University.

Rosa Parks Museum

Montgomery, AL ($7.50)

June 15, 2015

Official Website

The Rosa Parks museum is part of the Montgomery campus of Troy University. It is located at the intersection where Rosa Parks was arrested after refusing to give up her seat and igniting the 13-month long Montgomery Bus Boycott.

The museum is separated into two wings, a Children’s Wing and the main museum.  The exhibits have been the same since 2000, so the new director, Felicia Bell, is eager to replace them with more updated and interactive displays. I found them highly original, especially the kids’ exhibit, which uses the premise of time travel. In the lobby a schedule of the time machine’s travel is posted along with an explanation of how time travel works. In the center of the main exhibit room is a rocking and rolling bus “time machine” on which passengers travel to the time before the Civil War and learn about Dred Scott, his family, and their great loss in the Supreme Court with a video that includes actual photographs along with some reenactment.  We also learned the origins of the term “Jim Crow”.

The bus driver, Mr. Rivet, next shuttles passengers to forward to the War and on into the era of Jim Crow laws.  This includes a reenactment of Homer Plessy’s 1896 arrest after purchasing a ticket and sitting in the first class cabin of a train. Jim Crow laws continue into the 1950s, which, of course, leads us to December 1, 1955 and Ms. Parks.

Once we finished our experience with time travel, we moved on to the main wing of the museum to an orientation video, which offers some background and context for the boycott. The video includes statements from Black and White locals who actually lived through the boycott.  They describe the personal impact bus segregation had on members of the community and the humiliation suffered by African-American bus riders.

The main exhibit begins with a huge bus replica on which images are projected to recreate the events of the evening Rosa Parks was arrested. It’s a great and unique way to show visitors all the details of what happened. Visitors then move into the next room to hear about the boycott and the Black church’s role.  What stood out most to me was the Women’s Political Council, a group of women leaders, very active in organizing the Boycott, who wrote and duplicated more than 50,000 leaflets informing the community about the boycott. This was my first time hearing about that group.

Of course, 27-year-old Martin Luther King Jr. is featured in the exhibit as the leader of the boycott.  I had no idea that he and other leaders did not initially ask for the complete elimination of segregation, even on Montgomery busses.  The protesters were only asking that Black passengers be treated with as much respect as White passengers, even if they remained segregated. They also requested that the bus company hire African-American drivers to drive in African-American neighborhoods.

The exhibit ends with the jubilation of the Browder vs. Gayle verdict when the U.S. Supreme Court found Montgomery and Alabama’s bus segregation unconstitutional.

We finished our visit in the museum’s last small exhibit hall where Tim Kerr paintings of civil rights icons and images were on display.

Watch this video to get a four-minute tour of the museum from the former director:

Check back on Monday, August 10th, to read about my visit to Tuskegee History Center.

Rising Up: Hale Woodruff’s Murals at Talladega College, Birmingham Museum of Art

Birmingham, Alabama

June 14, 2015 (Free)

Official Website

When I flipped over the June 11-18 edition of Weld for Birmingham and saw the ad for Rising Up: Hale Woodruff’s Murals at Talladega College at the Birmingham Museum of Art on the back page, I knew we had to fit the exhibit into our itinerary.  The vibrant colors and powerful images of the mural, The Rise of the Amistad, depicted in the ad struck me.

When we arrived at the museum, I was disappointed to learn that photography inside the exhibit is forbidden.  As I visit museums, I’m discovering that photography tends to be allowed in historical exhibits, while understandably, it is likely to be forbidden inside of art exhibits.

We started our visit by watching this fascinating video on the history and background of the murals:

I do not remember hearing of Hale Woodruf or Talladega College before seeing this exhibit. I was fascinated to learn that the abolitionists who helped the Amistad mutineers also established the American Missionary Association, the racially integrated organization that helped found many southern universities for African-Americans, including Talladega College.

Woodruff’s set of Amistad murals was completed in 1939 for the opening of the College library.  I was surprised to see such enormous, vibrantly colored, violent images of Africans overtaking their white captors from so early in the 20th century. We sometimes get a one-dimensional  impression of history that all forms of Black expression were stifled during the Jim Crow era, especially in the South.  I am familiar with early 20th Century art from the Harlem Renaissance, but I was not familiar with Southern artwork, especially this type of resistance work of that era.  I can’t help but wonder how Woodruff was able to spend hours working on these depictions of strong victorious Africans and then leave the college and tolerate Alabama’s strict segregation and widespread anti-Black terrorism.

The beautiful, strong images of the Amistad mutineers during the mutiny and its aftermath took my breath away. Even in the courtroom mural, Cinque’s is, by far, the most powerful image in the painting. Standing confidently, arms folded, he is the only standing figure in the painting whose full body is shown.

The second set of murals, The Founding Panels, show, first, a dramatic scene from the Underground Railroad in which Black people are escaping slavery and whites are assisting and taking them in.  The panels go on to show the building of Talladega College and the productivity possible among an integrated team of workers.

The exhibit includes pieces of Woodruff’s artwork other than the murals.  Those pieces show the evolution of his style, his experimentation with cubism and traditional African styles.

Woodruf’s murals are touring the nation.  They will next be at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas. Trust me when I say that you do not want to miss them!  Thus, when they arrive in a city near you, make the time to witness these tremendous works of art.

Check back on Monday, August 3rd to read about my visit to the Rosa Parks Museum.

Kelly Ingram Park

Birmingham Alabama (Free)

June 14, 2015

Official Website

RIght across the street from them Birmingham Civil RIghts Institute and caddy-corner from the 16th Street Baptist Church is Kelly Ingram Park, formerly West Park, a significant historical landmark for Birmingham and for the nation.  It was on the streets surrounding this park in May of 1963 where Birmingham police officers unleashed water cannons and dogs on young, non-violent protestors, producing the iconic images we have all seen:

Thus, in 1991, as the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute was preparing to open, the park was renovated and designated as a memorial to “revolution and reconciliation.”

Part of that renovation included the installation of a series of sculptures throughout the park and a free audio tour you can hear by dialing 205-307-5455 as you take the “Freedom Walk” through the park.

We entered the park at the newest “Four Spirits” sculpture honoring the victims of the September 15, 1963 bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church. The park also houses monuments to historic figures like Martin Luther King Jr., pastors who supported the Civil Rights Movement, and other local heroes.  James Drake’s metal sculptures honoring the 1963 events are stunning in creatively depicting the harsh reality of violence characteristic of the time.  The Freedom Walk takes visitors through a sculpture of snarling dogs on either side of the walkway.  It also includes a sculpture of two youths standing on a platform inscribed with the words “I ain’t afraid of your jail” directly across from a sculpture of metal prison bars.   Watch this video to get a feel for some of the powerful sculptures in the park:

Two of the Birmingham Civil Rights Heritage Trails also start in the park and are identified by signs and life-size photos guiding visitors through the blocks of significant Civil Rights Movement locations and events.

