Exhibit Views Black Experience
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Stephan Salisbury, Philadelphia Inquirer, August 22, 2008
The National Constitution Center will host the debut of a major traveling exhibition exploring the four-century sweep of the black American experience, from slavery to the cusp of the presidency, officials announced yesterday.
{snip}
America I AM, scheduled to open at the Constitution Center Jan. 15 for a run through May 3, will feature interactive and video exhibits and more than 150 resonant artifacts, including one that was unveiled yesterday: a simple five-inch brass key to the jail cell where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was imprisoned in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963 and where he wrote Letter From Birmingham Jail.
{snip}
Smiley [Tavis Smiley, conceiver of the exhibit], on hand for yesterday’s news conference, said the exhibit—the result of two years of planning—would seek to answer a question posed by W.E.B. Du Bois in 1903: “Would America have been America without her Negro people?”
“This will be the biggest, baddest, boldest exhibition ever that tells the story of African Americans,” Smiley said. “Think for a minute. . . . There would be no America without the contributions of black folk.
“From the arrival of the first slaves in Jamestown 400 years ago all the way up to the time of Barack Obama—we’re going to tell that story.”
{snip}
Torsella [Joseph M. Torsella, the Constitution Center’s head] added that artifacts recovered from the historic archaeological excavation that preceded construction of the center would be included in the exhibit. And the story of the President’s House at Sixth and Market Streets, where George Washington lived during his presidency, attended by a number of black slaves, would also be woven into the exhibition.
The doors to the dungeon from Cape Coast Castle off the coast of Ghana, where captive Africans were warehoused before being shipped into slavery across the Atlantic, will be exhibited. {snip}
America I AM will involve more than weighty historical objects, organizers said. Drawn from dozens of black-history museums and individuals, the show will also feature everything from Muhammad Ali’s boxing gloves to materials associated with Motown to the writing table of 18th-century African American poet Phillis Wheatley.
{snip}
America I AM is being underwritten by Wal-Mart, while Exxon Mobil is subsidizing the fuel costs for a kind of museo-mobile—a mini-exhibit in a tractor-trailer truck that will travel nationwide as the exhibit wends its way from city to city for the next four years. {snip}
{snip}
Email Stephan Salisbury at ssalisbury@phillynews.com.
(Posted on August 26, 2008)
Comments
“The goal of abolishing the white race is on its face so desirable that some may find it hard to believe that it could incur any opposition other than from committed white supremacists … [the publication] ‘Race Traitor’ will not abandon its focus on whiteness, no matter how vehement the pleas and how virtuously oppressed those doing the pleading. The editors meant it when they replied to a reader, “Make no mistake about it: we intend to keep bashing the dead white males, and the live ones, and the females too, until the social construct known as ‘the white race’ is destroyed—not ‘deconstructed’ but destroyed.”
—Noel Ignatiev, Ed.M. ‘85, Ph.D. ‘94, C.A.S. ‘95, and a fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute. (http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/0902135.html)
Posted by at 5:32 PM on August 26
And would Mr Smiley agree to a traveling exhibition which showed the white contributions to America.
Posted by at 5:48 PM on August 26
I am so glad to be constantly reminded of all the contributions of these wonderful africans to our society.
It is hard to argue with their long record of building and maintaining civilizations…along with physics, math, science, engineering, music, art, literature, medicine, etc.
What a true blessing they are to whatever area they show up in.
I guess the major reason why whites always pack up and move out is an inferiority complex on the part of whites.
Posted by RJS at 5:50 PM on August 26
Ah, now they like American history.
Posted by at 6:04 PM on August 26
Blacks have made considerable contributions to American culture in the fields of music, dance, comedy, and certain athletics. I’m not sure to what extent blacks are responsible, but soul food is also a distinguishing American characteristic. There have been outstanding individual blacks in other areas, but outside of the aforementioned fields, I think the collective black contributions have been negligible. While I’m grateful for some of blacks’ contributions to American culture, the ghetto culture, crime, ignorance and victimhood so many blacks embrace has wiped out the good will their positive contributions generated.
