Editor’s note: NCRP Senior Research and Policy Associate Ryan Schlegel and Field Associate Ben Barge recently visited the Alabama Black Belt as part of a listening tour hosted by Grantmakers for Southern Progress and the Black Belt Community Foundation. This is the third in a series of blog posts from activists, organizers and community leaders they met during their trip. NCRP strives to elevate the voices of grantees and potential grantees in conversations about philanthropy. This blog series will address topics relevant to the work underway for social, economic, racial and environmental justice in the Black Belt from the perspective of the people doing that work.
While the 1965 Voting Rights Movement has finally received some national prominence, following visits by President Clinton, President Obama, Oprah Winfrey and the cast of the movie, “Selma,” the history of slavery is a fading memory of a past that most Americans prefer to forget.
Last year, a Canadian couple entered the Ancient African Enslavement & Civil War Museum in Selma, Alabama, with visible concern and anticipation. We were told by a white southerner that slavery wasn’t so bad in the South, the young white woman said. We came to the museum to learn more about what is referred to as a peculiar institution, she continued.
They, like most African Americans of all ages and races, were not aware of Frederick Douglass’s description of slavery in America. Douglass described slavery in America as “crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than the people of the United States at this very hour.”
The museum experience begins in ancient Africa, with the builders of pyramids, remarkable structures and cultural treasures. It does not tell this remarkable story of violence and survival, it places the visitors in the story through song, visuals and interactive engagement. Totally unfunded, the museum relies on the creativity of local artists, storytellers and musicians to place the visitor in the heart of the story.
A makeshift slave ship, Door of No Return, auction blocks, and plantation and rebellion scenes incite the imagination and move the human spirit to find the truth without the bitter pill of hate and retribution.
The latest exhibit, KKK, Kids Killing Kids, challenges that same spirit to connect the dots to ponder the reasons for the escalating youth violence in the African American community. Five people were killed in five weeks in this small historic city of 19,000 people. In spite of Selma’s national prominence, it remains traumatized with poverty and miseducation.
The stories in the Hall of Resistance at the museum are captured in the “Resistance” song that is a creative reminder to youth to resist drugs, alcohol, violence and other vices that can limit the human potential. The song is one of the many songs in our self-published book, “There’s A River Flowing.” We partnered with the Perry County School System to bring the history of resistance into the classroom through music and the arts. The songbook was written with the help of students to guide the infusion of that history into the classroom. More than 50 years after the U.S. Supreme Court considered in Brown v. Board of Education the white doll/black doll experience’s adverse impact on Black children in segregated schools, no one thinks the black doll is pretty or smart, not even the Black children.
Our history song book allows the museum to go beyond its walls on Water Avenue in view of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The bridge reached international attention when peaceful marchers were brutally attacked in 1965 on the bridge named to honor Edmund Pettus, a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. On the east side of the bridge, our sister museum, the National Voting Rights Museum, with stories of people who resisted violence and a century of disenfranchisement to march until victory is won.
The longevity of the Museum depends on our ability to generate a stable flow of revenue through a marketing plan that attracts an increased flow of tourists, along with other revenue sources, such as the mass distribution and sale of “There’s A River Flowing.” Although we own the building free and clear, we need funds for staff and building repairs.
The needs of the museum are very basic at this time. We struggle to pay utilities and the $1,000 a month stipend to our extraordinarily committed director, Yomi Goodall. Under her leadership, the museum has attracted more tours, but the low admission cost does not provide fees to cover basics. The heating and air system was vandalized and there is insufficient resources to repair or replace the system and to make other needed repairs. We also need additional staff, including a bookkeeper and a marketing person.
Annie Pearl Avery, an original member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee who worked with Dr. Martin Luther King, Bob Moses, James Foreman and other Civil Rights legends, is a special attraction at the museum. She works under a senior citizens program that pays her the minimum wage. Funds are needed to pay Ms. Avery and Ms. Goodall a decent salary. A plan and space are available to create the Underground Railroad, which will parallel the historical railroad with the railroad needed for our youth to escape from crime and mediocracy.
The museum could not exist without the extraordinary commitment of its volunteers and underpaid staff. We plan, not to just exist, but to grow and prosper. It is the only museum of its kind in the South. We must survive. We must prosper for our children and generations to come. From the stories of the past, lessons can be learned to build a better future.
We own our boldness, our creativity and our determination to use the museum to tell stories that can help address the low self-esteem of so many youth who do not know their powers to change their lives and the conditions of their families and communities. “There’s a river and it’s telling me, I’m somebody.” That’s the song we want them to sing every day of their lives.
The Canadian couple left the museum with a new truth and a renewed spirit. We invite the world into our world, a world that can help transform lives and the human spirit.
Faya Rose Touré is an attorney and civil rights activist in Selma. Follow @NCRP on Twitter.
Image by Mike Norton, modified under Creative Commons license.
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