The park maintains its relevance in the struggle for civil rights in America.  Just last November, people gathered there to protest the non-indictment of Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Ferguson, Missouri teenager, Michael Brown.

What stood out most to me about this park on the day we visited was the community of maybe twenty-five folks idling in the park.  They did not appear to be living in the park exactly, but I had the distinct impression that they spend most of their days there.  They are mostly African-American, and many of them could be seen drinking from paper bags on this Sunday before noon.  One gentleman even engaged with us in passing on his way to the group.  He shared that he was not from Birmingham originally, but Mississippi, and he has not been in touch with his family in a long while.  This group is visible in this video:

I regret not engaging more with this group to hear their experiences of the park and discover any connections to its historical significance.

Check back next Monday, July 27, to read about my visit to the exhibit, Rising Up: Hale Woodruff’s Murals at Talladega College, at the Birmingham Museum of Art.

Birmingham Civil Rights Institute

Birmingham, Alabama ($12)

June 13, 2015

Official Website

My mom and I left the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and walked right across the street to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.  Out in front, a statue of tall, slim Fred Shuttlesworth watches visitors as they pass.  As we approached the box office, we smiled and nodded at a proud, purple-shirted family reunion group, a relatively common sight in Alabama in the summer. More than one Southern Black museum staffer has mentioned that in the summer family reunion groups make up a substantial share of their business.

After paying the entrance fee and ascending the Institute staircase, we were ushered into the lobby rotunda, welcomed, and instructed on how to proceed through the museum.

We first watched a film that served as a preview for the museum’s numerous elaborate exhibits. The film offers an overview of Birmingham’s history starting in 1871 as the first industrial center of the South.  The film also shows early to mid-20th century Black life in Birmingham and the lead up to Birmingham residents’ involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.

The film screening room opens into the “Barriers” gallery where visitors start their tour through Birmingham’s Civil Rights journey.  The first room includes a replica of a street car with descriptions of Birmingham’s bus segregation and a model soda fountain depicting statues of White youth enjoying themselves conspicuously as a young Black girl looks on from outside.

This exhibit includes rather extensive coverage of educational inequities during segregation.  It includes two model classrooms, one for White students, including all of the latest technology and texts and another for Black students, that is relatively bare with old furniture and no texts.  Another part of this exhibit depicts life in Birmingham’s Black Community including church, music, barbershops, and other businesses.  Near the end of this exhibit is a full Klan robe on display, where the city’s 1960s nickname, “Bombingham,” is posted to help visitors understand the context for the artifacts.

The next gallery, “The Movement” includes recognition of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and Rosa Parks along with the oft ignored women who were arrested before Parks for refusing to give up their seats and who plaintiffs in the case: Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, Claudette Colvin and Mary Louise Smith. To honor the Freedom Riders, a very dramatic exhibit is on display, a replica of a wreckage of the Greyhound bus firebombed in Alabama.  What stood out most to me in this museum was of a personal nature, two photographs and descriptions of the Reverend James Lawson’s role in the Movement are included in this gallery.  I grew up hearing James Lawson’s sermons, and he officiated my wedding, so seeing him recognized always gratifies me.

The next gallery contains one of the artifacts that is clearly a source of pride for the museum, the door to the cell in which King wrote his famous 1963 “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” in response to clergy members’ criticism of the movement. This gallery also includes projected video footage of nonviolent youth protesters being attacked with police dogs and water canons:

Of course, this exhibit includes recognition of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and honoring Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, and Denise McNair followed by panels depicting images of Bloody Sunday and the eventual Selma to Montgomery march.

The last exhibit among the central Birmingham historical exhibits in this museum is a replica of the office of Birmingham’s first African-American mayor, Richard Arrington, who remained mayor from 1979-1999.  By this point in this ample, comprehensive museum, I was  exhausted and hungry, so unfortunately, I could not dedicate much attention to the museum’s extensive Civil Rights gallery where worldwide human rights struggles are compared with the Birmingham fight.  I hope to return someday soon to explore those last galleries on a full stomach and a good night’s sleep.

Take a virtual tour of the museum with Education and Exhibitions Director, Ahmad Ward.

Check back on Monday, July 20th to read about my visit to Kelly Ingram Park.

Sixteenth Street Baptist Church

Birmingham, Alabama

June 14, 2015

Official Website

When my mom and I arrived at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, our timing was perfect.  As we entered the church, the greeter told us that a video had just started recounting the church’s history and its involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.  We joined  about thirty other visitors in the sanctuary.  I learned from the film how tied the church had been to the Movement early on.  According to the church Visitors Guide, “Due to Sixteenth Street’s prominence in the black community, and its central location to downtown Birmingham, the church served as headquarters for the civil rights mass meetings and rallies in the early 1960s.”

Of course, the film went on to cover the events of September 15, 1963 when a bomb went off in the church, killing four teenage girls, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, and Denise McNair.  Twenty other church members were injured, and the film goes on to cover the arrests and trials that went on between 1977 and 2002 of the three convicted bombers, Robert Chambliss, Frank Cherry, and Robert Blanton.

After the video, what stood out most about our visit was the talk by the knowledgeable church member and guide.  She showed us the stained glass window designed and created by a Welsh artist, John Petts, sympathetic to the tragedy suffered by the members of the church.  She told us how Angela Davis was neighbors with one of the slain girls, and her mother drove the girl’s mother over to the church after she got word that she should see about her daughter.  She also told the story of Addie Mae Collins’ sister, Sarah Collins Rudolph, one of the unknown victims of the bombing. She survived but was severely injured in the blast, was hospitalized for months, and lost her right eye. She was teased by her peers for years because of her glass eye, and she continues to suffer emotionally as a result of her injuries.  Despite the emotional strain, according to the guide, Collins Rudolph has started speaking publicly about her ordeal and about how she has overcome the adversity she faced.  I was impressed by the guide’s knowledge of the church’s well-known and more obscure history.  She encouraged us to learn the names of the bombing victims just like we know the names of male martyrs of the Movement, like Medgar Evers and Emmett Till.

Finally, after the video and guide’s talk, the group went down the stairs to browse the church’s small Memorial Nook where photos and memorabilia from the bombing and its aftermath are on display.  As I bought a postcard in the gift shop and headed through the bustling fellowship hall toward the exit, I was reminded of something else the guide urged us to remember: the church is not simply a museum or memorial to the Civil Rights Movement; it is a living, breathing, active church whose members continue to serve its community and worship every Sunday.

