Uncovering the hidden archives of the civil rights movement
The hard-won fight for civil rights could go down as one of the most thoroughly archived periods in American history, largely because participants kept photos and objects that would later tell their stories.
The revolution demanded it, even if the keepers of history at the time didn't.
At the height of the movement, there was no market for historic African-American artifacts. Mainstream museums weren't interested in documenting it, and "if you look at how museums and scholars had interpreted African-American history up until the '60s, it had been very biased and one-sided," said John Fleming, director of the International African-American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina.
Important items were tucked away and began to surface in the 1970s and 1980s. A handful of African-American museums blossomed to more than 100 by the early 1990s. Today, the Association of African American Museums boasts 250 members.
Not only can the cost and elusiveness of artifacts be prohibitive, but problems can also arise when the history being documented isn't fully written yet....
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The revolution demanded it, even if the keepers of history at the time didn't.
At the height of the movement, there was no market for historic African-American artifacts. Mainstream museums weren't interested in documenting it, and "if you look at how museums and scholars had interpreted African-American history up until the '60s, it had been very biased and one-sided," said John Fleming, director of the International African-American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina.
Important items were tucked away and began to surface in the 1970s and 1980s. A handful of African-American museums blossomed to more than 100 by the early 1990s. Today, the Association of African American Museums boasts 250 members.
Not only can the cost and elusiveness of artifacts be prohibitive, but problems can also arise when the history being documented isn't fully written yet....