Museum Gambles On Lynching Exhibit Controversy

Frank Provenzano, Kansas City Star

(KRT)— Will people flock to an exhibit that examines the lynching and terrorism aimed at black people during one of the most disturbing periods in American history?

The future of the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History depends on it.

There couldn’t be a tougher subject or a more timely test for a museum on the brink of financial collapse.

Last week the Detroit museum announced educational programs and events connected with its most controversial exhibit, “Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America.” The exhibit is to open July 15.

Attendance projections for the seven-month exhibit call for more visitors from July through September than came to the museum all of last year. An average of 14,375 visitors are expected each month; 2003 attendance was less than 38,000.

Record crowds would bring a tenfold increase in revenue, giving the troubled museum the kind of cash cushion it desperately needs.

The marketing of the exhibit—which has about 100 graphic lynching images—is crucial. The museum will spend an unprecedented $75,000 to promote the exhibit as a must-see cultural event with the power to alter perspectives on American history and current events.

Billboards and mailings, along with radio and TV spots, will begin in two weeks. Ads will feature a tree with a noose hanging from it that takes the place of the “o” in “Without Sanctuary.”

“This exhibit will force you to deal with the story of lynching and all the appalling implications that remain with us,” said Christy Coleman, museum president. “It was domestic terrorism. A crime was committed in America against Americans.”

The chilling black-and-white photographs of torture from 1878-1935 tell an indelible tale of the moral contradiction at the heart of a country founded on equal justice for all that turned a blind eye to human-rights violations.

The disturbing stories of abuse and torture perpetrated by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq show that the issues of human rights violations raised in “Without Sanctuary” are still relevant.

Preparing for an expected blockbuster is a tall order for a museum that has struggled to keep open its doors.

The nation’s largest African-American history museum had been operating day-to-day. Two weeks ago, emergency aid from the City of Detroit bailed out the museum, which would have run out of money before the end of its fiscal year if it hadn’t received the $510,000.

“Without Sanctuary” is the first chance for the museum to prove it can stand on its own.

The show opened in spring 2000 at the New York Historical Society, attracting record crowds of 50,000 and getting favorable reviews from art critics. In 2001, it traveled to the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, where it drew only 31,400 visitors over four months. It went on to draw a record crowd of 177,000 at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta from May 2002 to January 2003. It will come to Detroit from Jackson State University in Mississippi.

“It served as an awakening,” said Saudia Muwwakkil, who organized the exhibit’s educational programs in Atlanta. “People who came here said they didn’t know the history, depth and breadth of lynching.”

In the exhibit’s nearly 60-year span, there were about 4,700 documented lynchings. At least twice as many went unrecorded, said James Allen of Atlanta, who collected the images over the last 20 years by searching flea markets, estate sales and antique shows.

“There’s a fear of discomfort when you talk about race,” said Allen, who is white. “But we need a catharsis to deal with today’s issues of racism and poverty. The deaths of those killed by lynching leaves a scar on our hearts.”

Seminars on tolerance, a lecture series on racism and a film series have been organized in conjunction with the Anti-Defamation League, the National Conference for Community and Justice, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Urban League, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services in Dearborn and the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills.

There will also be a community feedback forum, “Baring Witness: Baring Our Souls.”

The exhibit has been greeted by racist rancor and comments that it’s time to get beyond what happened in the distant past, said Randall Burkett, curator of the African-American Collection at Emory University in Atlanta.

He predicted the same reactions in Detroit.

“It’s hard for Americans to think of America as a terrorist nation, but we’ve got to look at the truth.”