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[pause]
GLORIA: Hi, I'm Gloria.
ELLY: And I'm Elly. Welcome to the
Anacostia
Community Museum. The Smithsonian's
only community museum.
GLORIA: It's located in southeast
Washington
DC and opened in 1967, over 40 years
ago.
ELLY: This Museum demonstrates and
explores
contemporary, community life by
looking at
objects of importance to the
communities.
GLORIA: Like this one right here -
from local artist Uzikee Nelson.
UZIKEE: This is a weathering steel
sculpture
that's in tribute to Thurgood Marshall
ELLY: Uzikee made this as a tribute to
Thurgood
Marshall who successfully argued in
the supreme
court to de-segregate public schools.
And
went on to become the very first
African American Supreme Court
Justice.
UZIKEE: You are partially right about
that
but I also did it for ancestral
memory.
ELLY: What do you mean by ancestral
memory?
UZIKEE: That's your memory that's in
your
DNA when you were born. It is a
difficult task
to try to understand yourself in the
present
without examining your past.
ELLY: And that's what we can do inside
the
museum, right?
UZIKEE: That's definitely correct.
GLORIA: Let's go take a look inside.
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[pause]
GLORIA: Oh! Excellent. They have a
carte de
visite.
ELLY: A cart de what?
GLORIA: A carte de visite. It was used
like a business card or a sports card
might
be used today - but they didn't have
statistics
on the back.
ELLY: That's good because that small
card
could not fit all of Douglass'
accomplishments on the back of it.
GLORIA: Like how he taught himself how
to
read and write.
ELLY: Or how he escaped slavery and
became
one of the nation's leading
abolitionist orators
and advocate for woman's rights.
GLORIA: Or how he started several
abolitionist
newspapers risking his own freedom to
secure freedom for all blacks.
ELLY: His house is just down the block
from
this museum.
GLORIA: Do you think they have more
photographs
of Frederick Douglass?
ELLY: Yeah, we can ask the archivist
who's
going to show us behind the scenes.
[music]
ELLY: What do we have here?
GLORIA: Those look like opera glasses
and
those are music sheets. Maybe the
first African
American opera house.
JENNIFER: That's a pretty good guess
ELLY: Wait a minute, I recognize the
person in that photo. That's Madame
Evanti.
JENNIFER: Madame Evanti was her stage
name.
But her full name was Emily Lillian
Evans Tibbs.
GLORIA: Is that someone I should know?
ELLY: I know about her because my
family
loves opera. She was the first African
American
to sing grand opera with an organized
company
in europe. She made her professional
debut in 1925 in Nice France. She was
known
for her captivating beauty, her stage
presence
and her dynamic performances. Here's a
program
from one of here performances in
Italy.
GLORIA: What about this one? It's in
English.
JENNIFER: Evanti returned to the
United
States as an accomplished opera singer
in the
1930's. Despite being a renowned
singer, she
still faced racism. In one case the
director
of the Metropolitan Opera invited her
to audition
but the racist board refused to hire
her. Despite the obstacles she faced,
Evanti
served as a good-will ambassador, sung
at
the White House, composed several
patriotic
songs and performed with the National
Negro Opera Company.
ELLY: Is this her piano?
JENNIFER: Yes, this is the piano that
she
practiced on at home.
GLORIA: So what's next on our behind
the
scenes tour?
JENNIFER: We're going to visit
upstairs
in the archives storage room.
[music]
ELLY: So what are you going to show
us?
GLORIA: Something from Fredrick
Douglas
I hope.
JENNIFER: Why do you want to see
Fredrick
Douglas artifacts?
ELLY: That's sort of a strange
question.
Let's see - because he's famous and a
hero.
It's like wanting to see Lincoln's top
hat
or the Declaration of Independence or
Hank Aarons bat.
GLORIA: Yeah, there's that but I also
think
I really want to understand the life
story of Fredrick Douglas better.
JENNIFER: Now here are a couple
artifacts
that'll make you understand Douglas's
life
better. Right here I have a Fredrick
Douglas
calling card.
GLORIA: Wow.
ELLY: Look. A first addition of THE
NARRATIVE
OF THE LIFE OF FREDRICK DOUGLAS, AN
AMERICAN SLAVE.
ELLY: No way!
GLORIA: Way!
JENNIFER: I have here an image of
Fredrick
Douglas on the USS Tennessee. In 1871
then
president Ulysses S. Grant appointed
Douglas
to the commission investigating
annexing Santo
Domingo to the United States. This
image shows
Douglas and the other commissioner
returning
home from the island.
ELLY: So along with everything else he
did
he also served our country
internationally?
JENNIFER: Yes, and what these
artifacts
allow us to do is to tell a more
complete story
of Douglas's life.
GLORIA: Ok, I'm ready for more!
JENNIFER: Not with me but you can
learn
more with the Historiar.
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[pause]
GAIL: Welcome toe belly box ladies!
This
is where we carefully store, preserve
and
catalog the items in our collection.
ELLY: It's so cold in here!
GAIL: Well it has to be. Objects, like
people,
like to be cool and dry.
GLORIA: Ok, so we've seen opera
glasses
from Elaine Evanti and a business card
of
Douglas's but what story does this
hold?
GAIL: The wood plane is one of my
favorite
pieces in the collection. It tells us
about
community and craftsmanship.
Carpenters used
planes to use and shape wood.
ELLY: Who's plane is this?
GAIL: This plane was made by Ceasar
Chelor.
Ceasar Chelor had been a slave in
Massachusetts,
was freed in 1752, and he becomes the
first
documented African American toolmaker.
ELLY: How to do you find out about a
woodplane
maker who lived more than 250 years
ago?!
GAIL: Research takes us to court
records,
wills, church lists, cemetery records
and
the census. But the tool itself gives
us valuable
information.
GLORIA: Like what?
GAIL: Well, first of all we can tell
it's
a wood plane. But this one is really
special
because as you can see on the side we
have
the name of maker and the place where
he lived.
That gives us clues that we can follow
up.
Research also tells us there are
several hundred
Chelor planes still in existence. So
we know that
he was a very prolific toolmaker and
had a
thriving business. But this one is
particularly
rare because it carries his full name
and
the full place name where he worked.
Turns
out then to be one of the earliest
signed
and documented artifacts in African
American
history.
GLORIA: I thinking I'm starting to
understand
how these everyday objects are fitting
together
to tell a complete story.
ELLY: I think your ready to go-go.
GLORIA: No, I think I'll stay here a
little
while longer.
ELLY: No you won't, let's go-go!
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[pause]
GLORIA: Ah, Go-Go.
ELLY: Yeah, this is a great room in
the
museum.
GLORIA: Yeah, check it out. They have
a
Gibson Guitar from Chuck Brown, like
the godfather
of go-go music. I bet this is the only
museum
in the woworld with a Chuck Brown
guitar.
ELLY: Probably, since go-go music is
huge in
the DC area.
GLORIA: And Chuck actually played
at The Anacostia Museum.
ELLY: Yeah, things like this are
happening
all the time at the museum and with
the changing
exhibit hall, there's always something
new
happening all the time.
GLORIA: There have been many exhibits
over
the years, including ones like the
Harlem
Renaissance, the Black West, African
American
Scientists and Inventors, and Black
Baseball in DC.
[music]
GLORIA: And next time you come some
that
were behind the scenes will be out
front on
display. You need to check out the
website
to see which ones will be on display.
ELLY: The Anacostia Museum is always
changing.
There are thousands of pieces in their
collection
and thousands of stories to go along
with
them.
GLORIA: I'll be coming back to the
Anacostia
Museum and I hope you'll have a great
visit
as well.
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