Philadelphia’s African-American Museum is not huge, but it is powerful, doing its best to tell a story too few people really know. When Black history is taught, often only each February, it’s too often a tale of oppression on the one hand, and a few heroes and leaders on the other.
A re-imagining of the Constitutional Convention with foreground images of the Black and native people and women who were, of course, not part of it.
This museum has taken on the task of showing African-Americans in Philadelphia as an integral part of its history, and to show Black people as actors rather than objects in most of that history.
As a white man, I’m probably not best equipped to judge how well the Museum succeeds at that task, but as a former history teacher who worked at it, I have a real appreciation for much of what I saw. And, later, some comments on what I did not.
One of the museum’s unusual aspects, for a history museum, is that it relies on images rather objects to tell its stories. The emphasis is on roles people played rather than on the objects they may have used.
I’ve been to museums, Havana’s Museum of the Revolution is a good example, where displays of hats and glasses and canes used by revolutionaries took center stage rather than what they were fighting for. This is better.
Clear evidence that neither emancipation in Pennsylvania starting in 1780 nor the end of the Civil War, ended racism and struggles for rights.
The main ground floor room is given over to a panoramic timeline of Philadelphia’s history, portions of which are above) and the movements and events that affected both free and enslaved Black people—yes, slavery was a big issue in Pennsylvania, too.
Up one level is the Museum’s next main area, and one of the most inventive uses of museum space I’ve seen anywhere, with a series of ‘windows’ into Philadelphia homes; the ‘residents’ speak directly to visitors on a variety of topics in Philadelphia’s Black history, including their roles in work, the Civil War and movements.
As you can see from the caption panels (foot-operated pandemic-era substitutes for the original doorbell-like buttons), the conversations cover a wide range of topics and issues—and they are not all sweetness and light, either. The characters display warmth, humor and anger as appropriate.
Along the walls behind the screens is a series of vignettes of Black children’s lives in the late 18th through 19th centuries, with questions for children as well as explanations, which are behind little doors in the exhibit.
The children’s characters are based on actual people; one of the children is Octavius Catto, who was a leader in Philadelphia’s African-American community after the Civil War and a fighter against racism. He was assassinated by a racist mob in 1871 while attempting to cast his vote; a statue honoring him stands outside Philadelphia’s City Hall.
The Museum opened in 1976 as part of Philadelphia’s Bicentennial celebration, and was the first Black heritage museum opened by a municipality. It has huge resources of images and objects, far beyond what it displays, which is true of most museums.
But I can’t help but think that the museum’s weakest coverage is the 20th century, a century in which Philadelphia was often noted for its segregated housing and schools; the museum itself was created under the administration of openly-racist Mayor Frank Rizzo. The infamous MOVE bombing by Philadelphia police came only a few years later. Those are issues the museum should address, and it clearly has the tools, if not the will to do so. Museums in other cities have made a serious attempt at bringing us more up to date.
The upper floor of the museum is devoted to the story and the works of Anna Russell Jones, of whom I had never heard before… my loss!
Jones was born in Philadelphia and attended William Penn High School for Girls, where she showed enough talent at art that the Board of Education gave her a four-year scholarship to the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (see the pattern?), now Moore College of Art and Design. At the college, she was the first, and for many years more, only Black student.
After graduation, she built a successful business as a textile designer in a white and male dominated field (the Museum owns her archives). During World War II, she became one of the first Black women accepted in service and worked as an illustrator on Army publications. After the war she returned to design work, but also took advanced courses at Howard University Medical School and worked as a medical illustrator.
In addition to its permanent exhibits, the museum also hosts a variety of temporary exhibitions, some of which address more contemporary issues than the museum itself, as well as a number of online exhibitions.
Congratulations to George G, who had the only correct answer, recognizing the museum as our One-Clue Mystery site this week.
