The Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American History
Ripples of dissent challenge a Detroit cultural showcase, the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.
Critics "want more grass-roots community representation on the museum’s board and a voice in selecting its new permanent leader," reports Sarah Cwiek of Michigan Radio. "They also object to a planned exhibit about life on Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello plantation during Black History Month."
Members of a new group, the Coalition for Black Legacy at the Wright Museum, met with executives of the 21-year-old museum on Warren Avenue. "They rejected all of our ideas," retired professor Gloria House tells the broadcast journalist. She's a past director of African American Studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and a retired associate porfessor at Wayne State.
A spokeswoman is quoted as saying the museum is "considering how a broader representation of the community can be included and represented.”
Gloria House: "This board needs to hear more community voices." (National Council of Elders photo)
The exhibit coming in February, "Slavery at Jefferson's Monticello: Paradox of Liberty," first was presented for nine months in 2012 at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
A museum statement quoted by Michigan Radio says: "It's a powerful exhibit that tells the story of Sally Hemings and other families who were enslaved at the Monticello Plantation -- from their perspective."
Coalition members see the move as insensitive. The Wright, in effect, will "bring in the slave master and slap him in our face," according to Tahira Ahmad, quoted by the Free Press. “That is the last straw."
Cwiek reports that House calls it "totally inappropriate," adding:
"It seems highly insensitive, in this particular political climate with the rise of open white supremacy, to -- during Black History Month -- propose an exhibition that somehow tries to recast the history of the Jefferson plantation.
"We see this exhibition as part of a current trend to try to retell the history of slavery in this country, and to make it seem less heinous, less horrific, less brutal. It's objectionable to us at this point in our history. . . . This board needs to hear more community voices, and not take us in some direction that doesn't celebrate our ancestors, our history."
The Freep posts the half-minute video below from a Thursday media briefing by a few coalition members. The off-camera speaker is Abdul Aquil, an Oak Park construction consultant who spent 26 years as a City of Detroit building inspector.
