0:08

hi welcome to the Department of

0:10

commerce's Black History Month

0:12

presentation of homage my name is Terry

0:14

batch and I'm in the international trade

0:17

Administration Global markets in the U.S

0:19

field based in Los Angeles California

0:23

my name is Mia McAdoo and the Amash

0:25

exhibit is a private collection owned by

0:27

my husband and myself we travel all over

0:30

the country bringing this exhibit up in

0:33

up close and personal to different

0:35

communities and so we're really happy to

0:37

be here today and to partner with you in

0:39

your office so that all of the staff can

0:42

get a up close and personal look at

0:44

history

0:47

so can you tell us about this document

0:49

here and what

0:52

what yeah so this is one of the older

0:55

documents in our collection it's an

0:57

inventory of an estate from 1801. so

1:00

somebody's passed away and they're

1:02

diving up everything that's owned for

1:05

children or relatives so this is

1:08

everything of value so you can tell that

1:11

he's not a wealthy individual

1:14

but the most valuable item owned is a

1:17

Negro wench which is a black woman

1:20

we know from her value that she's past

1:22

childbearing age and she's doing cooking

1:24

and cleaning in the house

1:26

I like to bring this piece out because a

1:29

lot of people have ideas of working

1:31

plantations with hundreds of slaves

1:33

picking a crop when the reality is a lot

1:36

of people owned one or two and this

1:38

actually proves that you didn't

1:40

necessarily need to be wealthy to own

1:42

another human being

1:43

and so this is one of the items that we

1:47

always

1:48

start the

1:50

exhibit with but we're very intentional

1:53

in how we set shows up we want to make

1:56

sure we show balance whenever possible

1:58

so we would have a piece like this

2:01

showing African Americans very much as

2:03

property or stereo view cards showing

2:07

working plantations next to a document

2:10

like this which is signed by Frederick

2:13

Douglass and it brings that DC history

2:15

in and it's a land transfer Deed from

2:18

later in life when he's working for the

2:20

federal government right here in D.C

2:23

one of my favorite pieces in the

2:25

collection is here

2:27

and it's a document signed by Macon B

2:30

Allen Macon B Allen is born in Indiana

2:32

and the 1800s and has dreams of being an

2:36

attorney right and so because of racial

2:39

restrictions he can't get into law

2:41

school

2:42

at the time the state of Maine did not

2:44

have a racial restriction for sitting

2:46

for the bar

2:48

so he packs up moves to Maine he does

2:50

work with a white abolitionist attorney

2:52

and does like an apprenticeship and he's

2:55

able to sit for the bar passes and

2:57

becomes that first African-American

2:59

attorney in the country

3:00

this document is dated 1878

3:05

during Reconstruction he moves to

3:07

Charleston and with two other

3:08

African-American attorneys they start

3:10

the first black law firm in the country

3:13

this document is from when he's a

3:15

probate judge in Charleston County and

3:18

so after that he's unfortunately run out

3:21

of Charleston after reconstruction comes

3:25

to D.C where he works for the federal

3:26

government and so we tried to pull

3:29

pieces that tie into local DC history

3:32

government history

3:34

and it really shows the depth of the

3:37

collection the overall collection has

3:39

over 650 pieces and today we have a

3:42

little under 200 on display

3:46

yeah so this is a Charleston Courier

3:49

newspaper from 1834 October

3:52

so this is an advertising manager's copy

3:55

so the numbers indicate how many more

3:57

days an ad has been paid to run

4:01

you'll see someone selling church pews

4:04

someone's opening a dance school they're

4:06

looking for students but the two ads

4:10

I'll show you are here and they both

4:12

have the same icon which is a runaway

4:14

slave ad

4:15

the one on top is interesting for a

4:18

number of reasons

4:19

it's a 100 reward for a missing family

4:23

and we say missing because the ad

4:26

indicates they don't know if they fled

4:28

or if they were kidnapped and resold

4:30

which was common

4:32

the ad indicates they've been looking

4:33

for them for over a year so you see the