Watch Lamar Washington, the church administrator, in the Memorial Nook describe the tragic day’s events and the artifacts:

Tubman Museum

Macon, Georgia ($10)

June 11, 2015

Official Website

Macon’s Tubman Museum’s new location had only been open a few weeks when we visited.  It was so new, in fact, that our car’s GPS system directed us first to the old location on Walnut.  After seeing that location, we were even more impressed with the block-long bright yellow building that greeted us in the new location on Cherry Street.

Visitors enter the new building onto a blue and yellow tiled floor beneath the rotunda.  It’s two stories with several classrooms around the first floor along with two small galleries and a unique exhibit of the history of Macon depicted on quilts, by textile artist, Wini McQueen in her comprehensive series commissioned by the museum, The History of the Dream, displayed on the walls beneath the rotunda.  Some of the quilts include text from the WPA’s slave narratives, photographs, and other documents.

In the ground floor galleries is a “Black Artists of Georgia” exhibit.  One painting that stood out to us was by artist, Kojo Griffin and depicts human bodies with animal heads possibly engaged in a domestic dispute.  His work is fun because it leaves so much to interpretation.

After fully exploring the ground floor of the museum, we opted to break for lunch, especially since the youngest member of our party, five-year-old, Kyler, had expressed a desire to eat.  One of the friendly employees gave us a map of downtown Macon and offered a few recommendations.  We ended up at Market City Cafe, where the really standout item was the delicious fried string beans.  The four adults devoured two full orders.  (Kyler wasn’t interested.)  The sweet tea wasn’t half bad, and nobody complained about the red velvet cake either.

The second floor of the museum included the Harriet Tubman gallery, full of diverse artwork depicting Tubman and artifacts from her life including photographs and letters.   The first piece we saw was Harriet by Elizabeth Catlett, whose art I’d seen at the MoAD exhibit in February.  I was looking for the Black Moses Barbie video to be shown somewhere, but alas, it was nowhere to be found.  There were the familiar photos of the icon and some lesser-known images.  One of Tubman near the end of her life, sitting in  a chair outside wearing white and wrapped in a white blanket stood out to me since it was the most recent.

Another section of this gallery featured what was called in the original location the “inventors gallery,” a number of samples of artifacts invented by African-Americans.  One that was new to me was the pencil sharpener, invented by John Lee Love and patented in 1897.  Then, a piece that was featured in the previous space is the huge mural intended to depict African-American history from ancient times to the present was painted by a Macon artist, Wilfred Stroud. It is dominated by portraits of African-American celebrities.

We culminated our visit with a stop in the museum store followed by a viewing of the short film, A Slave’s Story: Running a Thousand Miles to Freedom, based on a true story about William and Ellen Craft, a married couple who escaped slavery in Macon by disguising Ellen as a White man and her husband as his slave.   I’d heard of their story and was glad to see the film.  I am constantly struck by the number of captivating and dramatic stories that exist as part of the African-American story.

Check out a short clip of the film here:

Check back next Monday to read about our visit to the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.

Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park

Allensworth, California ($8 parking)

May 16, 2015

Official Website

My friend Melody and I had plans to visit Allensworth for at least a year.  I had heard about the historic all-Black town throughout my childhood when my father volunteered for the state parks system; I remember him talking about this significant town for California African-American history, but I don’t remember ever visiting with my family.  Melody and I finally made it for the annual Old Time Jubilee in May.

The town of Allensworth was founded in 1908 by Colonel Allan Allensworth along with a few other African-American founders.  In 1906, after being sold down river as a child for learning to read, escaping slavery, joining the Union navy, working as a pastor in Nashville and Cincinnati, and working as a chaplain in the 24th infantry of the US Army, Colonel Allensworth retired and migrated, along with millions of other African Americans, to California in one more effort toward self actualization.

Allensworth believed that African-Americans were better off living independently in their own communities.  He waged a campaign and traveled around recruiting people to move to Allensworth appealing to their desire for a home where they could feel comfortable and thrive.  At that time the town was also along the Santa Fe railway system, with easy access to Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Unfortunately, the town did not last. In 1914 the rail line moved. The area suffered a catastrophic drought. Colonel Allensworth died in an accident in 1914. And in 1915 the town lost its bid to build a Black Polytechnic institute (like Tuskegee Institute) because segregation in schools was illegal in California.  Thus, the population started its slow decline soon after those letdowns, and the Depression dealt the final blow to the Colonel’s vision.

We arrived for only about the last two hours of the Jubilee, so we missed most of the scheduled activities like the tug of war, the foxtrot lessons, and the cakewalk held in various locations around the park.  We went into the temporary Visitors Center first, signed in and noticed the map showing where previous visitors had come from. Next, we entered the schoolhouse, which, it turned out, was the second one built in the town and was initially led by William Payne.  In it were set up period desks, an old typewriter, and other furniture.  A docent in that building offered information about its history.

Next, we hit in the only food vendor line for fried fish, where we met Joseph and his daughter, Kia, volunteer docents for Allensworth events.  They answered some of our questions about the demise of the town, and I shared my Our Museums project with them.  We ate in the picnic area and listened to a few youth acts singing gospel music.

We moved on to walk around the town visiting the buildings like the library; the Scott-Gross drug store, where we met Shirley Collins and Fannie Franklin making button spinner toys for kids; and the Singleton General Store where we saw the original ice box and bulk items display case.  We also passed a barber shop; the Smith house, which is rumored to be haunted; the hotel; a couple of other stores; a boarding house; a railroad car; and a bakery.

Then, we headed back to the area around the visitors center where most of the activities were being held, and we asked some more questions and were eventually directed to the standout encounter of the day.  We met Samuel Pierro, an artist who was born in Allensworth and comes back to sell his artwork at the events.  He shared with us his incredible family’s story and gave us great insight from an intimate point of view.  Apparently, his parents raised him and his fifteen brothers and sisters in Allensworth.  He attended the one-room schoolhouse for elementary and junior high school.  Then, his sister ended up the last principal of the school before it closed in 1972 when the Park Service took over the area.  Another of his sisters graduated from Harvard, and he told us with great pride that all sixteen of his parents’ children graduated from high school, and a number of them also graduated from college.  He shared a lot of fascinating family stories and rumors that I assured him I would not share on my blog.  You will have to go to Allensworth for the next event and meet him for yourself to hear his story about Ed Sullivan. He also shared the history of the campaign to getting Allensworth into the State Historic Park system. I was so glad we met Samuel.  Hearing about Allensworth’s more recent history from such an intimate perspective was a real treat!

Check back next Monday, June 29th,  to read about my visit to the Tubman Museum in Georgia.

