America I AM: The African American Imprint – Cincinnati Museum Center, Cincinnati, Ohio

“Would America have been America without her Negro people?” – W. E. B. DuBois

Grand Rotunda Flag

This is the question that the exhibit America I AM: The African American Imprint seeks to answer through an amazing exhibition now showing at my home museum THE Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal. It sets out to prove that America would have been radically different today had it not been for African Americans through Cultural, Economic, Spiritual, and Socio-Political imprints.

America I AM was produced and is traveled by my friends at Arts & Exhibitions International – the same group who brought you Real Pirates, two different King Tut exhibits, an exhibit on Princess Diana, and of course, Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt. The exhibit fills both exhibition halls topping out at over 13,000 square feet. There are over 270 artifacts spanning over 400 years of history – American History – in the exhibition and Cincinnati Museum Center has the distinct pleasure of being the Institution of Record for these artifacts making us the caretakers and stewards of these precious pieces.

Upon entry into the exhibit you are greeted by the faces of dozens of African Americans from as contemporary as President Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey to historical figures like Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King, and as far back as Benjamin Banneker and Dred Scott. This hallway of historical figures leads us up to the thought-provoking question of the exhibit as posed by DuBois.

The exhibition’s initial gallery takes guests back to the African coast where you can hear the sounds of playful villages while seeing some really amazing pieces such as the ornately carved Yoruba Epa mask and the amazing “Benin Bronze: Oba with Leopard” sculpture from the 1600’s!  The voices fade and the hallway ramps guests into a dreary, drab Cape Coast Castle environment housing the castle doors of no return from a Ghanaian coast lumber and gold trade center turned slave storage castle. Exiting the castle puts guests onto a wharf and then into the new world.

Early America Gallery

Guests are introduced to a time where independence was being fought for, and the air (…and the newspapers) was filled with ideas of liberty and justice and that “all men were created equal.” Well, with some exceptions of course. Artifacts from slaves daily lives including cooking, working, and playing are around a gallery drenched with lights showing chains on the floor. Yet there are also clothes from Frederick Douglass a free black born in Maryland, and one of the few remaining John Dunlap Broadside Declarations of Independence courtesy of Norman and Lyn Lear.

Through another very clever environment that gives guests the feeling of being in the basement of a house as if they were actually traveling the underground railroad, and guests are greeted by a large American flag from 1862 with the words “Black Brigade of Cincinnati” written into one of the stripes.  This is only but one of the many local connection artifacts that we were fortunate to secure to drive the idea to the local level. Not too far is on of the fourteen remaining Thirteenth Amendment vellum copies signed by President Abraham Lincoln, Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, House Speaker Schuyler Colfax (Representative from the Great State of Indiana I might add), and 36 members of the Senate. Around another corner, and a large imposing “Waiting Room for Whites Only” sign begins a darker tale of American History – that of Segregation – the Jim Crow Era had arrived.

Jim Crow Gallery

Was Jim Crow all bad? Not necessarily. Don’t let the Klan robe and toys fool you. It didn’t stop the inventive determination of Ohioan Garrett Morgan whose traffic signal still affects the way we drive today. It didn’t dampen the entrepreneurial spirit of Indianapolis’ Madam C. J. Walker whose hair care products revolutionized the beauty industry. African Americans even decided to create their own sports leagues like the Negro Baseball League teams Cincinnati turned Indianapolis Clowns and the Philadelphia Stars.

The Spiritual imprint gets its own gallery with a Church scene set up and a short film about the spiritual imprint of African Americans Black churches launched civil rights movement. Another local connection artifact in this gallery reminds us of Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth who moved to Cincinnati to pastor a church and was the co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

The Military gallery steps outside of the timeline feel of the exhibit to discuss African American contributions to many conflicts. From Buffalo Soldiers on the western frontier, to the Tuskegee Airmen in World War II and the Double Victory campaign, to more contemporary conflicts such as Vietnam, to the black Four Star General and Chief of the Joint Cheifs of Staff Colin Powell.

The next gallery deals with modern Civil Rights heroes… and heroines such as Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King whose Birmingham Jail cell door has been reproduced for the exhibition, but the original jail cell key is on display to its immediate right. It’s such a beautiful, gold, ornate key for such a negative job. Above the cell door, King’s quote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” reminds us that no matter where in the world injustice occurs it is a problem everywhere that needs addressed.

Birmingham Jail Bars & Key

Of course the exhibition isn’t all doom, and negative, the final gallery, Pop Culture, reminds us all of the amazing things African Americans have done in the worlds of sports, entertainment, science, literature, and government. This amazing and eclectic collection of artifacts include Prince’s guitar from the 2007 Super Bowl Halftime show, funk icon Bootsy Collins outfit from 1978, Alex Haley’s typewriter used to write Roots, and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall’s morning suit that he argued cases like Brown v. Board of Education, in front of the Supreme Court before becoming the first African American Supreme Court Justice appointed by President Lyndon Johnson.

Finally a very uplifting multimedia experience ties the entire exhibit and the four themes together reminding us all that we are a better country today because of all of the trials and triumphs of yesterday.

