“We decided [to] start from the beginning and look at African culture,” Fleming says. “This not about the road that Europeans made since that is known, but [it’s] about what African people [brought] to the equation here and how that culture got incorporated into American history and American culture.”
The exhibit, which took 18 months to create and celebrates nearly 500 years of African American contributions to the nation through artifacts, documents, multimedia, photos and music, will tour for four years.
“We’re showing people the African influence and this is how that influence helped to create this country,” says Fleming, who is the president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History and director emeritus of museums at the Cincinnati Museum Center.
The exhibition will feature 12 galleries and will take visitors on a journey through African American history. Some of the artifacts that will be on display include: the typewriter Alex Haley used to write Roots; Prince’s guitar from his 2007 Super Bowl performance; the key to the lock of the Birmingham, Ala., jail cell that held Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (and the stool from that cell). For Fleming, the exhibit is not only a culmination of hard work, but a shining accomplishment for all Americans.
“Once people leave the exhibit, they will have a better understanding of who we are as an American people,” he says. “They’ll understand how we came to be.”
–jh