African-American Military Portraits from the American Civil War

Los Angeles Public Library, Central Library, Getty Gallery (Free)

March 20, 2015

Official Website

I had seen this exhibit in 2013 at its home in the California African-American Museum, but after visiting the Washington DC African-American Civil War Museum, I was happy to see it again with a new appreciation for the role of African-Americans in the War.

This exhibit is special because it is so personal.  The DC museum tells the story of the politics behind the war and the Black participation in it.  It also tells the story of various celebrities like Robert Smalls, Harriet Tubman, Harriet Jacobs, and Frederick Douglass’s sons who served in the war.  In this exhibit, however, the viewer sees the actual faces of the mostly nameless servicemen close up with the help of the most advanced technology of the time.  Some of the photos did include names and even notes about the temperaments of the men from the perspective of a White officer.

The fantastical story of George St. Pierre Brooks stood out to me and was featured in the exhibit in its own display case. When Brooks first entered the War as a slave, he was forced to serve his master’s son-in-law who was fighting for the Confederate side.  Then, when his unit was seized, and he switched sides and fought for the Union for the last few months of the war. His story gets really interesting after his service in the Civil War. He went on to tour and perform in foot races with P.T. Barnum; then, he sang with the Fisk Jubilee Singers touring Europe, and singing for Queen Victoria, and the German Kaiser. Next, he served as a volunteer civilian cook during the Spanish American War; finally he settled in Winnipeg, Canada around 1900.  There, he volunteered again to serve but this time in World War I after falsifying his age to be forty. He served briefly in France as a cook in the Canadian Expeditionary Force until his seventy-plus years caught up with him and he was discharged for medical reasons back to Canada where he lived thirty more years until 1948.

I was also surprised to learn through his exhibit that the US Navy was not segregated, and African-Americans had been serving in the Navy for decades before the Civil War.  This explains Frederick Douglass’s escape from slavery wearing a sailor suit, which was not an uncommon sight at the time.  The numbers of Black sailors increased substantially during the Civil War.  This exhibit does a great job bringing to life the nearly 200,000 African-American servicemen who made the Union victory possible.

Check this site for other fascinating Civil War era photos of African-Americans from the Library of Congress.

Check back on Monday, June 14th to read about my visit to the Huntington Library’s exhibit, The US Constitution and the End of American Slavery.

Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African-American History & Culture

Baltimore, Maryland ($8)

February 20, 2015

Official Website

The Reginald F. Lewis Museum is huge, beautiful, contemporary structure located in Baltimore’s tourist-filled Inner Harbor. In 1999, the Baltimore Sun published an article in which the National Great Blacks in Wax museum founders raised some concerns about a new African-American museum coming to Baltimore. When I learned about the two African-American museums in Baltimore, I, too, was puzzled and marveled that the city had funding to support two museums focused on telling the story of African-Americans in Baltimore and beyond.  Now that I’ve visited both venues, I see the stark contrast and the value of maintaining both spaces in a city with such a rich African-American legacy.

Reginald F. Lewis, born and raised in Baltimore in the 1940s and 50s, was a successful attorney, entrepreneur, and philanthropist.  He died in 1993 at age fifty, and in 2002 The Reginald F. Lewis Foundation donated $5 million to the museum.

This museum houses a temporary exhibit on the second floor, and when I visited, the exhibit was For Whom it Stands an exhibit displaying a variety of depictions of the American flag from artists of color. This exhibit included the 7th Annual High School Juried Art Show for which Maryland high school students responded to this prompt: “The Flag and the American People: What Does it Mean to Me?”

The third level of the museum houses the permanent exhibitions in a network of interconnected corridors and rooms that my colleague described as “non-linear, like the Web”. There is an exhibit honoring the role of the barbershop in the Black community.  There is a powerful small room shaped like a tree trunk in which visitors can and read the names of lynching victims projected on the wall and hear their names read.  There is an exhibit showing the role of slave labor in cultivating tobacco in the region.  There is a description of the ships built in Baltimore shipyards that were used to transport human cargo. There is an entire wing focused on African-Americans’ historic relationship with Baltimore’s maritime industry.  I was introduced to early feminist abolitionists like Francis Ellen Watkins Harper. I was especially interested to learn about Maryland’s divide over slavery with its northern half more inclined with the northern states and its southern half allied with the South.  By far, my favorite work on display was a highly contemporary, ironic, clever, and hilarious short 1:15 digital video by Pierre Bennu entitled “Black Moses Barbie.” Only the first in the series of three videos is on display in the museum.  Watch that first video here:

This list barely scratches the surface of what is to be found on the third level of this comprehensive, well-funded museum that honors local as well as national issues impacting African-Americans throughout U.S. history.

Check back next Monday, June 1st, to read about my visit to the Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park, the last post in this Baltimore series.

Paul R. Jones Collection of African-American Art, Mechanical Hall Gallery, University of Delaware

Newark, Delaware (Free)

February 14, 2015

Official Website

After driving out of the snow falling in Philadelphia, we made our way to the college town of Newark, Delaware.  We found the Mechanical Hall Gallery on the University of Delaware campus, which houses the Paul R. Jones Collection of African-American art.  The exhibit on display for our visit was Forget Me Not: Photography Between Poetry and Politics. On display in this contemporary, minimalist gallery were black and white photographs taken by African-American photographers mostly from the 20th century.  

The gallery is divided into three rooms, and the first room housed mostly photos of African-Americans depicted going about their daily lives in rural settings. My favorite photograph from the exhibit was in this room, titled “The Boss,” taken by Prentice Polk in 1932 as part of his Alabama portrait series titled “Old Characters,” with which he wanted to capture images of formerly enslaved people.  The subject worked at the Tuskegee Institute Market, and according to the description charged Polk $1 to take her photograph.  She stands in a dominant, powerful pose.

The second room housed photographs from more urban settings depicting lives of more privileged early 20th Century African-Americans.  We even saw a photograph, also from 1932, of a man sitting in and a woman standing on the sidewalk next to an automobile both decked out in beautiful fur coats.  The title of the piece is “Couple in Raccoon Coats,” and Harlem brownstones are visible in the background.  This room included an entire wall of early twentieth century, posed, in-studio photographs of men, women, and children in their Sunday best.

The third room included more recent works, including this photograph of the cast of the 1984 production of the play, A Soldier’s Home, which included none other than Samuel L. Jackson and Denzel Washington.

Photo taken from Playbill.com

Check back next Monday, May 4th, for the Mary McLeod Bethune Council House National Historic Site.

Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church and Museum

Philadelphia, PA (Free)

February 14, 2015

Official Website

Mother Bethel AME Church is not on the Wikipedia List, but when two unconnected, well respected friends heard I was going to Philadelphia, they both recommended that I add it to my itinerary. Mother Bethel is special because it was the very first AME church. The church was started by Richard Allen in 1787 after he experienced discrimination while working with White members of the Methodist clergy.

