At 12 years old, my daughter Layla doesn’t have the long memory that I have. Still, she can sense something is afoot in this country.
From headlines and airwaves and bumper stickers, she knows that Americans are starkly divided politically and culturally. Even at her tender age, she is aware that there’s a debate raging over how history is taught, especially when it comes to race and the legacy of slavery and discrimination.
Recently, we took a tour of five Black history museums in South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama to understand the nuances of how the past is preserved and depicted in the South, a region where the harsh reality of the Black experience was whitewashed for years and Black achievement was frequently ignored.
Too often, Black history — despite being integral to American history — has been given cursory treatment in classrooms.
When we began our weeklong journey, we were listening to the radio in the car when we heard an announcer attempt to tell listeners the meaning of Juneteenth. She described it as a day celebrating the emancipation of slaves in Texas because Texas was the first state to free slaves. That is largely the opposite of why Juneteenth, a federal holiday, is commemorated, but it was a perfect example of our poor understanding of American history.
“Having places like museums that tell different stories or tell stories from different perspectives is really important to rounding out an educational experience and knowledge of self,” said Tonya Matthews, CEO of the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, one of the two newly opened Black history museums we visited on this trip.
“We take pride in the fact that there are times when we are teaching things that are outside what you would learn in your everyday experience.”
Layla is learning Black history in school, but she’s concerned about those who aren’t. She also thinks there’s a need for education on the histories of Asian and Latino people and other cultures that make up America. During our trip, she kept a journal to record her impressions of the museums and her views on where our country stands at this moment.
A lot of people don’t know about history in general. And when you learn about Black history you are learning about the 1800s up to the 1960s, when the civil rights movement was happening. But when you get into the 1980s and 1990s, it says racism is gone but that is not true. I have learned about some of that but I would like to learn more about it.
People have views that Black history should be taken out of schools and I don’t think that should happen, but they have a reason that they think is valid and I have a reason that I think is valid opposing their view and I can’t really control that.
No matter your views, you should know what happened. Everyone should know American history. Young people will have these views saying “America is great” and they won’t know what has happened in the past. Society is going forward but we are slowly going forward.
I hoped our museum tour would supplement Layla’s education in the same way the trips I took with my parents did mine.
The second leg of our journey took us to Macon, where we visited the Tubman Museum, one of the oldest Black history museums in the state.
The bright yellow exterior of the Tubman Museum is like a beacon in a downtown that’s been recognized for its ongoing revitalization. The museum, founded in the 1980s by Richard Keil, then a Catholic priest, relocated in 2015 to its current building.
Credit: Nedra Rhone
Credit: Nedra Rhone
A year before that, Macon became the fourth largest city in Georgia when the city proper and Bibb County consolidated. Keil believed Macon, located in the center of the state, was the perfect home for a Black history museum. He also felt strongly that there were too few repositories of Black culture in the state.
Of all the museums on our tour, the Tubman Museum was one of Layla’s favorites. For starters, she observed, it was the only museum we visited where children outnumbered adults. She also noted how local it felt, without being overly narrow:
I like the Tubman Museum because it focuses on a lot of important people in Macon. That is important to see because I barely knew any of them.
People don’t have to be Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcom X to make a difference. These are people who impacted Macon and not a lot of people get to see that.
The Tubman reminds me of the Black history museums and cultural centers that I grew up visiting — spaces that weren’t just filled with exhibits but with people from the community.
During the hours we spent at the museum, we joined a small group of spectators assembled for a concert by flutist Hector Nieves. On the way out, we wound our way through tables in the rotunda that were being arranged for a special event after the museum closed.
Vedet Coleman-Robinson, executive director of the Association of African American Museums, said many Black museums recognize the importance of establishing an ongoing relationship with the community they represent.
“Our museums are not just a place where artifacts are being kept. They are places where people feel like they are valued. They are places of refuge and support,” said Coleman-Robinson, whose organization was established in the late 1970s to support Black museums and now has more than 1,000 individuals and institutions as members. “Our museums always started with the community in mind first. We built collections around community. When we didn’t have collections, we were collecting stories in the community.”
But it can be difficult to find the level of support needed in a community that is still battling the impact of suburbanization, urban renewal and blight. Harold Young, executive director of the Tubman Museum, said his biggest challenge is funding to maintain everyday operations.
“We are very progressive, as far as moving forward,” Young said. “It is very important to maintain our history because it is trying to be erased as if some things never existed.”
Credit: Nedra Rhone
Credit: Nedra Rhone
Many Black history museums begin as grassroots efforts, Coleman-Robinson said. Then the founder works to get support from the city, the state and other entities. Foundations, corporations and government agencies are sometimes sources of funding, but that can be limited, she said.
Tragedies, such as the shooting deaths of nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, or the police killing of George Floyd, can bring an influx of temporary money as people and corporations seek to promote racial understanding. But that’s not the way any organization wants to draw support.
“Sometimes you get funding through guilt,” Coleman-Robinson said. “Will we continue to receive money because of people getting murdered? That is not sustainable if you are giving money based on the death of a Black body.”
All museums, but specifically African American museums, have to continue making themselves relevant to younger audiences. Some institutions, especially those that are state funded, are more aggressively seeking K-12 collaborations, Coleman-Robinson said.
Museums also have explored living history programs or technology, such as virtual reality and QR codes, to engage tech-focused young people. Some institutions have partnered with children’s museums for guidance on making exhibits more interactive, she said.
Credit: Tubman Museum
Credit: Tubman Museum
Early this year, the Tubman Museum unveiled a Tyler Perry exhibit, the first to document the life and career of the multi-talented artist. It features interactive elements, as well as display items from Perry’s television and movie sets. On one screen, Perry reads what is presented as a letter to his teenage self. The message, to remain hopeful in the face of criticism and fear, seemed to resonate with younger people, including Layla.
Dreams can come true if you put your mind to it because he went from living in his car to becoming this millionaire in the film industry. I thought his story was inspiring.
It was interesting to see his life story because I feel like he is such a prominent person now that you wouldn’t think to add him and his life to an African American history museum but he has also had an impact.
He is a very popular Black director and actor and had a good message to share with people. That exhibit will probably bring a lot more people to the museum because a lot of people know who Tyler Perry is.
Young, the executive director, said it is important to present a range of learning opportunities to young people visiting the museum. “You have to teach young people where they came from or otherwise one day we can end up repeating history because they don’t know,” he said. “It is not just so much of the negative part of slavery or the civil rights movement, but how did people survive that? It teaches us survival skills, maintaining your goals and staying focused on the journey.”
Credit: nedra rhone
Credit: nedra rhone
Before leaving for Alabama, the next stop on our journey, we jotted down our hopes and dreams, folding the paper into airplanes and affixing it to a wall in the exhibit as instructed.
Then we took one last photo of Layla jumping in the sky against a white backdrop inscribed with Tyler Perry’s personal mantra: “Your beginning never dictates your destiny.”
ABOUT THIS SERIES
In June, Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Nedra Rhone and her 12-year-old daughter took a five-day road trip to Black history museums in South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. With two new institutions opening in the region this summer, Rhone saw an opportunity to examine the ways that history is being preserved in the South. She considers the museums more important than ever now, as lawmakers around the nation are limiting how race is discussed in schools. Check out her dispatches from each stop (ajc.com/opinion/real-life-blog). In this column and in two others — one of which was published Thursday and another that’s coming Sunday — Rhone reflects more deeply on what she and her daughter learned on their journey.
