At the Tenement Museum, Ms. Ševcenko has directed several initiatives to bring history to bear on discussions on pressing social issues and projects to address them. As Coordinator of the International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience, Ms. Sevcenko works with the directors of historic sites around the world, building their capacity to use their histories to address contemporary issues. The Coalition is currently working with the National Park Service, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the National Trust of Britain on how to develop sites of conscience initiatives within their networks. The Coalition has also partnered with the International Center for Transitional Justice to consult with NGOs and municipal governments around the world on how to establish places of memory as sites of reconciliation and rebuilding in societies recovering from trauma. Ševcenko has consulted with various historic sites and networks of cultural institutions, including the Minnesota Historical Society, the Paso Al Norte Immigration History Center in El Paso, TX and the Sanford Ziff Museum in Miami, FL. She had the pleasure of coordinating the "Great Places, Great Debates" conference with the National Park Service and the Regional Plan Association.

lsevcenko@tenement.org

Lynching History Draws Record Crowds
Liz Ševcenko, Vice-President for Interpretation at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum and Coordinator for the International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience, moderated Shaped by Site: Three Communities' Dialogues on the Legacies of Lynching, one of two concurrent sessions that kicked off the conference panel presentations.

Liz described an American museum culture reluctant to tackle subject matter as emotionally charged and disturbing as our nation's history of public lynchings. Museums were offered an opportunity to use the postcards and photos of public lynchings that James Allen has collected for over a quarter of a century. The collection, Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America, would form the nucleus of any exhibits. However, the images of the lynchings that so besmirched America throughout the early 20th century took museums well out of their comfort zone.

This session's panel was made up of representatives from three sites that met the challenge of exhibiting this collection. They were the New York Historical Society in New York City, the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, and the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta. While the sites themselves are very different, the three found themselves with something in common; they were each overwhelmed by visitors who wanted to view the exhibit. Liz told the conference audience that while this is a difficult history to grapple with, people are demanding that we do so. The New York Historical Society had 50,000 visitors in the first five months; the Andy Warhol Museum had its best attendance since 1994; and the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site had 177,000 visitors view the exhibit. Each site recognized the importance of handling the exhibit with sensitivity so the same "spectacle" mentality that produced the photographs would not be replicated in their display.

Museums Tailored Exhibit to Own Community
Selling the Atlanta museum community on a lynching exhibit was particularly tough. The city prided itself on being a "City Too Busy to Hate." Reminding folks of a past so recent, brutal, and hate-filled was not something relished by many community leaders. The New York Historical Society told the story against the contemporary backdrop of tortured Haitians in New York City and Pittsburgh's Andy Warhol Museum mounted the exhibit in a community reflecting on its own recent local racial incidents. While each site started with James Allen's collection of photos and postcards, each also actively worked to engage its community in telling the lynching stories through its own lens.

Story is Chilling
Liz showed participants a bit of a film produced by the curator of the Atlanta exhibit of "Without Sanctuary." This film states that while 4,743 people were reported to have been killed by lynch mobs, historians estimate that an equal number were lynched and not reported. Lynchings were "advertised" in newspapers - people came from out of town to watch. Children were let out of school. Photographs were taken of lynchings and some of these became postcards. These photographs often showed the bodies of the lynched men and women with spectators smiling for the camera or even enjoying a picnic lunch. It was not until the 1930s that lynching was no longer socially acceptable. Although they continued for some time, lynchings were finally forced underground by mid-century.

One Result Younger people in particular indicated through their feedback that the exhibit made them recognize that African-Americans really had faced incredible adversity. They had never really understood that these citizens were treated so very differently than whites not so long ago.

Kathleen Hulser of the New York Historical Society describes herself as 'inherently born to like civic engagement". At the New York Historical Society, she says they "didn't have time to think about what what we couldn't do". More

Jessica Gogan of the Andy Warhol Museum says their museum might at first seem an unlikely venue. Why house this in a museum devoted to the "King of Pop"? It was though, Andy Warhol's practice to engage with contemporary themes and issues. More

Saudia Muwwakkil from Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site describes the park as a logical place to tell this story. More than 80% of recorded lynchings occurred in the South; the backdrop of lynchings is a part of what shaped Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights movement . More

Additional Resources

Liz Sevcenko's session introduction is included below. In addition, her paper "Activating the Past for Civic Action: The International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience" was included in the Conference Notebook and is available here as well. It is a brief overview of the provocative work members of the Coalition are doing individually and collectively.

Liz Sevcenko's Shaped by Site Introduction

Activating the Past for Civic Action



You may also want to visit the International Coalition of Historic Sites of Conscience website:

http://www.sitesofconscience.org/

and Emory University's site on the Atlanta Without Sanctuary exhibit

http://www.emory.edu/WithoutSanctuaryExhibit/

The materials on the Lower East Side Tenement Museum website are also well worth a look.

http://www.tenement.org/