We rang the doorbell at Mother Bethel at 2:30 on this Saturday afternoon, only 30 minutes before the museum was scheduled to close. The ladies who let us, however, in were warm and enthusiastic. Dolores, a longtime member of Mother Bethel, was our tour guide.

She first took us into the sanctuary and explained that the current building is the fourth building on the site, which is the longest ongoing African-American-owned plot of land in the history of the country.This current building was built in 1889 and was preceded by three buildings, which were damaged or the membership outgrew. While the first was a blacksmiths’ shop that Allen had towed to the site in 1794 when the church was founded, this last building is a beautiful brick structure with three sets of exquisite stained-glass windows, beautiful wooden pews and a balcony.

The museum is in the basement of the church, and on the stairwell leading to the museum is a stained glass window honoring Allen. A mural chronicling the history of the church stands in the entryway to the museum. Then, inside, Dolores showed us paintings, photographs, and other artistic renderings of church leaders and artifacts from Allen’s life and the early days of the church along with the tomb of Richard and Sarah Allen. There, we discovered we were visiting on Richard Allen’s 255th birthday!

Allen’s is an incredible story that starts with him being born into slavery. He converts to Methodism at 17 years old, and then, once his master also converts to Methodism, Allen is freed. As a result, he is a devout Methodist, and he goes on to preach to large African-American congregations, but leaders in the Methodist church do not give him ideal times to preach, and he certainly does not have his own space. When he and his friend and colleague, Absolom Jones, are disrespected while praying in the Methodist church, they walk out, and Allen never returns. By 1816, he will have founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Below is a video about Allen’s life.

Because the museum was scheduled to close at 3:00, and snow had started to fall, we rushed through the last of the exhibits. We then bade Dolores goodbye and promised to schedule our next visit to Philadelphia on a Sunday so we could hear her sing in the church choir.

Check back next Monday, April 27, for the University of Delaware’s Paul R. Jones Collection of African American Art.

The African American Museum in Philadelphia

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ($14)

February 14, 2015

Official Website

The permanent exhibit, “Audacious Freedom,” which starts on the first floor of the African-American Museum in Philadelphia, focuses, similarly to the museum in Alexandria, on local African-American history and contributions to American history in the first century, 1776-1876.  In the Timeline Gallery, a narrator explains Philadelphia’s African-American community’s political, religious, educational, social, and other developments while spotlights are shined on relevant images inside of an enormous  3-dimensional collage of images of historical figures like FrederickDouglass, Harriet Tubman, Henry “Box” Brown, and others; newspaper clippings; drawings; signs; buildings; and other relevant images across the entire back wall of the room.

Another major element of this exhibit is on the second floor of the museum in the Conversations gallery.  In this gallery are nine human-sized screens positioned inside of window or door frames on which museum visitors see actors playing the important historical figures described in the earlier part of the exhibit like Octavius Catto and Richard Allen telling their own stories. Visitors can press buttons to get certain questions answered by these figures. These displays are certainly like nothing I had ever seen.  I can imagine that child visitors are tickled seeing the actors in costume and in character addressing them directly.

The third floor of the museum houses the temporary exhibit, which, for my visit, was “As We See It: Selected Works from the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art.” This exhibit had a heavy emphasis on children and was geared toward offering them opportunities to think about, interact with, and create art.  There were numerous sketchpads and building toys scattered around.  There was even a mirror with a chair in front of it designed to entice visitors to draw their portraits. An available kid-friendly art appreciation handout was titled, “Looking at Art: A Guide to Help You ‘See.’” I felt so knowledgeable when I saw a work by Elizabeth Catlett, whom you surely remember from my previous post, in this exhibit.  What stood out most to me, though, was a discussion I heard between a tour guide and a group of children approximately seven to ten years old.

The guide walked with the children to see to Camille Billops’s etching, I’m Black. I’m Black. I’m Dangerously Black. She asked the children questions about the image.  One girl said the picture was not pretty because it has no colors, and the group discussed whether a work of art’s beauty is dependent on the number of colors it includes.  Then, the guide read the children the title, I’m Black. I’m Black. I’m Dangerously Black, and asked for their thoughts.  The tour guide generously honored every contribution.  One clever child suggested that the subject of the picture had neglected to apply adequate sunscreen. Finally, just as the guide was preparing to lead them to the next piece, one of the smallest boys asked enthusiastically, “Do you know what’s amazing about this picture?”  The guide, of course, took this bait and asked, “What?”  He responded, “There are so many things hiding.”  Of course that insight earned him some well-deserved praise.  I was struck that art gives children a unique opportunity to imagine and explore.  This museum and all of its exhibits and galleries offer wonderful opportunities for children to do just that.

Check out this video for more about the museum and Philadelphia’s Black history:

Check back next Monday, April 20, for a look at Mother Bethel AME Church.

Museum of the African Diaspora

San Francisco, California ($10)

February 1, 2015

Official Website

On the first day of Black History Month 2015 I found myself back in the bay area visiting my sister, and again she generously agreed to join me at another museum on the list.  We had visited MoAD in 2013 and saw a wonderful Gordon Parks exhibit, and I was eager to return officially for the Our Museums project.

For this visit, Trina de Chalus, MoAD’s Director of Retail and Visitor Experience and Lovisa Brown, Director of Education, welcomed us to the newly renovated contemporary, urban, tri-level, museum.  I introduced myself as we checked in and paid the entrance fee and described this project.  I explained that I was visiting African-American themed museums, and I was immediately corrected that MoAD “does not consider itself an African American Museum,” which is understandable considering the word “Diaspora” in the name. The museum’s mission states, after all, “The Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) showcases the history, art, and cultural richness that resulted from the migration of Africans throughout the world.”  I could see why the museum’s educator would want visitors to understand the intent of the museum’s exhibits to span beyond the U.S. borders.

Despite the museum’s diasporic emphasis, the two primary exhibitions at the museum for our visit featured the work of African-American women artists, Lava Thomas and Elizabeth Catlett.

My sister and I started in the Thomas exhibit, Beyond, and found ourselves face to face with human-body-themed works including drawings and photographs of hair and teeth along with vaguely organ-shaped sculptures. I was pleased to be newly exposed to such a creative contemporary Black artist.  Her realistic drawing of a severed dreadlock ponytail, part of her Lavaville series, stood out most to me, with its impressive depiction of every hair.