4:36

time the energy the money they put into

4:38

getting property back

4:40

we have a woman named Penny she's 35 to

4:42

40. she has a teenage son named James

4:45

who's 14 or 15 and a two-year-old named

4:49

Millie

4:50

and in the document Millie is described

4:52

as being mulatto so we know she's

4:54

biracial more than likely the person who

4:57

fathered her is also the one trying to

4:59

get them back into enslavement

5:01

our collection also has a December 1834

5:05

career that ad still appears we know

5:08

from our research that it runs until the

5:10

following February

5:12

so it's a good piece and people always

5:13

have questions of what the numbers mean

5:16

and how we acquired it and this is one

5:19

of the pieces we acquired at a library

5:21

auction and so we have a number of

5:24

newspapers and we're able to introduce

5:26

different events or people movements

5:30

through media on this next table I'll

5:33

show you an example of that

5:36

so this is June 1921 and this is

5:41

newspaper coverage out of California on

5:44

the Tulsa Race Massacre so you'll see it

5:48

says martial law rules thousands in

5:50

battle torch applied in Tulsa and so we

5:54

get a lot of people who come through the

5:55

exhibit and they're like well why don't

5:57

you talk about this or that or this

5:59

person and since we only deal with

6:02

original artifacts and documents we can

6:04

only tell the story if we have that

6:06

piece that accompanies it and so this

6:09

was a piece that we acquired prior to

6:12

the 100th anniversary which was in 2021

6:15

and so we were able to tell that story

6:17

through a library auction where we

6:20

acquired this piece so that's a good

6:24

example of that

6:27

1921 yes and so everything is period and

6:32

we talk a lot about

6:33

everyday life another piece that I

6:37

really love is at the end of this table

6:40

um and again it's another local DC Story

6:43

one of my favorite things to collect are

6:46

press photos

6:48

and so typically when you have a picture

6:51

that's being used across the country

6:53

it's getting picked up by media they

6:56

will have and I'm going to flip this

6:58

over

6:59

on the back of it they'll have a date

7:02

stamp and a description of the original

7:04

wire or article

7:07

now this is a group of Howard University

7:11

students

7:12

and they're at the Attorney General's

7:14

conference on crime

7:16

this is 1934 and they're looking to have

7:19

lynching recognized as a federal hate

7:22

crime

7:23

we know that just happened

7:25

you'll see that they're standing next to

7:29

one another this is day two of that

7:31

student protest on day one they're

7:33

arrested because they're protesting on

7:36

day two they come out they stand side by

7:37

side which is not

7:39

a protest it's people standing in line

7:42

what you'll see if you take a closer

7:44

look is that they all have the nooses

7:46

around their neck

7:48

because they're unable to hold signs and

7:50

so they do this silent protest with the

7:52

Noose to protest lynching and so that's

7:55

another powerful piece that has a local

7:58

DC tie-in

8:03

so

8:04

just right here and I see that we have

8:06

madam CJ Walker yeah noted on the on

8:10

this piece yeah definitely so madam CJ

8:13

Walker we know is the first

8:14

African-American woman to be a

8:16

millionaire in this country and she's

8:18

based out of Indianapolis

8:20

this is actually her headquarters that

8:23

she built from the ground up and it

8:25

still stands we were there maybe two

8:27

weeks ago and so we were able to see the

8:29

building and it's very much still in use

8:31

and so madam CJ Walker makes her

8:34

Millions from black hair care and so one

8:37

thing that's really cool and I'll show

8:39

you

8:40

these are original product tins

8:42

and so this is the gloss scene

8:45

that really put her on the map so not

8:48

only did she create products but she

8:51

created beauty schools where

8:53

African-American women could come to

8:56

learn the trade to start their own

8:57

businesses and contribute to the greater

9:00

economy

9:01

um this is another one it's a temple

9:04

solve and this one actually still has

9:07

product in it yeah

9:09

and so

9:11

um it's always pieces that we like to