Posted by TotallyAnon at 6:06 PM on August 26
Ridiculous proposition - this means that Europe wouldn’t have made it without non-whites, China woul not make it without blacks, Russia will not make it without blacks, etc.
White slaves from Europe were doing the work before cheaper blacks surplanted them and Indians.
Why don’t they make it in Africa without our “oppression?”
Posted by Whiteplight at 6:15 PM on August 26
And just think, a Civil War to kill off 500,00 plus whites and all their progenity lost; they sho’nuff did us a favor.
Posted by Whiteplight at 6:17 PM on August 26
Two companies to boycott Wal-Mart and Exxon Mobile.Some how the cost will be shifted to the consumer.Plus those companies which feature black men and white females together in their ads.Wise up white people,and RISE UP WHITE NATION!
Posted by THE MAN at 6:27 PM on August 26
“There would be no America without the contributions of black folk.”
No matter how many times they say it, it never makes it true. The black contribution consisted of picking cotton and hauling bricks. The present day contributions are non-existant unless you consider their disproportionate violent crime a positive.
Posted by Eric at 6:51 PM on August 26
” … the show will also feature everything from Muhammad Ali’s boxing gloves to materials associated with Motown to the writing table of 18th-century African American poet Phillis Wheatley.”
An athlete, pop music, a mediocre poet: these are the things America couldn’t have done without?
Posted by Cassiodorus at 7:01 PM on August 26
The following statements are equally true, and in a very similar way:
There would be no America without the contributions of black folk.
There would be no America without the contributions of mules.
Posted by at 7:04 PM on August 26
“This will be the biggest, baddest, boldest exhibition ever that tells the story of African Americans,” Smiley said. “Think for a minute… . There would be no America without the contributions of black folk.
———————
I get to see the “contributions” of blacks every time I turn on an episode of the show “Cops”.
Posted by RHG at 7:23 PM on August 26
I’d gladly forego my Miles Davis records if it meant having my country back the way it was when I grew up.
Posted by at 7:31 PM on August 26
Take note of the complete lack of achievements listed here that contributed to the success of America. Looks likes a whiney display of total victomology.
Posted by at 7:39 PM on August 26
As much as blacks have ripped off wal-mart, they still continue to drink the racial kool-aid. Wal-mart has had to close a couple different stores around the country due to blacks, including employees, stealing everything that wasn’t nailed down. And yet, they still continue to bend over backward to appease the blacks. I am so glad I stopped shopping at wal-mart years ago.
Posted by at 8:10 PM on August 26
I would love to answer W.E.B Du Bois’s question. If America had never had blacks, it would have been the shining utopia of the world. America would have been Atlantis of the modern age. Instead we do have blacks and it is a hell-hole, and getting worse.
Posted by at 8:14 PM on August 26
Tavis Smiley, conceiver of the exhibit (whatever conceiver means in white English) slipped and stated one truth - it will be the baddest exhibit ever.
Posted by Lost in Paradise at 8:29 PM on August 26
““There would be no America without the contributions of black folk.”
CORRECTION: “There would be no tumultuous, chaotic America without the abysmal contributions of blacks.”
Posted by mitch at 9:16 PM on August 26
Oh, please, must we once again invent contributions attributed to blacks? The simple fact is that they’ve been an enormous net drain on the economy, the culture, and the society of America.
They’re the undisputed criminal class, the destroyers of once civil and prosperous neighborhoods and cities, whose only cultural contributions have been rap “music,” some early rhythm and blues, and some admittedly significant athletic achievements.
They destroy everything they touch and inhabit, here, in Africa, and anywhere else they’re found.
Perhaps the ultimate tragedy of the black African races is that all worthwhile members of the group, however much they want to achieve and succeed, are denigrated by their own people for striving to become successful, for acting “too white.”
