As COVID-19 Damages Black Appalachian Communities, This Mother, Daughter Team Are Working to Save an Unexpected Casualty: Black History

Coming to terms with the past requires reexamining the way we represent both history and art. The Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, VA, is on the forefront of correcting the absence of enslaved craftsmen in representations of art. The museum’s exhibit on the architectural work at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello home presents a fuller story by illuminating the presence and work of enslaved laborers.

In an effort to combat racial injustice, former plantations are shifting the narrative typically given on tours to focus on the lives of the enslaved who once lived there instead of enslavers who owned the plantations. The initiative sprung from a need to accurately portray the history of slavery and better “inform the present.”

Soil collection ceremonies offer a meaningful way to help cope with and create institutional memory of racial violence across the United States. The Equal Justice Initiative is working to keep the victims of lynching and racial violence alive in America’s collective memory by promoting a practice common across cultures—the collection of soil. Communities collect soil from sites of racially motivated killings into jars, which are then displayed at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama.

Reassessing representations creates an opportunity for educational experiences. Instead of simply removing a problematic diorama depicting members of the Lenape tribe and Dutch colonists, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, NY, converted the piece into a learning experience for visitors. Following pressure from groups like Decolonize this Place, the revised diorama now features panels that illuminate and discuss misrepresentations in the piece.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chinese Canadian Museum and the Chinatown Storytelling Centre both opened in Vancouver with the goal of documenting and honoring the role of Chinese immigrants in Canadian history. Roughly 13,000 people have visited each museum since their openings, and members of the Chinese Canadian community say the exhibits preserve important stories while acknowledging the harm Chinese Candians have faced.

To mark the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, in which a white mob killed hundreds of Black residents and destroyed the thriving neighborhood of Greenwood, the Centennial Commission supported a number of initiatives to learn from the past and build a better future. At the base of an ancient elm tree that witnessed the massacre, Up With Trees distributed 100 elm seedlings to children to plant around Tulsa. The commission convinced state education officials to develop a new curriculum on the massacre for K-12 students.

The Staten Island African American Heritage Tour is a website and mobile app that offers virtual tours of Staten Island’s Black History, which was oftentimes intentionally erased from the city's historical accounts. The tours are based on genealogical and historical investigations and the app was tested by local students for user-friendliness. The students were empowered to learn about their own histories and reported that their knowledge of local histories expanded. Five days after the website launched, before the app was public, there were already hundreds of local and international unique users.

Contextualizing artistic representations creates more complex narratives and offers an opportunity to educate about historical memory. The Atlanta History Center has opened an exhibition that illuminates the absence of people of color in the “Battle of Atlanta” Cyclorama, an artwork that celebrates the 1864 Union victory. The museum presents the work alongside interactive guides and films that explain the erasure of African Americans from the memory of the scene.

In the midst of a seemingly increasingly divided political and racial landscape, some artists of color are pushing back to create art that represents their own non-White communities. Some artists have chosen to do this by recreating Norman Rockwell’s paintings, which in the earlier part of his career mainly showcased White people. “The image haunted me because of the world we live in,” the artist said, referring to today’s divisive political climate. “I wanted to imagine what it would look like today.”

Uncomfortable art tours, long-term loans, and code of conducts, are all methods Europeans museums are using to confront the racist history behind paintings and artifacts in their exhibitions. They’re also trying to confront the unjust methods in which some artifacts have been taken from non-European countries. “While museums continue to argue that they are neutral spaces, the fact is that they are not. There is always one side of the story that has been privileged over the other in these spaces, and we need to be more honest and open about that.”