9:14

um showcase but an interesting story on

9:17

the back end is that my husband and I

9:20

have to know what's important to history

9:22

before

9:24

the general public right so we can

9:25

acquire the pieces and so we acquired

9:28

our madam CJ Walker tins and artifacts

9:32

prior to the Netflix special

9:34

post Netflix special the prices are

9:37

inflated and so we can no longer acquire

9:40

those pieces the same thing with the

9:43

paper we talked about with the Tulsa

9:45

Race Massacre once a hundred years hit

9:48

people knew about it so they're

9:50

searching for the artifacts related to

9:52

it and so we have to know

9:55

what is culturally important

9:59

um before everyone else does if that

10:01

makes sense

10:03

um

10:04

this is another piece that has a local

10:07

tie-in and again a pressed photo like I

10:10

said I'm very drawn to those pieces

10:12

and so this is Lois

10:15

Lipman and she's the first

10:16

African-American woman to have a

10:18

professional job at the White House and

10:21

one thing about press photos and I'll

10:24

turn it sideways is they'll tell you the

10:27

date

10:29

and let's look on the back to see if

10:31

this one I can't remember if this one

10:33

has a cutout so it's 1953 and this is

10:37

August 16th

10:39

the exhibit uses period language so Lois

10:44

is assistant to presidential assistant

10:46

Sherman Adams and she's the first negro

10:49

to work as a White House secretary

10:52

she worked for the Eisenhower

10:53

headquarters in New York in 1952 and was

10:57

given the job after the inauguration and

11:00

so she right exactly exactly

11:04

there's one thing that I like to show

11:08

people

11:09

with the exhibit you have the ability to

11:13

look at somebody's trajectory right and

11:16

so I'll give you two examples of that

11:19

the Fort Worth mind is the

11:21

African-American newspaper out of Texas

11:26

um here

11:27

I always like to point out it's a member

11:29

of the associated negro press like the

11:33

Associated Press they had a division for

11:35

African-American papers and this is

11:38

March 1957. Martin Luther King

11:42

is speaking at a graduation in Kentucky

11:45

but he's not a household name yet

11:48

and so the paper has to describe him to

11:52

tell you why you should care that he's

11:54

speaking at graduation so what it says

11:57

is he is the pastor of Dexter Avenue

12:00

Baptist Church in Montgomery and it

12:03

tells you that he's the president of the

12:05

Montgomery Improvement Association that

12:07

did the Montgomery Bus Boycott so that's

12:09

the light bulb when people read it

12:12

because they know Rosa Parks they know

12:14

the bus to boycott but they did not know

12:16

Martin Luther King Jr yet

12:19

and so we know that in a few years he's

12:22

a household name everyone knows him he

12:24

no longer would need that same

12:26

introduction

12:28

another example of that is this 1956

12:32

press photo

12:33

you have authoring Lucy who's

12:35

integrating the University of Alabama

12:38

but her attorneys are from the NAACP

12:42

so she's actually represented by

12:44

Thurgood Marshall who we know becomes

12:45

the first African-American on the

12:47

Supreme Court and Constance Baker Motley

12:50

who's tucked in

12:52

um there and she's the first

12:53

African-American woman to be appointed

12:56

as a federal judge and so

12:59

again in a few years everyone knows

13:01

Thurgood Marshall everybody knows

13:04

Constance Baker Motley but in 1956 this

13:07

is what got them to those positions and

13:09

it talks about the just the caliber of

13:12

attorneys working for school integration

13:14

through the NAACP so those are a few

13:17

pieces that I like to point out

13:19

as well

13:25

we get a lot of questions about how we

13:28

acquire our artifacts and I mentioned

13:31

earlier that a lot of newspapers will

13:34

come from newspaper auctions and I'll

13:36

show you an example of this so this is

13:38

September 18 1963 and this is the

13:42

Detroit Free Press and they're covering

13:44

the funeral of the little girls who were

13:46

murdered in the church bombing in

13:48

Birmingham

13:49

um but if you take a peek in here you'll

13:52

see that it was added to the archives on

13:55

September 20th 1963.