They’re the only people in the world for whom failure and criminality has become a badge of honor.
Posted by John at 9:30 PM on August 26
Smiley said. “Think for a minute… . There would be no America without the contributions of black folk.
Yeah, we pitiful white folk wouldn’t have been nuthin’ without the contributions of blacks to this country. I mean, just look at how successful Africa is with all them black folk there…people are just flocking to get into Africa! In our own country we have Detroit, which is the source of just about everything good and worthwhile. Even corpses are trying to get into Detroit!
Normally, I would say this exhibit is just a bit of harmless ego-boosting on the part of blacks. Let them have their self-esteem activities. But in back of all these exercises is always the ugly message, “blacks are good and noble, whites are vicious oppressors and should feel very guilty for what they have done a hundred or more years ago.” It’s always, and I mean always, about one race boosting their “self-esteem” at the expense of another’s.
Posted by Tim in Indiana at 10:50 PM on August 26
“Think for a minute… . There would be no America without the contributions of black folk.”
More like there would be no violent local news on tv without the contribution of black folk.
Posted by pgh at 10:51 PM on August 26
Better be careful where this mobile exhibit is parked up overnight.
We wouldn’t want it stolen en-route by any folks who do not understand the significance of the contents, sparse though they may be, as it did take two years to gather them together.
Posted by yorkshireman at 11:29 PM on August 26
America without blacks? No Civil war, fewer riots, less crime. Where is the down side of this?
Posted by flyingtiger at 12:07 AM on August 27
Segregated, I consider blacks to have been an asset, and I feel lucky to have grown up in the South where their influence was most felt.
Integrated, they’ve been a holy terror, and have brought nothing positive to the table at all, as far as I can see.
Posted by H. Dumpty at 2:29 AM on August 27
Slaves made our counrty as great as it currently is, which is why Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina are the wealthiest states in the U. S..
Hmmm, wait a minute…
Posted by Aaron at 3:58 AM on August 27
Everyday in America, we see more of it, the mainstream media, politicans, educators, civil rights pimps, and a host of others, are succesful at changing facts, obscuring the truth, ignoring true historical data, all in the name of pandering to the black race, we make heros, name schools, create monuments, and honor some of the most vile figures in American history.
Posted by abc at 6:27 AM on August 27
Will Mr. Smiley’s exhibit include stories of how those black slaves were captured in the first place?
Will the exhibit also contain massive amounts of photographs of the looting and rioting of the 60’s and the Los Angeles riots of the 90’s.
Will it contain a roving exhibit of the destruction of almost every major city in the United States?
How about the theft and looting after Hurricane Katrina? I’m sure there are plenty of video and photographs of that black contribution?
Or how about those black women who have numerous children? Will it show their smiling faces with a caption that reads - Do you know who my Daddy is?
I have to ask too - what would this country be like without the contribution of blacks. I’d like to see what it would be like for just one day.l
Posted by Gayle Sollenberger at 7:43 AM on August 27
America would have been incalcuably better off in every way if it had never had slavery and blacks.
Posted by at 8:12 AM on August 27
More liberal nonsense.
If by some supernatural method you were to wipe out every single important white person in American history, we would not have America. Simple as that.
If you were to do the same to every important black person, the nation would not only exist but probably be stronger to boot. The not-so-Civil War cost us dearly, as did the Civil ‘Rights’ Act and the current state of Robin Hoodery for lazy minorities.
Posted by Teenationalist at 9:14 AM on August 27
A trailer full, huh? I have at least a trailer full of accomplishments of my own in my garage alone. Lets add all our trailers up, and make a CONVOY.
Posted by johnny from Alberta at 9:38 AM on August 27
How To Answer the “Africans Built America” Argument
1. Imported slaves were largely employed in the (American) South as agricultural workers.
2. Most of the emancipated Blacks remained in the South after the Civil War and well into the Industrial Revolution.
3. When the rest of the civilized world was making the switch from agriculture to more modern economic models the South was burdened with millions of Blacks unable to make the switch.
