Don't you wish you had a slave museum in your city?
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20100...opens+here
Sponsors of the lynching exhibit opening Tuesday at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center know what they're bringing to town.
"Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America" might act as a lit match in a region whose discomfort with issues of race often compares to kindling wood.
"We realize that dealing with such topics as lynching will create conflicting reactions, perhaps even anger on the part of some," said Robert "Chip" Harrod, president and chief executive of Bridges for a Just Community, an exhibition partner.
"At a time when genocide continues to plague the world (and) violent crimes are increasing around the country ... we believe that educating people about this chapter of our history will ultimately result in a better understanding of our past, which in turn will foster a sense of healing and a commitment to protecting basic human rights."
Images of the lynching of African-Americans throughout the country into the late 1960s are so disturbing that the Freedom Center is limiting attendance to people 14 years and older. Any student, including those in high school, who attend on a field trip must have written permission of a parent or guardian.
"We want to make sure no one is forced to see this," said Paul Bernish, Freedom Center spokesman.
Since announced in the fall, the exhibit has drawn surprisingly little protest, Bernish said.
Still, the center provided its staff and docents with extensive training on how to handle potential anger and resentment from visitors or the general public.
"Our staff is a microcosm of the community," Bernish said. "We dealt with all of the reactions in staff meetings. Everyone feels confident they understand the origins of lynching and why it happened."
Shown previously to large crowds in New York, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta and Jackson, Miss., the exhibit has as its centerpiece a series of photographs and postcards taken at lynching events from 1882 to 1968, when an estimated 5,000 African-Americans were hanged, set afire, castrated or otherwise tortured.
Part of the American psyche of "extralegal justice" since the time of the Revolutionary Way, hangings took on elements of "sadism, torture and spectacle before death," according to exhibit notes.
In fact, the focus of the exhibit is the "public theater of the lynching of African-Americans."
Photographs show hangings of black people before large crowds of whites, often smiling, with children in attendance. Many of these photographs were made into postcards and mailed. Exhibit creators collected many of these greeting cards.
"This is the barbeque we had last night," was the greeting written on the back of a postcard of the burned, mutilated body of a black man hanging from a tree.
Donald Murphy, president and chief executive of the Freedom Center, said his museum has three goals in showing "Without Sanctuary."
"To look back at a violent period in American history, a second is to bear witness to the atrocities that occurred, and our third goal is to keep watch over those without sanctuary today," he said.
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