13:58

so what would happen something major

14:01

would happen they would take 50 copies

14:04

put them in the archives but then in 20

14:07

years 30 years they say okay do we still

14:09

need this and if the answer is no

14:12

they'll pare it Down Auction the rest

14:14

and now especially since everything is

14:17

being digitized they don't need as many

14:20

hard copies that have been saved over

14:22

the years so they will auction those to

14:24

raise money and so we're able to acquire

14:26

those pieces that way but whenever you

14:29

see that an item was sent to an archive

14:32

that sort of the story behind that we

14:36

talked about Thurgood Marshall on the

14:38

previous table

14:40

and this really gives you a greater

14:44

insight to the work that they were doing

14:45

for school integration

14:48

this is a fundraising letter sent by the

14:51

committee of 100 which is a organization

14:54

working to raise funds for different

14:57

initiatives this fundraising letter is

15:01

in support of the legal defense fund and

15:04

what it says is that in 1964 the NAACP

15:08

legal defense fund spent 1.4 million

15:11

dollars

15:13

um to fight School integration and it

15:16

goes on to say that they fought

15:18

they filed 84

15:21

suits in 15 states to desegregate

15:25

universities local school boards and

15:27

things like that and what the list

15:30

letter also says is with more money we

15:32

can do more but it really talks about

15:35

the fight the NAACP

15:38

had in school integration across the

15:42

country but I always like to point that

15:44

figure out the the cost right because

15:47

1.4 million dollars you guys would know

15:50

better than me what that means in

15:51

today's dollars but you know it's a

15:54

substantial budget just for the school

15:56

integration cases so that's definitely

16:00

something that I like to highlight

16:02

so this is a press photo again one of my

16:04

favorite things to collect and this is

16:06

on Channing Phillips

16:08

and Channing Phillips ran the Washington

16:11

DC campaign for Robert F Kennedy after

16:16

he's assassinated

16:18

the D.C delegation nominates Channing

16:21

Phillips for president as a son as a

16:24

favorite son and so Channing Phillips is

16:28

actually the first African-American to

16:30

be nominated for president it was a

16:33

symbolic move because he had worked so

16:35

closely with that campaign but he is

16:38

still the first African-American to be

16:40

nominated for the president

16:45

yeah and a lot of these names would be

16:48

lost to history right and so what we do

16:50

is try to amplify those voices those

16:53

events that people don't really know

16:56

about and again it has really cool DC

16:59

connection

17:00

one of the pieces that I really like in

17:04

our collection is a hand typed

17:07

so it's a hand typed report and it's the

17:10

annual report from 1968 of the NAACP and

17:15

it's the regional youth field director's

17:18

report and so it really does a deep dive

17:21

into all of the initiatives they were

17:24

working on and what happened in the

17:26

aftermath of MLK's assassination

17:30

and so it tells you everything that the

17:33

youth were doing for employment for

17:36

voting rights for integration in 1968

17:40

but it's a powerful report and it really

17:43

goes deep into you know what was being

17:45

done like boots on the ground and it's a

17:47

really interesting read

17:50

so what is

17:54

this Martin Luther King Jr right this is

17:56

from Coretta Scott King it is and so

17:58

what you'll see is this is from October

18:00

1st 1968. so this is months after her

18:04

husband's assassination and you'll see

18:06

it's signed Coretta Scott King

18:08

so we know that well into 1970 Coretta

18:12

Scott King responds personally to all

18:14

letters of prayer offers of concern

18:17

flowers and we have a Connecticut couple

18:19

that had Mass said for her and her

18:21

children and so what she's asking not

18:25

only saying thank you but she's asking

18:27

them to continue her husband's work as

18:30

they strive towards peace Justice and

18:32

Brotherhood and so we know she's thrust

18:34

into the national Spotlight following

18:36

his assassination but it really shows

18:38

her grace

18:40

in the midst of her own grief and

18:43

raising her children after the

18:44

assassination that she would personally

18:46

respond to these letters yeah

18:49

and so we're gonna

18:52

oh this is a good one

18:54

this is an original campaign poster from

18:57

Shirley Chisholm 1972 and her Ann Arbor

19:01

Michigan office and so we know Shirley

19:04

Chisholm is the first African-American

19:06

woman to uh

19:09

run on the national ticket and so this

19:12

is one of her buttons as well yes so a

19:15

lot of people love to see this piece

19:17

when we have it on display nice

19:21

so we're gonna keep on I love all the

19:24

Black Culture yeah Michael Jackson yes

19:26

Stevie Wonder right Sugar Ray Leonard

19:29

yes and so throughout

19:33

um from the 40s until our current our

19:36

