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"Servicaes", graveyard on cocoa roço. San Thomé

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A Thousand Words

Five powerful murals against human trafficking and modern slavery are the basis of this lesson plan. The murals were created collaboratively by diverse groups and in different countries, to include university students, high school students, trafficking survivors and professional artists.There are two 55-minute lessons, depending on the level of your students, that are aimed at older teens, young adults and adults B2+ (upper intermediate to advanced)Materials include reading text about four murals, reading text about trafficking and modern slavery, student worksheet, Action Plan for collaborative project, autonomous learning resources, transcript of audio recordings, slides, Teacher’s Guide. Audio for this lesson plan can be found at https://youtu.be/h8yUtbCzPSA 

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African American Experience

During the Civil Rights Movement, African American activists held rallies and conventions at the Church of the Advocate. But people started to notice the absence of black figures from the church artwork. Father Washington remembered: “there were people who came into the church, and as they looked around they saw nothing and no one, including the figures in the stained glass windows, with whom they could identify. Everything they looked at was white, white, white. ‘How can we look at this white image for our liberation when it is our experience that it is the white man who is our oppressor?’" Upon hearing these questions, Father Washington realised that “we could see the black experience revealed and defined in religious terms, and find parallel situations in what we read in the Old Testament every Sunday.” He commissioned a series of murals for the side of the church, painted by Walter Edmonds and Richard Watson, that show parallels between the experiences endured by Hebrew slaves in Egypt and those suffered by African slaves in America. 

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African American Museum of Iowa

The African American Museum of Iowa was founded by a small group of members of the Mt. Zion missionary Baptist church in Cedar Rapids in 1993. The museum was closed for a year during flooding, reopening in 2009. It attempts to preserve, exhibit, and teach the African American heritage of Iowa. The museum aims to examine Iowa’s African American history, from the transatlantic slave trade until Civil Rights. The museum also offers traveling exhibits available for to rent for two weeks at a small cost. It is heavily funded by donations.

The permanent exhibits at the museum are concerned with tracing Iowa’s African American history, from its origins in western Africa to the present, through slavery, the Civil War, the Underground Railroad, segregation and the Civil Rights Movement. There is also a rolling programme of temporary exhibitions on a range of themes including, art and social history. Group tours are offered for adults. These last around 45 minutes and provide additional stories, contexts, and insight into the workings of the museum throughout the tour. For younger people the museum runs field trips and hands-on workshops offering age-appropriate lessons covering local African American history and culture. There is also an online collection which includes archives, photos, library items, and oral histories.

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African Burial Ground National Monument

The memorial was founded after human remains were discovered underground by city workmen who were attempting to build some government offices in the 1990s. The remains belonged to enslaved Africans who were building New Amsterdam (present day New York). The African Burial Ground National Monument honours these Africans’ memory, having reburied them in a more respectful manner. It is the oldest and largest known excavated burial ground in North America for both free and enslaved Africans. A 'sacred space in Manhattan', the mission of the memorial is to acknowledge New York's involvement with slavery and the slave trade to provide a respectful and symbolic space for the reinternment of the African remains found at the site.

The facilities at the centre include a range of exhibits, a twenty-minute film and a book/gift shop. In addition, the memorial also offers on-site presentations in the visitor centre consisting of an hour long programme. The memorial is managed by the National Park Service and the U.S Department of the Interior.

The process of memorialization and the research conducted about the enslaved African skeletal remains was negotiated extensively between the General Services Administration, the African American descendant community, historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists. Civic engagement led to the ancestral remains reinternment within the original site of discovery. An external memorial, an interpretive centre, and research library were constructed to further commemorate the financial and physical contributions of enslaved Africans to colonial New York, and to honour their memory. The exhibits examine the history of the initial discovery, the research conducted to identify the remains, the documentation process and associated artefacts.

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African-American Panoramic Experience Museum

The African-American Panoramic Experience (APEX) Museum aims to accurately interpret and present history from an African-American perspective in order to help all visitors understand and appreciate the contributions of African-Americans to America and the wider world. It was founded in 1978, and in 2018 curated a programme of events to celebrate its 40th anniversary.

