Page 11 - UF Spring 2017

The truth that the law was complicit in Photo Credit: National Photo Credit: National Museum of African
Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC)t
26the effort to continually enforce the
American History and Photo Credit: National Museum of African
entrapment of the slave and later the Culture (NMAAHC)t American History and Culture (NMAAHC)
newly freedmen’s life punctuated the
journey through the Museum’s 33
chronological retrospective—the ceiling
created by practice and power was far from the Museum but it was on
forged in the legal record from the the walk back that the full impact of
earliest laws legalizing slavery through the Museum’s imposing structure
to the court rulings such as the 1857 hit us. From a distance, we felt the
Supreme Court decision in the case of chill of looking at a docked slave
Dred Scott vs. Sandford, the Black ship as the building was enveloped
Codes enacted in 1865 and 1866, the
post-reconstruction Jim Crow laws 41by the blue of the afternoon sky.
passed across southern states and the
Supreme Court case of 1896 Plessy v. That image remained with us as my
Ferguson that challenged the 1890 husband and I returned on Monday
Louisiana law that prevented black and with my aunt to once again walk
white people from riding together on the chronological concourse and
railroads. The weight of the condition tour the sections we missed on our
of the no-longer owned- first visit. The feelings of Friday
but-permanently-constrained engulfed were both as fresh and yet as new
me as I passed from reconstruction as they had been two days earlier.
through segregation. The barrier to the However, being with my aunt
long fought-for equality was all but added a depth that only
impregnable under this rule of law, but generational sharing can create as
the desire to crack through and the she voiced her memories that
courage to fight defined the lives of flooded the moment and she
these ancestors as they sought the openly discussed life experiences I
promise made but not yet fulfilled. had never heard before. Two
The exit from the chronological hearts became united in both the
retrospective took us through the Civil crush of yesterday and the strength
Rights movement and the videos and and perseverance that drove each
voices that recaptured those years
rekindled not only my childhood 63of our shared ancestors.
memories but awakened the visceral
fear, confusion, and sense of being

56overwhelmed that engulfed me while I

watched the movie Selma earlier this
year. I passed through this section
swallowing back tears just as I had
sitting safely in the theater just a few
short months ago.
All of this…
This roller coaster of emotions fueled
by the historical video and images
accompanied by the haunting voices of
the past…
—and we had toured only half of the
Museum.
On Sunday, we walked the National
Mall to find the Martin Luther King, Jr.
Memorial that is not