My Personal Opinion-

Yes, just this once I’m going to devote some space to how I feel personally about this exhibit. It is the single largest exhibit I have ever been privileged to manage. I remember when I first came around one of the many corners in the exhibit and beheld Garrett Morgan’s traffic signal. I felt such personal and professional gratification that African Americans have done so many positive things and made such an amazing impact – the kind of positive impacts I wish to have in my professional and personal life.

My Professional Opinion-

Between this and Cleopatra is there anything Arts & Exhibitions can’t do? The exhibit takes guests on a true emotional journey through 400 years of American History. There are so many terrific artifacts in the exhibit that to see and comprehend them all takes well over and hour and a half and a well worthwhile use of resources. This once-in-a-lifetime exhibit. Get in soon to see the Dunlap Broadside Declaration of Independence because it won’t be in the exhibit the entire time it is here. This is my longest blog post since I started Special ExhiBITs in April and I haven’t even scratched the surface of all the great things this exhibition has to offer. It is an honor to host this exhibit, and a great thing for Cincinnati to be included in one of only 10 cities ever to receive this exhibit. See it now, or possibly see it never.

As DuBois asked, “Would America have been America without her Negro people?” You will learn that emphatically the answer is no.

Website: http://www.cincymuseum.org/explore_our_sites/special_exhibits_events/current_exhibits/

Follow on Twitter: @CincyMuseum

Prince's 2007 Super Bowl Guitar

 

Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt – The Franklin Institute – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Every once in a while there is an exhibit that makes me proud to work in a museum. One question that I get asked repeatedly is “what made you want to get into the museum field?” Every time I answer with the exhibit Pompeii: Stories from an Eruption. In 2005 I was in the ending stages of what would be considered a mid-life crisis (Yes, at only 23 years old then). My life was taking a dramatic turn, and I was fortunate enough to see the Pompeii exhibit in its final days of exhibition. I instantly fell in love with the exhibit and wanted to point my career toward museum exhibits. I remember thinking, “how do I work with museum exhibits?” That was in March, and by November I had traded my spatula, cut-knives, and pizza pans in restaurant management, to management of a different kind at the Indiana State Museum therefore changing the course of my career forever.

Cleopatra banners adorn the front entry to The Franklin Institute

Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt, now showing at The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the type of exhibit that makes me proud and excited to work in the museum industry.

Upon entry into the exhibition each individual is given an audio guide. Now, many of you that have read my posts in the past know that I am not an audio guide person. The reason is that so few people truly use them. That means that the majority of people experiencing an exhibition do so without, and have only the labels and artifacts to tell the story. That is how I prefer to go through exhibits because I provide the most average to above-average and fair assessment by how the average visitor sees the exhibit, but since they were giving them away with admission…

The first experience is a short introductory film that introduces Cleopatra, describes what the exhibit is about, what types of things you will see, and why it is important in the larger context of history and archaeology. You quickly learn that similar to the Center of Science and Industry’s (COSi) Lost Egypt: Ancient Secrets, Modern Science, an archaeological story is being told through the lens of ancient Egypt, and now in particular, the lens of ancient Egypt and Cleopatra.

Cleopatra Title Wall

After the film is over guests enter the exhibition by crossing over a glass bridge over sand with lots of small undoubtedly reproduction artifacts that lead you to the first few galleries of the exhibit. The stories of some of Cleopatra’s stomping grounds of Canopus, Heracleion, and Alexandria are told with the help of Frank Goddio who leads the underwater excavation of the artifacts that you are surrounded with. The entire room is doused in hues of blue and green to give you the feeling of being underwater and doing your own archaeology by “finding” these treasures as Goddio did.

The next couple galleries The Beauty and Power of Cleopatra, and Search for the Tomb of Cleopatra and Marc Antony focus more on Cleopatra with great artifacts including a document possibly written by Cleopatra herself. This gallery takes us to Taposiris Magna where Dr. Zahi Hawass is on the current search for Cleopatra’s tomb. The final gallery, The Legend, provides a look into Cleopatra as an icon in stories, art, and the silver screen.  From paintings of her as a beautiful seductress to Elizabeth Taylor’s 1963 performance as the last Ptolemaic queen, The Legend show us that though long gone, and not yet found, Cleopatra lives on.

My Professional Opinion:

This exhibit is amazing. While Pompeii was the exhibit that got me fired up to work in museums, I hope that someone going through Cleopatra feels the same uncontrollable urge to do so.

My friends at Arts & Exhibitions continue to impress me with how they can bring artifacts and square footage to life with their careful detail to attention, and impeccable usage of lighting and sound effects to provide an amazing immersive experience for each and every guest.

As I mentioned earlier while Cleopatra is similar to COSI’s Lost Egypt, where it is dissimilar is the fact that Cleopatra is much more artifact heavy and has little in the way of activities and interactives, but the shear number of artifacts makes it more than a worthwhile exhibit to see.

Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt will be at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s Franklin Institute until January 2, 2011. For more information:

Franklin’s Cleopatra Website: http://www.fi.edu/cleopatra/

Follow @thefranklin