Fitting that black history exhibit starts here (Philly)
When I heard that an acclaimed exhibition of African American history would open at the National Constitution Center on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, I thought: What better place than Philadelphia, the undisputed steward of our nation's story?
The birthplace of the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution. And the Free African Society.
It's where our Founding Fathers worked with whites of conscience and character and with free blacks of courage and conviction to begin to figure out how to form a more perfect union.
Even now, history oozes out of Philadelphia like biblical sweet honey out of a rock.
In the spring of 2007, archaeologists unearthed slave quarters at the President's House, making international news. And just last summer, the remains of the Rev. Stephen Gloucester, a former slave and an abolitionist, were discovered at a 160-year-old former church - all adding to the predictable constants and messy contradictions that are American history.
Which brings us back to "America I AM: The African American Imprint," which celebrates more than 400 years of black achievement.
It's a 15,000-square-foot exhibition, a continuum of artifacts, documents and photos that all add to the tapestry of America's story: A letter that Abraham Lincoln wrote to protect Frederick Douglass from harassment as he campaigned for African American rights; W.E.B. Du Bois' graduation cap; a key from the Birmingham jail where King was held; Malcolm X's journal; Muhammad Ali's robe from his "Rumble in the Jungle" against George Foreman in Zaire; and among the other nods to pop culture, the funky purple electric guitar that Prince played at Super Bowl XLI.
And its newest artifact: the signed original of Barack Obama's pivotal speech on race - delivered at the Constitution Center - whose significance will be punctuated when he is sworn in as the 44th president of the United States.
Read entire article at http://www.philly.com
The birthplace of the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution. And the Free African Society.
It's where our Founding Fathers worked with whites of conscience and character and with free blacks of courage and conviction to begin to figure out how to form a more perfect union.
Even now, history oozes out of Philadelphia like biblical sweet honey out of a rock.
In the spring of 2007, archaeologists unearthed slave quarters at the President's House, making international news. And just last summer, the remains of the Rev. Stephen Gloucester, a former slave and an abolitionist, were discovered at a 160-year-old former church - all adding to the predictable constants and messy contradictions that are American history.
Which brings us back to "America I AM: The African American Imprint," which celebrates more than 400 years of black achievement.
It's a 15,000-square-foot exhibition, a continuum of artifacts, documents and photos that all add to the tapestry of America's story: A letter that Abraham Lincoln wrote to protect Frederick Douglass from harassment as he campaigned for African American rights; W.E.B. Du Bois' graduation cap; a key from the Birmingham jail where King was held; Malcolm X's journal; Muhammad Ali's robe from his "Rumble in the Jungle" against George Foreman in Zaire; and among the other nods to pop culture, the funky purple electric guitar that Prince played at Super Bowl XLI.
And its newest artifact: the signed original of Barack Obama's pivotal speech on race - delivered at the Constitution Center - whose significance will be punctuated when he is sworn in as the 44th president of the United States.