We moved on to The Art of Elizabeth Catlett, and, to our delight, the exhibit included works by Catlett’s second husband, Francisco Mora, and her protégé, Samella Lewis. Catlett’s story interested us, especially her political activism and her self imposed exile to Mexico.  Many of Catlett’s subjects are women, including in her most famous work, Sharecropper (1970).  We discussed the process for producing one of her preferred media, the linocut.  Sharecropper, along with several of the pieces in the exhibit are works of linocut.  Watch this video to see the process for yourself:

Catlett was also a sculptor.  Check out this video to hear Elizabeth Catlett talk about the Beauty of the Black Woman and to see a few more of her pieces:

We spent a little time at the end of our visit in the museum’s lobby where iPads are set up for visitors to explore online exhibits.  I spent the most time exploring an online exhibit on food of the African diaspora.  The exhibits include videos and audio files.  I watched a video on the use of beans across the diaspora and learned about foods brought from West Africa to the Americas and how their use has evolved over the centuries.

My experience in this museum was dramatically different from my experiences in the African-American history-themed museums I had visited just prior to this one. While the other museums offer regional history lessons in permanent, text-heavy exhibits, MoAD is designed to continuously welcome new, diverse traveling exhibits and display art and cultural artifacts from across the diaspora in a sparse, contemporary setting.  I love to see a contemporary museum featuring Black artists and exhibits from around the world, but I did miss learning about the history and legacy of San Francisco’s African-American community.  I guess there’s always room for one more museum.

Check back next Monday, April 13, for a look at  African-American Museum in Philadelphia.

Alexandria Black History Museum

Alexandria, Virginia (Recommended fee $2.00)

January 2, 2015

Official Website

When we visited the Black history museum in Alexandria, Virginia, I immediately saw how the small but extensive panel exhibit in this museum perhaps best captures my vision years ago of a network of “American slavery museums” across the nation following the example of the worldwide phenomenon that is the Holocaust Museum.

The guide proudly introduces the permanent exhibit, “Securing the Blessings of Liberty,” saying that it follows the history of the African American population in Alexandria starting in Africa until about 1820. This is unique because African-American history museum exhibits typically emphasize the most well-documented 20th century history of Americans descended from enslaved Africans rather than these earlier times.

The first set of panels captures the sub-Saharan African civilizations and includes artifacts from sub-Saharan African cultures that dominated the slave trade. What stood out most to me was learning about Bartolome de Las Casas, a Spanish missionary, who was an advocate for indigenous peoples in the America and thus, although he eventually opposed all slavery, is credited with recommending Africans to replace the poorly-suited indigenous American population enslaved in the 16th century Caribbean. Watch this video to learn more about de Las Casas’s role in the history of the Americas:

The panels go on to describe the middle passage including heart-wrenching details using quotations from Oloudah Equiano and Europeans who participated in or witnessed the Slave Trade. The panels then go on with details specific to slaves and free Blacks in the Alexandria area. The exhibit features Benjamin Banneker and his important role in American history along with other free Americans of African decent in Alexandria. The writer even brilliantly points out that any buildings with historical significance for White Alexandrians surely also housed or were frequented by early Black Alexandrians, and are thus significant to Alexandria’s African-American history as well.

In addition to the panels of text, the exhibit uses quotations from a variety of sources as well as images including photos of buildings, artifacts from archeological digs, and life-size wax figures to make real this portion of American and Alexandrian history.

The temporary exhibit in the museum showcases the recently-opened Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial and explains the history of the cemetery. We were so intrigued, we delayed our already late lunch to visit the somber and beautiful site where hundreds of self-emancipated former slaves and Civil War veterans are buried.

Watch this video to learn more about the cemetery.

 Check back next Monday, April 6, for a look at San Fransisco’s Museum of the African Diaspora.

African-American Civil War Museum

Washington, District of Columbia (Free)

December 31, 2014

Official Web Site

I saw the African-American Civil War Memorial when I visited DC in 2010, and little did I know that about a year after my last visit, an entire museum opened to educate the public on the role of African-Americans in the Civil War.  Despite the fact that the exhibit, much to my husband’s chagrin, is mostly devoid of technological enhancements, we learned so much about slavery and about the civil war.

This exhibit recounts details about the history of the slave experience in the U.S. including slaves’ experiences in the Civil War. What stood out most to me about the exhibit is what I learned about President Lincoln’s reason for writing the Emancipation Proclamation.  He did not go into the war intending to free the slaves.  It was only after the union army took many hits from the confederate side that Lincoln chose this lifeline.  Emancipating the slaves was, in fact, an almost last resort effort to win the War. After some strategic planning to prevent the public from realizing he needed former slaves to enlist and fight for the Union, he signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863.  As a result, thousands of African-Americans sought refuge in Union encampments where they were first held as “contraband” and were eventually allowed to enlist.  By the end of the war, approximately 200,000 African-Americans had fought and contributed to the Union’s victory. The irony is that despite what we are taught, Lincoln’s desire to emancipate the slaves did not cause the war; instead, his desire to win the war caused Lincoln to free the slaves. And it worked.  On the front of the museum’s brochure is this 1865 quotation from President Lincoln: “Without the military help of the black freedmen, the war against the south could not have been won.”

The exhibit’s extensive panels highlight the strategic value of having African-American soldiers, who were more familiar with the southern culture and terrain, fighting for the union and includes the dramatic story of Robert Smalls’ daring delivery of a confederate warship into the hands of the Union navy.  The exhibit also captures the roles of Black women in the war including celebrities like Harriet Tubman and Harriet Jacobs and other prominent figures like Frederick Douglass whose two sons enlisted.  

I have shared some of these insights with a my intelligent, educated friends since my visit, and none of them knew the role emancipating the slaves played in the Union’s winning of the Civil War.  It seems like a simple enough fact from U.S. history, and it’s difficult to imagine that the widespread ignorance is coincidental.  This example offers one more reminder that we must be vigilant about using reliable sources to educate ourselves and our communities.  Visit this museum, and then share with your friends this critical and not-typically- taught explanation for why the Union army actually won the Civil War.

Check back next Monday, March 30, for a look at The Alexandria Black History Museum.

Frederick Douglass National Historic Site

Washington District of Colombia (Free)

December 30, 2014

Official Website

Who knew that nineteenth century African-American icon Frederick Douglass spend the last seventeen years of his life in Washington DC?  His house is now owned by the National Park Service and open to the public. Park rangers lead tours of the twenty-one room mansion where many of Douglass’s belongings including artwork, furniture, books, clothing, and even a set of dumbbells are still housed and preserved thanks to the advocacy of Douglass’s second wife, Helen Pitts Douglass, to maintain the site as a historical monument after his death. Douglass even had a “growlery,” a small outdoor structure which our tour guide referred to as “the first man cave,” where Douglass spent time engaging in one of his favorite and most renowned pastimes: reading. Our guide recited to us a number of anecdotes about Douglass’s later life, traveling around the world and playing with his grandchildren at home.

