Ex-Governor Wilder Spearheads Drive for U.S. National Slavery Museum
Major corporations and academic institutions have made headlines recently, acknowledging that slave labor played a big role in making them the American success stories they are today.
Last week, James Moeser, chancellor of the University of North Carolina, publicly admitted that the jewel of a campus he presides over in Chapel Hill was built by slaves and free blacks more than 200 years ago. Earlier this year, banking giant Wachovia Corp. vowed to contribute funding to black history programming soon after announcing some of its predecessor banks owned slaves, a move that JPMorgan Chase also made when similar information was discovered about its history.
These are just a few reasons why a national memorial should be erected to honor those who toiled under the inhuman conditions of slavery, said Vonita W. Foster, Ph.D., executive director of the United States National Slavery Museum, an in-progress project she believes will offer a one-of-a-kind picture of slavery in the United States.
“American slavery, as we all know, is a very complex issue,” Foster stated in a recent interview. “The institution of slavery is one of the most defining social and economic issues in American history."
The museum, which is slated to open in Fredericksburg, Virginia in 2007, is the brainchild of L. Douglas Wilder, who became the nation’s first black governor since Reconstruction 16 years ago today. Currently the mayor of Richmond, Wilder is the grandson of slaves and believes that their stories of trials and triumphs should be celebrated, Foster said.
“When [Wilder] was governor of Virginia, he visited Goree Island. After that emotional trip, he really felt that America needed a national slavery museum and that it should be in Virginia because slavery really began here,” Foster said, adding that unlike many of the well-known black history museums throughout the country, the U.S. National Slavery Museum will focus solely on the institution of slavery in America.
Being built on 38 acres of land, the 300,000-square-feet museum, once complete, can be viewed by all who travel along Interstate 95, a major north-south thoroughfare along the East coast. In addition to countless artifacts, exhibits and a library, the museum will feature a full, life-sized replica of a slave ship, depicting how our ancestors were brought from their homes in Africa to the Americas during the 17th century.
With a who’s who of black Americans lending their names, talent and dollars to the project, the museum has become more than just a dream. Members of the museum’s board of directors include Wilder, entertainer Bill Cosby, noted historian John Hope Franklin and Prince Ermias Sahle-Selassie, grandson of former Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie. Academic leaders like H. Patrick Swygert and William R. Harvey, the respective presidents of Howard University and Hampton University, have also been named to the board.
Cosby, who along with his wife, Camille, are well known for their philanthropy, donated $1 million to help fund the project. The support is greatly needed, Foster said, adding that there is currently a $200 million capital campaign underway that has gained the support of individuals and corporations. A black-tie fundraiser headed by musician Wynton Marsalis will take place in February at New York’s Lincoln Center, Foster said, noting that many other fundraising efforts are being planned.
“Right now, our challenge is to raise money so that we can open and sustain the museum. There are always challenges, but we’re up for that,” she said, maintaining that, in order to actually finish the construction, only half of the $200 million will be needed.
Board member Franklin, now an emeritus professor at Duke University, firmly believes that many people will find the museum to be the authority on one of the darkest periods in history, offering lessons that have for too long gone untold.
“We don’t know about the history of slavery as much as we should,” Franklin stated in a recent interview. “There are all kinds of things that we need to know, like slavery and the founding of this nation, the relationship of slavery and the Constitution, our Founding Fathers and the role they played in slavery.
“I think a national slavery museum will give us an opportunity to trace with some accuracy the history of slavery,” Franklin said. “We need to know about our history. Not knowing is one of the problems we have today.”
Shantrelle Lewis, who is pursuing a graduate degree in African Studies at Temple University, agrees with Franklin that blacks don’t know as much as they should about slavery. An education assistant at the African-American Museum in Philadelphia, Lewis takes extra measures to ensure that anyone who visits gets a clear picture of African history -- the good as well as the bad. It’s something she hopes takes place at the U.S. National Slavery Museum.
“It has to be historically accurate. Don’t just talk about the Negro spirituals, which were very powerful,” Lewis expressed in a recent interview, adding that when she lectures on slavery, even to children, she gets graphic to really drive home the message.
“When I give tours, I try to bring them through that experience,” Lewis said, stressing the inhumanity of conditions slaves experienced during the journey across the Atlantic Ocean, from urinating on themselves to standing in feces, all the while fearing the unknown hand being dealt to them.
“Those are the types of things that aren’t often discussed when we talk about slavery,” Lewis said. “We hear about the cotton fields, but we rarely talk about what happened to our people. We kind of paint this one-sided picture of slavery and how it affected us.”
The stories that need to be told, Lewis said, shouldn’t be viewed as too much to bear because they are indeed actually what happened.
“When people hear or see these graphic images, it allows them to put everything into perspective and understand what their ancestors went through,” Lewis continued. “The fact that we were still able to produce, be resilient and create scholars and leaders like W.E. DuBois, Carter G. Woodson, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks -- that shows that we are a great and mighty people who gave much to American culture.”
Foster stresses that the museum will not paint a pretty picture of how we got over. With 10 permanent galleries, it will strive to tell the stories of how slaves were the unsung heroes in building this country.
“It was really on their sweat, tears and blood that America came to be,” Foster said, challenging anyone who believes that a slavery museum shouldn’t exist to see the success of the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., which tells the story of persecution against Jewish people during the Holocaust.
“This country that we live in right now would not be a global power had it not been for slaves,” Foster said, emphasizing that slavery was indeed a major economic boon to this country.
Frankie Russell, a spokeswoman for the U.S. National Slavery Museum agrees.
“This is about us telling our story, a story that is true,” Russell commented in a recent interview. “This will not be a story where we’re going to walk away with our heads hung in shame, but rather a story that will uplift us as a people and have us see some things to be proud of."
Added Russell: “This museum will be about commemorating and understanding slavery and how overcoming it helped us move forward to who we are today.”
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Monday, November 7th 2005 at 10:29AM
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