4. As a result the American South is the most economically depressed area of the country.
I invite Mr. Smiley to make the trip to Africa and kick it with some of his relatives. I’d be interested in hearing his theories as he enjoys the hospitality of his homeland. American Blacks should fall down on the ground and thank God for slavery.
Steve Teagan
Posted by at 10:34 AM on August 27
Smiley said. “Think for a minute. . . . There would be no America without the contributions of black folk.”
Ok, I took Mr. Smiley’s advice and thought for a minute. Dang if it didn’t take me about an hour to come down off that natural high! So if that’s the feeling the Africans get after doin’ their crack, I can see why they keep wanting it…
Hts
Posted by hts at 10:38 AM on August 27
Thank You black Folks! I didn’t realize how hard you had worked to build the great society we live in, but now I understand why you needed to take a few hundred years off To Rest Your Tired Bones and Bodies.
Posted by Max at 11:21 AM on August 27
“There would be no America without the contributions of black folk.”
This is equally “logical” as saying that there would be no China without communism (just because it is there). As a matter of fact, one could easily trace absurdities like the above to Marx who claimed that proletariat is the sole source of prosperity and affluence. (In today’s era of automation, he would have to give that credit to computers and robots.)
What’s frightening here is that current demographic shift (rapid growth of population of “underprivileged” minorities) will move us quickly to the point where the majority of voters belive in superficially true but, in fact, false assertions. Once we reach that point, our society will collapse.
Posted by A Reader at 11:26 AM on August 27
The Museo-Mobile will be lowered, have spinner wheels, and will rattle windows coast to coast as it blasts bass heavy gangsta rap on its travels through the heartland.
Thanks Wal-Mart and Exxon Mobile!
Posted by Wotan at 1:17 PM on August 27
THE MAN (posted at 6:27 PM, August 26) got it right when he encouraged us to boycott Wal-Mart and Exxon/Mobil. This can be an effective tool as long as we notify them of the reason we are withholding our business.
Because of their sponsorship of Tavis Smiley’s annual “State of the Black Union” forum (a caucus wholly unfriendly to white America), I’ve contacted McDonald’s restaurants and Exxon/Mobil to explain why I’m not purchasing their products.
Let these corporations know you disapprove of some of the causes and organizations they support. And if you’ve got any extra time to spare, look up the NAACP website, note the enormous list of its contributors, and then start contacting them with a brief criticism and a commitment to boycott. The dollar can be a mighty vote, but silence will cancel it.
Posted by KonfederateKarl at 3:51 PM on August 27
Blacks made America into a dump.
Posted by at 3:57 PM on August 27
You mean they are putting all the black ‘contribution’ in a trailer?
Posted by at 5:26 PM on August 27
“….I’d gladly forego my Miles Davis records if it meant having my country back the way it was when I grew up….”
Posted by at 7:31 PM on August 26
Are you sure you want to listen to Miles Davis?
Here is what he said about Whites:
“…’If somebody told me I had only one hour to live, I’d spend it choking a white man. I’d do it nice and slow.’ [Miles Davis Can’t Shake Boyhood Racial Abuse, Jet March 25, 1985.]…”
http://www.amren.com/antiwht.htm
Imagine if a White musician said the same thing about blacks.
From the article:
“…There would be no America without the contributions of black folk…”
Nonsense.
Blacks contributed exactly nothing to what makes America America—a system of laws and justice that gave rise to a prosperous economic system, first world technology, science and medicine.