In addition to the house, the site includes a visitors’ center with a small theater where we watched a short 1980’s film chronicling Douglass’s life.  A wall in the Center is adorned with a timeline of Douglass’s life that includes some artifacts like a cane that was given to Douglass by President Lincoln and Douglass’s death mask.  Another wall is covered with quotations from Douglass’s many writings and speeches. On our way out, we encountered another park ranger, friendlier than the one who’d given us the tour, and my husband quizzed him on Douglass’s financial circumstances.  We learned that Douglass had invested $10,000 into and had been president of the Freedman’s Bank just before it closed in 1874.

We left truly awed by this man, born a slave but amassing enough wealth and influence to go on speaking tours, write bestselling books, purchase a mansion, invest in a bank, and travel the world.

Check back next Monday, March 23, for a look at The African American Civil War Museum.

Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum

Washington DC (Free)

December 30, 2014

Official Website

Although this Smithsonian museum is listed in my Wikipedia “List of Museums Focused on African-Americans,” and it is located in an African-American community, called by a friend the “worst” part of DC, the featured exhibit when we visited was not about African-American culture or history.  The exhibit, Ubuhle Women: Beadwork and the Art of Independence, instead showcased the beautiful beadwork of a small group of South African women living on a compound owned by a White woman advocate who lobbied the museum’s director, Camille Giraud Akeju, to exhibit the women’s work.  While all of the works are gorgeous, the most stunning piece was, by far, the multi-paneled African Crucifixion.  This work was initially commissioned for a church, and like much of the women’s art, includes elements honoring their colleagues, family members, and friends lost to AIDS.  One of the women who worked on the piece actually died of AIDS soon after it was completed.  The exhibit also included a documentary film featuring the artists and their benefactor describing their processes and their experiences that had brought them to Ubuhle.

The museum contains three exhibition spaces, and we saw in the second space the exhibit, Home Sewn: Quilts from the Lower Mississippi Valley.  This exhibition included a video showing women sewing together and talking about the value of quilt-making in their lives.  What stood out most about this video was its depiction of African-American quilters in Mississippi along with White quilters quilting together.  The women reported that this act of quilting together offered some healing power in response to those old, familiar southern tensions between the groups.  Of course, the walls of this small room are adorned with quilts from the Valley.

The last exhibit tucked in the back of this museum is Separate and Unequaled: Black Baseball in the District of Columbia.  It is comprised mostly of photos of DC’s African-American baseball teams over the years and their owners and coaches and other supporters.  It is the one exhibit listed without an ending date.  Thus, it is a perfect exhibit to expose a DC baseball fan to some little-known, local baseball history.

Watch this video for more about the Ubuhule women’s artwork:

Check back next Monday, March 16, for a look at the Frederick Douglass Historic Site.

African-American Museum and Library at Oakland

Oakland, CA (Free)

August 2, 2014

Official Website

Last summer I spent some time with my sister who lives in the bay area, so I convinced her to join me on my excursion to the African-American Museum and Library at Oakland.  When we arrived at the museum around 3:30 in the afternoon and signed in, we were clearly the only visitors to the museum that Saturday, which saddened me.  There was a competing event a few blocks away, the Oakland Art and Soul Festival, which drew thousands to the neighborhood but, unfortunately, none to the museum.  Even my sister and I were tempted by the music and throngs of people flocking to the festival, but we stayed on track and went to the museum.

The museum and library’s historic building was built in 1902 as one of Oakland’s first libraries.   It has since remained part of Oakland’s public library system. In 1989 the building was badly damaged in an earthquake but was eventually restored and reopened in its current form in 2002. Inside the building the reference library is on the first floor and the exhibits are on the second floor at the top of a beautiful staircase.  Around the perimeter of the main museum room is a permanent exhibit chronicling the history of the African American community in the bay area.  That exhibit includes panels and photographs along with video interviews of a diverse array of current Oakland residents.  The most striking element of this exhibit are the enormous beautiful photo prints of early 20th century images of African Americans in Oakland on white fabric hanging from the ceiling.

The temporary exhibit on display when we visited was “The Mood, The Music, The Passion in Art” featuring brightly colored, jazz themed paintings from the artist, Charles Blackwell. Once we finished perusing Blackwell’s paintings and learning about Oakland’s Black history, we returned to the first floor where we scanned the library shelves. My sister, herself an artist, discovered some Black art books, and we spent the last of the library’s open minutes exploring the history of African-American art. We were ultimately notified on the library’s loudspeaker that the library was closing.  We were the only patrons in the building, so the librarian called us out, expressing his hope that “the two ladies” enjoyed their visit.

Check back next Monday, March 9, for a look at The Anacostia Community Museum in Washington DC.

Wells’ Built Museum of African-American History and Culture

Orlando, FL ($5.00)

February 28, 2014

Official Website

I had called ahead to this museum as well and was assured by Charlene that she would be on site on the date of our arrival to show us around.  However, when we left the Mary S. Harrell Black Heritage Museum 55 miles away with only forty minutes until the Wells’ Built’s 5:00 closing time, I was concerned we wouldn’t make it.  I called and reached Charlene again to tell her we were on our way in hopes they would stay open for us.  She was gracious and again assured me they wouldn’t close before we arrived.

Once we finally got there, we discovered that the entrance fee of five dollars was only accepted in cash, and we had just enough cash for one ticket.  My husband offered to find an ATM in the area, but the museum’s treasurer, James DeShay, generously let us off the hook, and we agreed to mail in our money later.  Once that was settled, Charlene sat us down in front of a promotional video explaining the history of this museum and its site.

It turns out that Dr. William Wells was an African-American physician and entrepreneur serving Orlando’s Black community in the 1920s.  When he opened a dance hall where African-American musicians came from around the country to perform, he realized he would need to provide those entertainers with accommodations too since in the Jim Crow South, hotels owned by Whites would not take Black boarders.  Thus, in 1929, he opened the Wells’ Built Hotel.  Dr. Wells’ hotel is even listed in 1949 edition of the infamous Negro Motorist Green Book.  The museum displays at least one registry featuring signatures of famous African-American performers such as Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, and Ray Charles, who all stayed at the Wells’ Built Hotel.  Other items on display in the one=room museum space include works of African art, photographs of local African-American heroes, and prints of works of African-American art.

As much as we enjoyed the museum, the best part of our exploration of Orlando’s African-American community was yet to come.  When we finished perusing the exhibits, we chatted with James and discovered that he is an artist in his own right.  He is a published poet and spoken word artist who works at the museum and coaches kids’ football.  When we learned that he is also an Orlando native, we asked him for a soul food dinner recommendation in the neighborhood.  Without hesitation, he directed us to Nikki’s Place, just a few blocks away.