The museum contains a range of exhibitions. These begin with a chronological display exploring the history of Africa. Another examines the experience of enslaved Africans in Georgia during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Other displays bring the narrative up to date, looking at women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), and the history of the local district Sweet Auburn, which has become a hub for African-Americans in Georgia. The museum has many artefacts including photographs, art, and traditional African material culture.

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Alexandria Black History Museum

Previously called the Robert Robinson Library, the museum was opened as the Alexandria Black History Research Centre in 1983. In 1987, the Alexandria City Council placed the operation of the museum under the office of Historic Alexandria, providing a large increase in funding which allowed for the building to be completed in 1989. Further expansion followed in 1995, when the Watson Reading Room, with books, documents, and periodicals on African American culture, was added. The museum's mission is to inform and enrich the lives of Alexandria’s residents and visitors about the diversity of the African American experience in Alexandria, Virginia. The museum also operates the Alexandria African American Heritage Park, a nine-acre park, which contains a one-acre nineteenth-century African-American cemetery that was buried under a city landfill in the 1960s.

The museum has several exhibitions, displaying collections of African objects, including wood carvings from the west coast of Africa, as well as collections from African American churches, photographs, and documents. The Museum also runs events related to African cultural and heritage such as guest lectures. The museum curates a range of temporary exhibition covering a variety of topics. For example, the Sharon J Frazier and Linwood M. Smith Dollhouse collection has featured in one such exhibition with miniatures of buildings and rooms capturing the forgotten businesses and people who were important to Alexandria’s development in the last century. A particular emphasis was also placed on African American culture and important institutions such as family, church, and school.

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America's Black Holocaust Museum

The museum was founded in 1984 by Dr James Cameron, a self-taught historian and public speaker. The only known survivor of a lynching, Dr Cameron used his survival experience to provide visitors with a unique view of ‘living history’. Alongside this, he expanded the museum’s exhibits and employed staff, attracting local, national and international visitors. Unfortunately, the site closed following Dr Cameron’s passing in 2006 and the economic downturn of 2008. Since 2012 America’s Black Holocaust Museum has existed as a virtual museum. It seeks to educate the public of injustices suffered by people of African-American heritage, while providing visitors with an opportunity to rethink their assumptions about race and racism. It offers a range of online exhibitions, including one about the history of the museum, and another on the perpetuation of slavery through three centuries.

There are nine exhibitions available to be accessed within the virtual museum, seven of which are a chronological study of the history of Africans in America. All of them feature the museum’s four key themes: remembrance, resistance, redemption and reconciliation. Beginning with a view of life in Africa prior to enslavement, they end with an exhibition entitled ‘Now- Free at Last?’ which considers the experiences of African Americans from the 1980s up to the present day. In addition to the chronological displays, there are three special exhibitions, two of which are concerned with the victims of lynching. Within the website there are photographs, and images of objects, alongside suggestions of further reading material. There is also a section of relevant and important news articles. The virtual museum is a member of the international Coalition of Sites of Conscience, and the Association of African American Museums. The museum runs a programme of events and speakers, and is due to re-open in a physical building in Milwaukee during the Autumn of 2018.

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American Museum & Gardens

The American Museum in Britain is housed in a manor house, built in 1820 by English architect Sir Jeffry Wyatville. It is the only museum of Americana outside the USA and was founded to 'bring American history and cultures to the people of Britain and Europe'. It uses a rich collection of folk and decorative arts to interpret these traditions from America's early settlers to the twentieth century. Living history events bring these stories to life, in addition to changing temporary exhibitions which keep the narrative up to date. The museum opened to the public in 1961 as the brainchild of two antiques dealers.

The museum's collections are a rich source of furniture, portraiture and textiles from America, displayed thematically within period rooms acting as gallery spaces. The 'American Heritage' exhibition, charting the history of America through the narration of key events and people dominates a large proportion of this space. Key collections highlights in this exhibition include Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech and a range of treasures from New Mexico.

Also contained within the 'American Heritage' exhibition is a small display about slavery and abolition in America. The main focal point of this display is a quilt made by enslaved people on a plantation in Texas. Other themes addressed here include the Underground Railroad, prominent abolitionists and the importance of the Civil War in the eventual abolition of slavery.