last table in the collection we do

19:38

feature a lot of black Publications so

19:41

the jet magazines which was a weekly and

19:45

it was pocket sized it was meant to be

19:46

shared and left at the beauty salon or

19:49

the barbershop and this is one that I

19:51

just have fond memories of another piece

19:55

that people love is this s is for soul

19:58

sister this is it's so cute yeah and so

20:02

this is uh Chicago Teachers who are

20:05

looking to have culturally culturally

20:08

relevant items in their classroom they

20:10

took pictures of their students and made

20:12

instead of a for apple A is for afro

20:15

right and so it's a really cute

20:17

collection and we have the entire

20:18

collection

20:19

um

20:21

firm eyes

20:24

I think I remember

20:25

yeah definitely

20:28

a lot of what we do with the exhibit

20:31

really speaks to the power of the first

20:33

person to do something so the power of

20:37

one we have Wilder who becomes the first

20:40

African-American governor of Virginia

20:43

we have David Dinkins who's the first

20:46

African-American mayor of New York City

20:48

and it's important that people see who

20:52

lay that framework but since it's set up

20:55

as a timeline it's also important to see

20:57

how recent this was right and so as you

21:01

go through people are able to look at

21:04

and see things very differently when

21:06

it's set up the way it is today

21:08

we have a lot of DC on this table like a

21:11

lot of Washington DC so when Carol

21:14

Mosley Braun runs for Senate out of

21:17

Illinois and she wins her election we

21:20

have the Million Man March in 1995

21:22

that's right in DC right right exactly

21:26

we have Barack Obama and his historic

21:30

run and win we have the protests and

21:34

support of Justice Jackson

21:37

during her hearings and Kamala Harris

21:39

and so we like to end on a note where

21:43

people can identify with it's current

21:45

they know these stories they can

21:47

remember where they were those types of

21:50

feelings and so that is what we bought

21:53

today and it's been absolutely great

21:55

sharing this with you thank you you're

21:58

very welcome I love it

22:00

lightning yes and for our colleagues

22:03

that are not in the building yes we

22:05

still get to experience the homage

22:07

exhibit so it's really good that we're

22:09

capturing this definitely thank you

0:08

hi welcome to the Department of

0:10

commerce's Black History Month

0:12

presentation of homage my name is Terry

0:14

batch and I'm in the international trade

0:17

Administration Global markets in the U.S

0:19

field based in Los Angeles California

0:23

my name is Mia McAdoo and the Amash

0:25

exhibit is a private collection owned by

0:27

my husband and myself we travel all over

0:30

the country bringing this exhibit up in

0:33

up close and personal to different

0:35

communities and so we're really happy to

0:37

be here today and to partner with you in

0:39

your office so that all of the staff can

0:42

get a up close and personal look at

0:44

history

0:47

so can you tell us about this document

0:49

here and what

0:52

what yeah so this is one of the older

0:55

documents in our collection it's an

0:57

inventory of an estate from 1801. so

1:00

somebody's passed away and they're

1:02

diving up everything that's owned for

1:05

children or relatives so this is

1:08

everything of value so you can tell that

1:11

he's not a wealthy individual

1:14

but the most valuable item owned is a

1:17

Negro wench which is a black woman

1:20

we know from her value that she's past

1:22

childbearing age and she's doing cooking

1:24

and cleaning in the house

1:26

I like to bring this piece out because a

1:29

lot of people have ideas of working

1:31

plantations with hundreds of slaves

1:33

picking a crop when the reality is a lot

1:36

of people owned one or two and this

1:38

actually proves that you didn't

1:40

necessarily need to be wealthy to own

1:42

another human being

1:43

and so this is one of the items that we

1:47

always

1:48

start the

1:50

exhibit with but we're very intentional

1:53

in how we set shows up we want to make

1:56

sure we show balance whenever possible

1:58

so we would have a piece like this

2:01

showing African Americans very much as

2:03

property or stereo view cards showing

2:07

working plantations next to a document

2:10

like this which is signed by Frederick

2:13

Douglass and it brings that DC history

2:15

in and it's a land transfer Deed from

2:18

later in life when he's working for the

2:20

federal government right here in D.C

2:23

one of my favorite pieces in the

2:25

collection is here

2:27

and it's a document signed by Macon B

2:30

Allen Macon B Allen is born in Indiana

2:32

and the 1800s and has dreams of being an

2:36

attorney right and so because of racial

2:39

restrictions he can't get into law

2:41

school

2:42

at the time the state of Maine did not

2:44

have a racial restriction for sitting

2:46

for the bar

2:48

so he packs up moves to Maine he does

2:50

work with a white abolitionist attorney

2:52