All the empirical evidence shows that blacks believe in a system of government that consists of slogans, anecdotes, corruption, the false promises of Marxism, blaming others for their failures, demanding unearned, unlimited money, eliminating Whites and destroying civilizations at every possible opportunity—through extreme violence and mayhem when they don’t get their way
Is it any wonder that (from USA Today, Aug. 27, 08):
“…The poorest city in the nation was Detroit, with a median household income of $28,097. It fell to the bottom spot this year, replacing Cleveland….”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2008-08-26-income-side_N.htm
Yes, I would like to imagine the US without blacks—a US without no-go areas for Whites, without un-fair AA preferences, without a violent, parasitic, low IQd underclass that stalks and preys on Whites.
I imagine it would be a paradise.
Bon
Posted by BonBn at 7:44 PM on August 27
Sigh-I know, I know, Blacks decided to come to America on their own just for the sheer thrill of it. Blacks had no part every in the making and shaping of America as much as Whites had no part in decimating nearly the entire Native indigenous people, oops… “the White land”, slavery was all a facade.
I think some of the overall effects of global warming is really starting to erode some of these people’s minds on Amren.
Posted by Hope at 8:25 PM on August 27
But does the WalMart Museum have photos of the black police
looting Wal Mart in New Orleans?
Posted by at 9:02 PM on August 27
This is correct—there would be no America as we know it without the black “contribution.” But, America would be much better off without that “contibution.” Just look at the welfare rolls and the police reports!
Posted by Frank at 10:02 PM on August 27
“Blacks had no part every [sic] in the making and shaping of America as much as Whites had no part in decimating nearly the entire Native indigenous people, oops… “the White land”, slavery was all a facade.”
The “education” you boast of elsewhere doesn’t seem to have included reading comprehension . The issue isn’t slavery or Indians but whether and to what extent blacks made America possible. The key quote is “There would be no America without … black folk.”
What proof would you care to offer in support of this statement?
Posted by Cassiodorus at 11:42 PM on August 27
“Blacks had no part every [sic] in the making and shaping of America as much as Whites had no part in decimating nearly the entire Native indigenous people, oops… “the White land”, slavery was all a facade.”
The “education” you boast of elsewhere doesn’t seem to have included reading comprehension . The issue isn’t slavery or Indians but whether and to what extent blacks made America possible. The key quote is “There would be no America without … black folk.”
What proof would you care to offer in support of this statement?
Posted by Cassiodorus at 11:42 PM on August 27
I don’t need to. Why? You have the right to believe whatever you want to believe no matter how nutty the notion is and that’s that. If you can’t see it a rational way, well, I don’t even think that God could help you. It’s the same as saying, you believe in Santa or the Tooth Fairy. “911” was an inside job and the Holocaust never happened. Of course, I don’t per-scribe to that crazy point of view.
Posted by Hope at 10:43 AM on August 28
What “contributions” would these be, without which the United States would not exist?
Name one.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 12:48 PM on August 28
“I don’t need to. Why? You have the right to believe whatever you want to believe no matter how nutty the notion is and that’s that’s that.”
It’s a question of fact, not of belief. You blather about slavery, which no one here has mentioned. That of course is the default response of blacks to anything. But the point under discussion here is whether America would have been impossible without blacks. Since you take exception to our position and are, apparently, taking the affirmative, you assume the burden of proof. That blacks contributed virtually nothing to the creation of the United States is hardly a nutty notion, and that you have no response but this childishness suggests that you have no case at all.
“If you can’t see it a rational way, well, I don’t even think that God could help you.”
What do you mean by “it?” The pseudo-fact that blacks made the US possible? The rational view, supported by what whites call “facts” and “evidence,” is that this notion is simply wrong.
“It’s the same as saying, you believe in Santa or the Tooth Fairy. “911” was an inside job and the Holocaust never happened.”
It’s not the same at all. These ideas are clearly false in exactly the same way that your idea is false; that is, a rational person knows that every piece of evidence is against them. There is no more reason to believe “blacks made America possible” than there is reason to believe in Santa, black pyramid-flying pharoahs or any other bit of fanciful folklore.
“Of course, I don’t per-scribe to that crazy point of view.”
