Built largely in secret and under decidedly unorthodox circumstances, the Whitney [Plantation] had been turned into a museum dedicated to telling the story of slavery — the first of its kind in the United States.
Located on land where slaves worked for more than a century, in a state where the sight of the Confederate flag is not uncommon, the results are both educational and visceral.
— nytimes.com
5 Comments
How has there not been a museum to slavery created yet?
davvid, see related How America is failing to preserve its historic slave markets.
Slavery is unlike any other blot on American history in the extent to which it was codified in our laws, our economy, and our society—in the American idea itself. “The consensus, conventional history of the United States is one which runs linearly from slavery to freedom,” says Johnson. “Slavery exists in that story as the pre-history of freedom. But there’s not an effort to fully evoke its horrors.” After the Civil War, Johnson says, “the price of moving forward for the white United States was the forgetting of slavery.” -- via CityLab
This place is awesome. Kudos to Mr. Cummings.
This is an amazing story. Shows how we share a common humanity that this person can give us such a wonderful exhibition of our history. BTW, it is his story to tell as much as it is any Americans. He can tell 'black' history because it's American history, and if we're ever going to see ourselves as part of one family, we need to be able to empathize in our shared humanity.
Not the first slavery museum in America but might be the only one today
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crenshaw_House_%28Gallatin_County,_Illinois%29
Still interesting and worth while to preserve history
Peter N
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