and does like an apprenticeship and he's

2:55

able to sit for the bar passes and

2:57

becomes that first African-American

2:59

attorney in the country

3:00

this document is dated 1878

3:05

during Reconstruction he moves to

3:07

Charleston and with two other

3:08

African-American attorneys they start

3:10

the first black law firm in the country

3:13

this document is from when he's a

3:15

probate judge in Charleston County and

3:18

so after that he's unfortunately run out

3:21

of Charleston after reconstruction comes

3:25

to D.C where he works for the federal

3:26

government and so we tried to pull

3:29

pieces that tie into local DC history

3:32

government history

3:34

and it really shows the depth of the

3:37

collection the overall collection has

3:39

over 650 pieces and today we have a

3:42

little under 200 on display

3:46

yeah so this is a Charleston Courier

3:49

newspaper from 1834 October

3:52

so this is an advertising manager's copy

3:55

so the numbers indicate how many more

3:57

days an ad has been paid to run

4:01

you'll see someone selling church pews

4:04

someone's opening a dance school they're

4:06

looking for students but the two ads

4:10

I'll show you are here and they both

4:12

have the same icon which is a runaway

4:14

slave ad

4:15

the one on top is interesting for a

4:18

number of reasons

4:19

it's a 100 reward for a missing family

4:23

and we say missing because the ad

4:26

indicates they don't know if they fled

4:28

or if they were kidnapped and resold

4:30

which was common

4:32

the ad indicates they've been looking

4:33

for them for over a year so you see the

4:36

time the energy the money they put into

4:38

getting property back

4:40

we have a woman named Penny she's 35 to

4:42

40. she has a teenage son named James

4:45

who's 14 or 15 and a two-year-old named

4:49

Millie

4:50

and in the document Millie is described

4:52

as being mulatto so we know she's

4:54

biracial more than likely the person who

4:57

fathered her is also the one trying to

4:59

get them back into enslavement

5:01

our collection also has a December 1834

5:05

career that ad still appears we know

5:08

from our research that it runs until the

5:10

following February

5:12

so it's a good piece and people always

5:13

have questions of what the numbers mean

5:16

and how we acquired it and this is one

5:19

of the pieces we acquired at a library

5:21

auction and so we have a number of

5:24

newspapers and we're able to introduce

5:26

different events or people movements

5:30

through media on this next table I'll

5:33

show you an example of that

5:36

so this is June 1921 and this is

5:41

newspaper coverage out of California on

5:44

the Tulsa Race Massacre so you'll see it

5:48

says martial law rules thousands in

5:50

battle torch applied in Tulsa and so we

5:54

get a lot of people who come through the

5:55

exhibit and they're like well why don't

5:57

you talk about this or that or this

5:59

person and since we only deal with

6:02

original artifacts and documents we can

6:04

only tell the story if we have that

6:06

piece that accompanies it and so this

6:09

was a piece that we acquired prior to

6:12

the 100th anniversary which was in 2021

6:15

and so we were able to tell that story

6:17

through a library auction where we

6:20

acquired this piece so that's a good

6:24

example of that

6:27

1921 yes and so everything is period and

6:32

we talk a lot about

6:33

everyday life another piece that I

6:37

really love is at the end of this table

6:40

um and again it's another local DC Story

6:43

one of my favorite things to collect are

6:46

press photos

6:48

and so typically when you have a picture

6:51

that's being used across the country

6:53

it's getting picked up by media they

6:56

will have and I'm going to flip this

6:58

over

6:59

on the back of it they'll have a date

7:02

stamp and a description of the original

7:04

wire or article

7:07

now this is a group of Howard University

7:11

students

7:12

and they're at the Attorney General's

7:14

conference on crime

7:16

this is 1934 and they're looking to have

7:19

lynching recognized as a federal hate

7:22

crime

7:23

we know that just happened

7:25

you'll see that they're standing next to

7:29

one another this is day two of that

7:31

student protest on day one they're

7:33

arrested because they're protesting on

7:36

day two they come out they stand side by

7:37

side which is not

7:39

a protest it's people standing in line

7:42

what you'll see if you take a closer

7:44

look is that they all have the nooses

7:46

around their neck

7:48

because they're unable to hold signs and

7:50

so they do this silent protest with the

7:52

Noose to protest lynching and so that's

7:55

another powerful piece that has a local

7:58

DC tie-in

8:03

so

8:04

just right here and I see that we have

8:06

madam CJ Walker yeah noted on the on

8:10

this piece yeah definitely so madam CJ

8:13

Walker we know is the first

8:14

African-American woman to be a

8:16

millionaire in this country and she's

8:18

based out of Indianapolis

8:20

this is actually her headquarters that

8:23

