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US National Slavery Museum Slated for 2007 Opening
There are already approximately 3,000 historical museums in the Unites States but the U.S. National Slavery Museum will be the first to focus solely on telling a complete story of slavery in the U.S.
The efforts to build the museum have been spearheaded by former Virginia governor L. Douglas Wilder. Currently mayor of Richmond, VA, Wilder is both the grandson of a slave as well as the first African-American since Reconstruction to be elected governor. Wilder, who serves as the museum's chairman of the Board of Directors, also came up with the concept at an Afican/African American conference in Gabon.
Located in Fredericksburg, VA, the museum will offer 100,000-square feet of permanent and temporary exhibit space, including a full-scale replica of the Portuguese slave ship Dos Amigos as the museum's centerpiece.
According to reports, Wilder said historian/museum board member John Hope Franklin urged him to put a slave ship in the place.
"Not just because it's a ship," Wilder told the Associate Press. "It'll be a place to see the size of the seats that the people had, the hole that they had to go into, the deck that they had to come to for the shortest period of time, to empathize with how people could endure two to three months of this."
Other founding board members include Dr. William Cosby, Dr. Jacob Gelt Dekker, Professor Emeritus John Hope Franklin, Dr. William R. Harvey, the late Mrs. Ruby G. Martin, Esq., Prince Ermias Sahle-Selassie and Dr. H. Patrick Swygert.
In addition to serving on the museum's board, Cosby initially pledged over $1 million toward the museum, which broke ground in December 2003. Wilder has projected the museum project will cost $200 million.
"The U.S. National Slavery Museum will paint a complete picture of what slavery meant and means to America, so visitors can commemorate, understand, and most importantly, overcome its painful legacy," Wilder said.
Slated to be finished by 2007, the museum already has started collecting artifacts and exhibits. Among the items are a U.S. census book from 1840 and wooden statues from the African Bambara tribe donated by former missionaries to Liberia. The U.S. National Slavery Museum's focus will extend beyond the enslavement of Africans in America to include, for example, indentured servitude and the importation of Chinese laborers to build railroads in the West.
Source: sohh.com
The efforts to build the museum have been spearheaded by former Virginia governor L. Douglas Wilder. Currently mayor of Richmond, VA, Wilder is both the grandson of a slave as well as the first African-American since Reconstruction to be elected governor. Wilder, who serves as the museum's chairman of the Board of Directors, also came up with the concept at an Afican/African American conference in Gabon.
Located in Fredericksburg, VA, the museum will offer 100,000-square feet of permanent and temporary exhibit space, including a full-scale replica of the Portuguese slave ship Dos Amigos as the museum's centerpiece.
According to reports, Wilder said historian/museum board member John Hope Franklin urged him to put a slave ship in the place.
"Not just because it's a ship," Wilder told the Associate Press. "It'll be a place to see the size of the seats that the people had, the hole that they had to go into, the deck that they had to come to for the shortest period of time, to empathize with how people could endure two to three months of this."
Other founding board members include Dr. William Cosby, Dr. Jacob Gelt Dekker, Professor Emeritus John Hope Franklin, Dr. William R. Harvey, the late Mrs. Ruby G. Martin, Esq., Prince Ermias Sahle-Selassie and Dr. H. Patrick Swygert.
In addition to serving on the museum's board, Cosby initially pledged over $1 million toward the museum, which broke ground in December 2003. Wilder has projected the museum project will cost $200 million.
"The U.S. National Slavery Museum will paint a complete picture of what slavery meant and means to America, so visitors can commemorate, understand, and most importantly, overcome its painful legacy," Wilder said.
Slated to be finished by 2007, the museum already has started collecting artifacts and exhibits. Among the items are a U.S. census book from 1840 and wooden statues from the African Bambara tribe donated by former missionaries to Liberia. The U.S. National Slavery Museum's focus will extend beyond the enslavement of Africans in America to include, for example, indentured servitude and the importation of Chinese laborers to build railroads in the West.
Source: sohh.com