1)The word is “subscribe.”
2)There is no such word as “per-scribe.”
Posted by at 4:40 PM on August 28
I can’t even begin to imagine what the US would be like without the black stone around our neck. Our public schools would certainly be ranked right up at the top. Our cities would be based on European models. The movement out into the suburbs either never would have happened or only on a fraction of the scale we’ve seen. More use of public transportation and fewer cars on the hwy. Taxes would be low and there would likely not be any White underclass in the country. Standards would be very high across the board just like they were in the 50’s. Less crime, fewer police, fewer prisons, no so called “hate crime” legislation, no rap, no slums, no drive bys, few gangs, less AIDS, etc.
Care to add anything Hope?
Posted by at 5:55 PM on August 28
Hope you aren’t a slave. You are free to leave the USA at any time. You can protest mistreatment of Native Americans by vacating the land that was taking from them. Nobody keeps you in this horrible country. Perhaps you and other blacks can contribute to the development of your ancestral continent the same way you contributed to the development of America so the billions of white man dollars won’t be wasted every year on aid to Africa.
Posted by ALEX II at 9:07 PM on August 28
“Sigh-I know, I know, Blacks decided to come to America on their own just for the sheer thrill of it. Blacks had no part every in the making and shaping of America”
Nobody is denying slavery existed. Unfortunately, it did which has benefited blacks in America TODAY enomously. Care to live in Nigeria, Sudan or the Congo, Hope? Gee, they’re such lovely places, aren’t they. Yes, blacks of course had a part in making America. You’re absolutely correct. They’ve made our prison system the largest in the industrialized world, they’ve given us the highest gun violence rate in the industrialized world, they’ve cost us billions in welfare. Yep, Hope they’ve made a difference.
Posted by KC at 9:31 PM on August 28
Blacks have made some contributions, mostly in music and sports and in some of the arts. A few have made contributions in politics and a very small few in science and medicine. However this is completely dwarfed by the vast amount of negatives. Blacks have caused massive crime, gun violence and social problems. In larger numbers, they destroy every city, school or neighborhood they touch, turning them into crime ridden slums. They’ve cost billions in welfare. Sorry “Hope” but without blacks, the USA would be so much better off.
Posted by at 9:43 PM on August 28
Hope: Actually not. You are free to believe any crazy thing
you want to. We on the other hand, have to weigh evidence, find
sources, read books, ponder what was read, use logic, form hypo-
theses, test them, etc. It’s called thinking. Don’t try to under-
stand too much-it’s a White Thing.
Posted by Freyr at 11:43 PM on August 28
“Contributions” in sports were not contributions without which the US would not exist.
Blacks did not “make America possible”.
During the US Civil War and for long afterward, the states with the most blacks were the most backward and least-developed. In fact the main reason the south lost the war was because of this lack of industrial development.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 1:50 PM on August 29
When I went to high school in the nineties (as an exchange student) in American history there were lists on the wall mentioning black inventions - and the teacher who was black (he was friendly but barely understandable for someone not used to black slang) taught history so you got the impression ” … to be fair, white man made some inventions, too …” - So as a European I am specially thankful to the blacks for giving to us Renaissance and Enlightenment.
Without you we would never have made it. And one can infer the same for white Americans.
Posted by Martel at 6:50 PM on August 29
Hope is a bigot. In a post on another article about a young white girl being murdered by a black she had no sympathy for the victim. All she did was refer to non-existent crimes against blacks and Hispanics and see how do you white people like it? Bigots always use examples 50 years old because they’ve got nothing for today. It was obvious that Hope fully approved of that white girl’s murder.
Almost everything good in America was created by whites! Every time Hope uses a PC, the internet, a TV, a car, a phone, a fax machine, a dishwasher or a radio she should remember a white person invented it! If she hates whites so much she shouldn’t use our inventions.
Posted by Fight the Racists at 4:24 PM on September 2