she built from the ground up and it

8:25

still stands we were there maybe two

8:27

weeks ago and so we were able to see the

8:29

building and it's very much still in use

8:31

and so madam CJ Walker makes her

8:34

Millions from black hair care and so one

8:37

thing that's really cool and I'll show

8:39

you

8:40

these are original product tins

8:42

and so this is the gloss scene

8:45

that really put her on the map so not

8:48

only did she create products but she

8:51

created beauty schools where

8:53

African-American women could come to

8:56

learn the trade to start their own

8:57

businesses and contribute to the greater

9:00

economy

9:01

um this is another one it's a temple

9:04

solve and this one actually still has

9:07

product in it yeah

9:09

and so

9:11

um it's always pieces that we like to

9:14

um showcase but an interesting story on

9:17

the back end is that my husband and I

9:20

have to know what's important to history

9:22

before

9:24

the general public right so we can

9:25

acquire the pieces and so we acquired

9:28

our madam CJ Walker tins and artifacts

9:32

prior to the Netflix special

9:34

post Netflix special the prices are

9:37

inflated and so we can no longer acquire

9:40

those pieces the same thing with the

9:43

paper we talked about with the Tulsa

9:45

Race Massacre once a hundred years hit

9:48

people knew about it so they're

9:50

searching for the artifacts related to

9:52

it and so we have to know

9:55

what is culturally important

9:59

um before everyone else does if that

10:01

makes sense

10:03

um

10:04

this is another piece that has a local

10:07

tie-in and again a pressed photo like I

10:10

said I'm very drawn to those pieces

10:12

and so this is Lois

10:15

Lipman and she's the first

10:16

African-American woman to have a

10:18

professional job at the White House and

10:21

one thing about press photos and I'll

10:24

turn it sideways is they'll tell you the

10:27

date

10:29

and let's look on the back to see if

10:31

this one I can't remember if this one

10:33

has a cutout so it's 1953 and this is

10:37

August 16th

10:39

the exhibit uses period language so Lois

10:44

is assistant to presidential assistant

10:46

Sherman Adams and she's the first negro

10:49

to work as a White House secretary

10:52

she worked for the Eisenhower

10:53

headquarters in New York in 1952 and was

10:57

given the job after the inauguration and

11:00

so she right exactly exactly

11:04

there's one thing that I like to show

11:08

people

11:09

with the exhibit you have the ability to

11:13

look at somebody's trajectory right and

11:16

so I'll give you two examples of that

11:19

the Fort Worth mind is the

11:21

African-American newspaper out of Texas

11:26

um here

11:27

I always like to point out it's a member

11:29

of the associated negro press like the

11:33

Associated Press they had a division for

11:35

African-American papers and this is

11:38

March 1957. Martin Luther King

11:42

is speaking at a graduation in Kentucky

11:45

but he's not a household name yet

11:48

and so the paper has to describe him to

11:52

tell you why you should care that he's

11:54

speaking at graduation so what it says

11:57

is he is the pastor of Dexter Avenue

12:00

Baptist Church in Montgomery and it

12:03

tells you that he's the president of the

12:05

Montgomery Improvement Association that

12:07

did the Montgomery Bus Boycott so that's

12:09

the light bulb when people read it

12:12

because they know Rosa Parks they know

12:14

the bus to boycott but they did not know

12:16

Martin Luther King Jr yet

12:19

and so we know that in a few years he's

12:22

a household name everyone knows him he

12:24

no longer would need that same

12:26

introduction

12:28

another example of that is this 1956

12:32

press photo

12:33

you have authoring Lucy who's

12:35

integrating the University of Alabama

12:38

but her attorneys are from the NAACP

12:42

so she's actually represented by

12:44

Thurgood Marshall who we know becomes

12:45

the first African-American on the

12:47

Supreme Court and Constance Baker Motley

12:50

who's tucked in

12:52

um there and she's the first

12:53

African-American woman to be appointed

12:56

as a federal judge and so

12:59

again in a few years everyone knows

13:01

Thurgood Marshall everybody knows

13:04

Constance Baker Motley but in 1956 this

13:07

is what got them to those positions and

13:09

it talks about the just the caliber of

13:12

attorneys working for school integration

13:14

through the NAACP so those are a few

13:17

pieces that I like to point out

13:19

as well

13:25

we get a lot of questions about how we

13:28

acquire our artifacts and I mentioned

13:31

earlier that a lot of newspapers will

13:34

come from newspaper auctions and I'll

13:36

show you an example of this so this is

13:38

September 18 1963 and this is the

13:42

Detroit Free Press and they're covering

13:44

the funeral of the little girls who were

13:46

murdered in the church bombing in

13:48

Birmingham

13:49

um but if you take a peek in here you'll

13:52

see that it was added to the archives on

13:55

September 20th 1963.