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Angola slaves on San Tomè

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Anti-Slavery International, 2007

The world's oldest human rights organisation, Anti-Slavery International, led several initiatives in response to the bicentenary. The Fight for Freedom 1807-2007 Campaign, launched in 2005, called for measures to address the continuing legacies of the slave trade. The publication '1807-2007: Over 200 years of campaigning against slavery' looked back at the work of Anti-Slavery International and its predecessor organisations. The Spotlight on Slavery series of exhibitions and events included debates, lectures, film screenings and photography exhibitions. Anti-Slavery International also collaborated with a number of other organisations and projects in 2007, including Rendezvous of Victory and Set All Free, and contributed exhibition material to various exhibitions around the UK, including the Remembering Slavery exhibition at the Discovery Museum in Newcastle.

The Negro in an African Setting

Aspects of Negro Life

Two years prior to the Texas Centennial Exposition, Aaron Douglas created a four-part mural series titled Aspects of Negro Life, to be housed in the 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library, the Schomburg Center. The various panels portray black history from slavery through to present. The various panels are titled, The Negro in an African Setting, From Slavery Through Reconstruction, Song of the Towers, and An Idyll of the Deep South, and depict the breaking of chains, the idea of self-emancipation, liberation, and the celebration of African culture.    

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Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira

The Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira is one of New Zealand's oldest museum. Founded in 1852, the museum was formally inaugurated in its current site in 1929. It narrates the story of New Zealand, its place in the Pacific, and its people. The museum is also a war memorial for Auckland and houses one of New Zealand's three national heritage libraries.

The museum's collections incorporate military history, social history, local history, natural history and decorative arts. These are displayed through a range of permanent and temporary exhibitions, and on the museum's website. The exhibitions are themed and cover New Zealand's involvement in conflict, its natural history and ecological development and the arrival of Europeans. It also has three permanent galleries that explore its globally significant collection of Maori artefacts.

'He Taonga Māori' (or the Maori Court) is the gallery that greets visitors when they enter the museum's ground floor. This exhibition interprets the past, present and future of the Maori communities in New Zealand using over 1000 objects and a number of original, full-sized Maori buildings, including a meeting house. The collections are used to illustrate everyday Maori life, and range from carved wooden items, to woven textiles and tools. Oral testimonies from members of the Maori community are used to add a further layer of interpretation to the artefacts. A small area of the display discusses the Maori use of slavery, particularly with regards to captives from war.

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Badagry Heritage Museum

The Badagry Heritage Museum is housed in the former district officer’s office that was constructed in 1863. The museum attempts to highlight the injustice and horror of the transatlantic slave trade, whilst also exhibiting the rich histories and cultures of Africa. There is a specific focus on the heritage of pre and post-transatlantic slave trade in Badagry. The museum consists of eight galleries each dealing with particular themes relating to local heritage and the transatlantic slave trade. Guided tours are available. The museum is managed by the Nigerian Cultural Commission.Each of eight galleries are named after a part of the transatlantic slave trade. The first, the 'Introductory Gallery', focuses on the founding and early history of Badagry. The next five galleries all deal specifically with distinct phases of the slave trade, from capture, transportation, material culture, resistance, and industry. In these galleries are objects that illustrate the brutal nature of enslavement, including shackles and manacles, as well as replicas of slave ships. The seventh gallery examines the forced integration of the enslaved into the countries they were transported to, featuring videos of reconstructed slave auctions. Finally, the last gallery explores abolition movements and the persistence of slavery even after its legal end. The museum has attempted to incoporate the voices of local people within the displays, as well as depicting the significance they place on certain cultural and historical items within the museum. In addition to the historical collections, there are also some examples of contemporary art throughout, showing modern reflections on the systems of enslavement.

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Barbados Museum and Historical Society

The Barbados Museum and Historical Society was founded in 1933. It is a not-for-profit, non-governmental organisation which aims to collect, preserve and interpret Barbadian heritage for its communities. Housed in a former prison, the museum now holds a collection of around half a million objects, dating from prehistory to today, as well as a significant archive.