When we arrived at Nikki’s Place, our young hostess and waitress greeted and seated us.  We soon saw why James did not hesitate.  The food was incredible, and we even got to meet the cook and owner, Nikki!  We topped off our soul food dinner with the best bread pudding either of us had ever tasted.  Nikki’s legendary bread pudding continues to come up in conversations nearly a year later, and we often contemplate flying back to Orlando just to get another taste.

For more about the Wells’ Built, check out this video:

Check back next Monday, March 2, for a look at the African-American Museum and Library at Oakland.

Mary S. Harrell Black Heritage Museum and Heritage House (formerly St. Rita’s Black History Museum)

New Smyrna Beach, FL (Free)

February 28, 2014

Official Website

Our second Florida destination was a small green and white church building in the tiny town of New Smyrna Beach, about fifteen miles from Daytona Beach. I had called ahead and played phone tag with Jimmy Harrell, the executive Director of the museum and widower of Mary Harrell, to ensure that the museum would be open when we arrived.Mr.Harrell was not there on this day; instead, we were greeted enthusiastically by Angie, who is on the museum’s board, and Sherrie, both retired ladies who live in the area.
First, we browsed the small one-room building, formerly one of the first Catholic Churches in the area open to African-Americans. It is now filled with an assortment of artifacts from pieces of African art to replicas of African-American inventions, to local items from African-American schools and the local railroad, which was critical to the early African-American community.
Once we’d perused the artifacts inside of the museum, we told Sherrie and Angie about this project. They immediately recommended several other nearby museums that are missing from the Wikipedia list. They also gave us a copy of the Florida Black Heritage Trail magazine; we didn’t have the heart to tell them that we were heading home the following day. Before we left the museum, they insisted that we tour the Heritage House across the street, a model of a 1920s shotgun house which had been typically inhabited by African-Americans in the community. A variety of relics are on display in theHeritage House including a full kitchen with an old-fashioned icebox, jars of preserved fruits, pots and pans; the bedroom of the Heritage House even has set up an antique typewriter.
We were so grateful for their help and expertise, but we had to hurriedly bid Sherrie and Angie goodbye hoping to make the fifty-five mile trek to our final Florida museum destination back in Orlando.

Check back Monday, February 23rd for the first blog post in the Florida series.

Mary McLeod Bethune Home

Daytona Beach FL (Free)

February 28, 2014

Official Website

The first trip I scheduled after I resolved to pursue this project was to Orlando, Florida for a professional conference. I checked the Wikipedia list and saw one museum listed in Orlando and several others in neighboring Florida towns. I mapped out the Florida locations to determine which I could visit during my trip, and I settled on three starting with the Mary McLeod Bethune Home in Daytona Beach.

The beautiful home is located on the campus of Bethune-Cookman University, a Historically Black University, which Ms. Bethune founded in 1904 initially as The Literary and Industrial School for Training Negro Girls. She lived in the house on campus until her death in 1955.

Dawn Gross, the assistant to the curator, greeted us when we entered the house; her passion for Bethune was immediately apparent as she gleefully shared stories with us about Bethune’s fundraising for the college, her leadership tactics, her political influence, and where she traveled. We followed Dawn from room to room examining Bethune’s belongings, which have been maintained and remain in the house including furniture, dishes, books, photos of her many famous friends and acquaintances, and certificates of achievement hanging on the walls.

Dawn offered a detailed history of the university in the context of Bethune’s life and accomplishments as and educator and activist. Dawn even shared information about Bethune’s personal life. Mary McLeod and Mr. Bethune’s marriage did not last long; they separated after nine years. Being married to such a powerful woman must have been challenging for him. What stood out most to me were the stories she shared about Bethune’s strategies for maintaining adequate funding for the school. Because she was very politically engaged, working under four US presidents, she had unprecedented access to wealthy potential donors across racial lines. She fearlessly requested donations from those people in order to keep the college afloat. Even the house we toured had been purchased for Bethune by Thomas H. White, of White Sewing Machine Company and James N. Gamble, of the Proctor & Gamble soap company. Her ability to persuade wealthy and powerful people to support her cause generated the results Bethune needed to fulfill her commitment to education in the African-American community. Click here to read more about Bethune’s fundraising strategies.

Unfortunately, we did not get to see much of the university campus because we had two more destinations that day, but I was inspired by Bethune’s commitment to providing education to the members of her African-American community. That commitment continues to pay off.

Check back Monday, February 16th for the first blog post in the Florida series.

I have been interested in African-American history since before I had interests. Some of my earliest memories are of my mom taking me to the library in February to study important figures in Black history. I specifically remember encountering Harriet Tubman’s heroism, reading Langston Hughes poems aloud, and learning about Benjamin Banneker’s math and science expertise.

As I matured, the interest my mom had cultivated blossomed. With an English minor in my undergraduate education, I loved African-American literature. I was fascinated by slave narratives and by Toni Morrison’s novels, which capture that history through her lyrical, non-linear narrative style, and when I studied abroad in Barbados, I devoured two semesters’ worth of West Indian literature classes and read Ellison’s Invisible Man for the first time. That love grew in my post-graduate work in English where I did an independent study on Pan-African women’s literature. I continue to love African-American literature, but I read more non-fiction now. I tout works like Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns and Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow to anyone who will listen. I also never miss a documentary on the subject like PBS’s 2005 Slavery and the Making of America, Sam Pollard’s 2012 Slavery by Another Name, and Henry Louis Gates’s 2013 The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross.

The more I learned, though, the more frustrated I became. I had to fight back tears during a visit to LA’s Museum of Tolerance in 2009 because I realized that the Jewish community worldwide had done such an amazing job of documenting the atrocities of the Holocaust, but I was frustrated by what I saw as the Black community’s inaction in using museums to document and share the nearly 250 years of atrocities committed in America’s “peculiar institution.” I visited a Holocaust museum in Israel, and I have visited and heard about others across the world. So I wondered, “Where are our Slavery museums?”

That question lingered in the back of my mind for years, and when I visited The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio in 2011, that question came flooding back. I was overjoyed to see that one museum existed that was dedicated to documenting the atrocities and the victories of the African-American experience. Were there others?

Then, near the end of 2013, a Wikipedia list put me in action. I don’t remember what I was looking for when I happened upon the List of Museums focused on African-Americans, but when I found it, I got an idea: Why not visit every museum on the list? I didn’t know how long it would take, but perhaps by the end of my excursions, I would be comforted by the information that is available to the public through museums on the American institution of slavery and African-American history or I would be inspired to do something about the lack thereof.
So of all places, I started in Florida. . .

Check back Monday, February 9th for the first blog post in the Florida series.