13:58

so what would happen something major

14:01

would happen they would take 50 copies

14:04

put them in the archives but then in 20

14:07

years 30 years they say okay do we still

14:09

need this and if the answer is no

14:12

they'll pare it Down Auction the rest

14:14

and now especially since everything is

14:17

being digitized they don't need as many

14:20

hard copies that have been saved over

14:22

the years so they will auction those to

14:24

raise money and so we're able to acquire

14:26

those pieces that way but whenever you

14:29

see that an item was sent to an archive

14:32

that sort of the story behind that we

14:36

talked about Thurgood Marshall on the

14:38

previous table

14:40

and this really gives you a greater

14:44

insight to the work that they were doing

14:45

for school integration

14:48

this is a fundraising letter sent by the

14:51

committee of 100 which is a organization

14:54

working to raise funds for different

14:57

initiatives this fundraising letter is

15:01

in support of the legal defense fund and

15:04

what it says is that in 1964 the NAACP

15:08

legal defense fund spent 1.4 million

15:11

dollars

15:13

um to fight School integration and it

15:16

goes on to say that they fought

15:18

they filed 84

15:21

suits in 15 states to desegregate

15:25

universities local school boards and

15:27

things like that and what the list

15:30

letter also says is with more money we

15:32

can do more but it really talks about

15:35

the fight the NAACP

15:38

had in school integration across the

15:42

country but I always like to point that

15:44

figure out the the cost right because

15:47

1.4 million dollars you guys would know

15:50

better than me what that means in

15:51

today's dollars but you know it's a

15:54

substantial budget just for the school

15:56

integration cases so that's definitely

16:00

something that I like to highlight

16:02

so this is a press photo again one of my

16:04

favorite things to collect and this is

16:06

on Channing Phillips

16:08

and Channing Phillips ran the Washington

16:11

DC campaign for Robert F Kennedy after

16:16

he's assassinated

16:18

the D.C delegation nominates Channing

16:21

Phillips for president as a son as a

16:24

favorite son and so Channing Phillips is

16:28

actually the first African-American to

16:30

be nominated for president it was a

16:33

symbolic move because he had worked so

16:35

closely with that campaign but he is

16:38

still the first African-American to be

16:40

nominated for the president

16:45

yeah and a lot of these names would be

16:48

lost to history right and so what we do

16:50

is try to amplify those voices those

16:53

events that people don't really know

16:56

about and again it has really cool DC

16:59

connection

17:00

one of the pieces that I really like in

17:04

our collection is a hand typed

17:07

so it's a hand typed report and it's the

17:10

annual report from 1968 of the NAACP and

17:15

it's the regional youth field director's

17:18

report and so it really does a deep dive

17:21

into all of the initiatives they were

17:24

working on and what happened in the

17:26

aftermath of MLK's assassination

17:30

and so it tells you everything that the

17:33

youth were doing for employment for

17:36

voting rights for integration in 1968

17:40

but it's a powerful report and it really

17:43

goes deep into you know what was being

17:45

done like boots on the ground and it's a

17:47

really interesting read

17:50

so what is

17:54

this Martin Luther King Jr right this is

17:56

from Coretta Scott King it is and so

17:58

what you'll see is this is from October

18:00

1st 1968. so this is months after her

18:04

husband's assassination and you'll see

18:06

it's signed Coretta Scott King

18:08

so we know that well into 1970 Coretta

18:12

Scott King responds personally to all

18:14

letters of prayer offers of concern

18:17

flowers and we have a Connecticut couple

18:19

that had Mass said for her and her

18:21

children and so what she's asking not

18:25

only saying thank you but she's asking

18:27

them to continue her husband's work as

18:30

they strive towards peace Justice and

18:32

Brotherhood and so we know she's thrust

18:34

into the national Spotlight following

18:36

his assassination but it really shows

18:38

her grace

18:40

in the midst of her own grief and

18:43

raising her children after the

18:44

assassination that she would personally

18:46

respond to these letters yeah

18:49

and so we're gonna

18:52

oh this is a good one

18:54

this is an original campaign poster from

18:57

Shirley Chisholm 1972 and her Ann Arbor

19:01

Michigan office and so we know Shirley

19:04

Chisholm is the first African-American

19:06

woman to uh

19:09

run on the national ticket and so this

19:12

is one of her buttons as well yes so a

19:15

lot of people love to see this piece

19:17

when we have it on display nice

19:21

so we're gonna keep on I love all the

19:24

Black Culture yeah Michael Jackson yes

19:26

Stevie Wonder right Sugar Ray Leonard

19:29

yes and so throughout

19:33

um from the 40s until our current our

19:36

last table in the collection we do

19:38

feature a lot of black Publications so

19:41

the jet magazines which was a weekly and

19:45

it was pocket sized it was meant to be

19:46

shared and left at the beauty salon or

19:49

the barbershop and this is one that I

19:51

just have fond memories of another piece

19:55

that people love is this s is for soul

19:58

sister this is it's so cute yeah and so

20:02

this is uh Chicago Teachers who are

20:05

looking to have culturally culturally

20:08

relevant items in their classroom they

20:10

took pictures of their students and made

20:12

instead of a for apple A is for afro

20:15

right and so it's a really cute

20:17

collection and we have the entire

20:18

collection

20:19

um

20:21

firm eyes

20:24

I think I remember

20:25

yeah definitely

20:28

a lot of what we do with the exhibit

20:31

really speaks to the power of the first

20:33

person to do something so the power of

20:37

one we have Wilder who becomes the first

20:40

African-American governor of Virginia

20:43

we have David Dinkins who's the first

20:46

African-American mayor of New York City

20:48

and it's important that people see who

20:52

lay that framework but since it's set up

20:55

as a timeline it's also important to see

20:57

how recent this was right and so as you

21:01

go through people are able to look at

21:04

and see things very differently when

21:06

it's set up the way it is today

21:08

we have a lot of DC on this table like a

21:11

lot of Washington DC so when Carol

21:14

Mosley Braun runs for Senate out of

21:17

Illinois and she wins her election we

21:20

have the Million Man March in 1995

21:22

that's right in DC right right exactly

21:26

we have Barack Obama and his historic

21:30

run and win we have the protests and

21:34

support of Justice Jackson

21:37

during her hearings and Kamala Harris

21:39

and so we like to end on a note where

21:43

people can identify with it's current

21:45

they know these stories they can

21:47

remember where they were those types of

21:50

feelings and so that is what we bought

21:53

today and it's been absolutely great

21:55

sharing this with you thank you you're

21:58

very welcome I love it

22:00

lightning yes and for our colleagues

22:03

that are not in the building yes we

22:05

still get to experience the homage

22:07

exhibit so it's really good that we're

22:09

capturing this definitely thank you