Liz evcenko
is Vice President for Interpretation for the Lower East Side Tenement
Museum and Coordinator for the International Coalition of Historic
Site Museums of Conscience. Completing her Ph.D. in American history
at New York University, she has most recently published "The
Making of Loisaida" in Mambo Montage: The Latinization of New
York City (Columbia University Press, July 2001). Her project "Mapping
Memories," in which visitors were invited to contribute their
memories to a changing map of New York City and discuss conflicting
claims to urban space, was produced at the Museum of the City of New
York, the Tenement Museum, the Eldridge Street Project, the Smithsonian
Folklife Festival, as well as at community centers and street fairs.
She has partnered with public artist Shimon Attie on projects in New
York and Boston exploring the hidden histories of urban landscapes.
At the Tenement
Museum, Ms. evcenko 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.
evcenko 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
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Lynching
History Draws Record Crowds
Liz
evcenko, 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
The
title bar image is a photo of Jessica Gogan of the Andy Warhol
Museum and Kathleen Hulser of the New York Historical Society
taken at the Great Places, Great Debates Conference
as they watched the powerful audiovisual presentation used
at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site and other
venues (National Park Service Image). Images of this sort
prompted Abel Meeropol (Aka Lewis Allan) to compose Billie
Holiday's eerie signature song "Strange Fruit"
Strange
Fruit
Southern trees bear strange fruit
Blood on the leaves
Blood at the root
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees
Pastoral scene of the gallant south
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
The scent of magnolia sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
for the rain to gather
for the wind to suck
for the sun to rot
for the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop
Abel
Meeropol 1938
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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/
Last Updated:
01/05/2005 |
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