The museum's permanent galleries explore the history of Barbados and its people through a range of different themes, including social, natural and military history. Colonialism and slavery feature as key themes in several of these galleries. In the Jubilee Gallery, which contains items relating to social history, the exhibition narrative charts four thousand years of Barbadian history. This includes the development of Barbados into a plantation society, life for the enslaved on those plantations and their lives post-emancipation. The Charles A. Robertson African Gallery also reflects on the legacies of slavery with regards to the African diaspora and its heritage within the Caribbean. Here the focus is on the processes of the slave trade, particularly the forced movement of people to the island. Objects in this exhibition reflect different African kingdoms, traditional customs and the diversity of African people.

In addition to its permanent exhibitions the museum also offers a range of learning opportunities relating to the history of slavery in the area. From educational island tours, to school visits and a programme of public events, the museum caters for a wide range of audiences.

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Bay of San Tome with sides of Pier shewing steps where servicaes land

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Benguella pier whence slaves are shipped to Cocoa Islands

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Bin Jelmood House

In the heart of downtown Doha, Bin Jelmood House forms one quarter of a new museum development, opened in 2015. The museum is located in a historic house in the Heritage Quarter of Msheireb Properties large development and forms an integral part of the city's regeneration project. It is the first museum to focus on slavery in the Arab world.

The aim of Bin Jelmood House is to raise awareness of human exploitation and to play a pivotal role in its abolition. It also provides a space for reflection on the continuing struggle and perseverance of different groups around the world, as well as acknowledging the long role that enslaved people have played in society, economically, socially and culturally.

The displays take the visitor back in time to discover how slavery has spread and developed over thousands of years. Visitors can engage with the stories of the origins, ‬capture, ‬transportation and daily tasks of the people who served in bondage, specifically those who did so across the Indian Ocean. The museum also examines the role that Islam has played in the treatment of enslaved people and their eventual emancipation. ‬

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Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery has over forty display galleries that explore the development of Birmingham as a city, through its diverse communities. Since opening in 1885, the museum has built a vast collection of social history, art, archaeology and ethnographic items. It is one of nine sites managed by Birmingham Museums, the largest museums trust in the UK, whose vision for their service is, ‘to reflect Birmingham to the world, and the world to Birmingham.’ Housed within Birmingham's council buildings in the city's Chamberlain Square, the site welcomes around one million visitors a year.

Slavery and abolition feature as themed displays within the ‘Birmingham: Its People and Its History’ gallery, which dominates the third floor of the Victorian museum. Initially developed as part of the 2007 bicentennial commemoration activities, the displays highlight the contradictory nature of Birmingham’s relationship with the slave trade. Visitors are informed, through both interpretive text panels and collections artifacts on display, about the goods manufactured in Birmingham that were taken to Africa to trade in exchange for human beings. Simultaneously, the presence of antislavery activists in the city is explained, with digital interactives, portraits and abolitionist material culture all illustrating the role of Quakers and other prominent abolitionist figures, including Joseph Sturge and Olaudah Equiano.

The displays also alert visitors as to the existence of modern slavery by a panel headed with the words, ‘Around the world, people are still enslaved today.’ The visitors are then invited to leave their own comments as to how society can help to stop it in their community and around the world.

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Black Loyalist Heritage Centre

The Black Loyalist Heritage Centre interprets the story of the world’s largest free African population outside of Africa in the late eighteenth century in Nova Scotia. Set in two acres of grounds, the centre combines purpose-built archives and conference facilities with historic buildings and the National Monument commemorating the Black Loyalist Landing in Birchtown in 1783. The centre was funded by both government and private donations and opened in 2015.

The centre houses a multimedia presentation of the Black Loyalists' journeys from Africa to the American colonies, then to Nova Scotia and back again. In addition, there is an archive where visitors can trace their own ancestors, a virtual version of Carlton's 'Book of Negroes' that visitors can browse, and an opportunity to create a virtual quilt square reflecting on the visitor experience.

As well as these technological initiatives, there is also a pit featuring archaeological remains excavated from Birchtown in the 1990s. With these collections, the museum showcases both the significance of the African presence in Nova Scotia, as well as the African Diaspora around the world.