International African-American Museum Awarded Two Million Dollars in Support by Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Slave Trade, Africa, 1899 (Sir Harry Hamilton Johnston, et. al., public domain courtesy of the New York Public Library).

Leaders of a new museum under development in United States have announced important new funding which is expected to greatly enhance African-American family history research across the globe. The two million dollar award was made by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the International African American Museum — a new educational facility which is slated to be built in Charleston, South Carolina, where roughly half of all enslaved Africans were brought after being forcibly transported via the Transatlantic Slave Trade prior to the end of the American Civil War.

The funding is expected to support not just the creation of the IAAM Center for Family History, but to help make it “[o]ne of the crown jewels of the experience at the museum,” according to Joseph P. Riley, the longtime former mayor of Charleston and lifetime IAAM board member. “Because of this generous donation from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the center will catapult into a level of excellence that simply would not be achievable” otherwise.

During his announcement of the donation at RootsTech’s 9th family history conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, elder David A. Bednar explained that the church is supporting IAAM’s Center for Family History at this early juncture of its development because its leaders and members “value the strength that comes from learning about … families. The museum will not only educate its patrons on the important contributions of Africans who came through Gadsden’s Wharf and Charleston, it also will help all who visit to discover and connect with ancestors whose stories previously may not have been known.”

Also speaking at the Salt Lake event was Martin Luther King III, son of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The younger King noted that the collaboration between the IAAM and the church was very much in line with the efforts of his father to create a “beloved community.”

Prior to this The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its FamilySearch International were instrumental in increasing access to African heritage records, including letters and contracts which were created immediately after the American Civil War as part of the Freedmen’s Bureau.

When its doors open on the site of the former Gadsden’s Wharf in Charleston in the year 2021, the IAAM and its family history center are expected to deliver not only a world-class museum experience, but to serve as a “memorial and site of conscience” which will help visitors better understand and appreciate “the history, sacrifices and contributions of Americans of African descent,” in a way that “contribute[s] to a more complete and honest articulation of American history.”

LINCOLN MEMORIAL TO RECEIVE $18.5 MILLION FACELIFT

 

America’s great contralto, Marian Anderson, stands before Lincoln’s statue on the day of her triumphant concert at the Lincoln Memorial, April 9, 1939. (U.S. Library of Congress, public domain.)

 

“I am humbled to be a part of honoring this great man and preserving this iconic memorial for future generations.” – David Rubenstein

 
On Presidents’ Day 2016, Americans were greeted by the news that one of their most cherished national symbols will be preserved for their grandchildren and great-grandchildren via a multi-million dollar renovation of the Lincoln Memorial. The tender loving care will be funded by an $18.5 million donation from philanthropist and Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein, and will include the memorial’s cleaning, repairs to marble masonry and brick, and conservation of the spectacular Jules Guérin murals which help bring Abraham Lincoln’s ideals to life for the millions of women, men and children who visit America’s National Mall annually.

In addition, an elevator will be installed to improve access for visitors with disabilities, and more space will be made available for exhibits, education and research.

“These improvements will hopefully enable more people to better understand and appreciate Abraham Lincoln’s remarkable leadership during one of the most trying periods in American history,” David Rubenstein said. “I am humbled to be a part of honoring this great man and preserving this iconic memorial for future generations.”

The much-needed support comes as the U.S. National Park Service celebrates its Centennial Anniversary, and is the fourth such gift to the NPS by Rubenstein and one of many others he has made to history museums across America. In January, he loaned two rare copies of the Emancipation Proclamation and 13th Amendment to the Smithsonian Institution’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture, and also gifted $10 million to the NMAAHC. In 2015 and 2014, he donated $5.4 million and roughly $12.4 million, respectively, for renovations to the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial and Arlington House on the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery.

“In this temple, as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever.” 

Those words inscribed above Lincoln’s statue eloquently describe the experience of visitors to the Lincoln Memorial, and were penned by Royal Cortissoz, an art critic and columnist for the New York Herald Tribune. The statue, designed by sculptor Daniel Chester French and carved by the Piccirilli Brothers from 1918-1920, is a towering 19 feet high and depicts Lincoln seated and musing in the midst of America’s great Civil War, his left hand clenched forcefully in recognition of the fight being waged by his beloved nation, his right resting on the arm of his chair as if signaling his hope that peace was still possible. Those hands are so mesmerizing because French not only studied photographs of Lincoln’s face prior to beginning his design work, he studied castings of Lincoln’s actual hands which had been created in 1860.

French’s protégé, Evelyn Beatrice Longman, fashioned the decorative carvings adorning Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural Address while Ernest C. Bairstow carved the lettering in the Lincoln Memorial’s interior and the eagles, festoons and wreaths on the building’s exterior.

Henry Bacon designed not just the architecture of the Greek Doric-style building where Lincoln’s statue is housed, but the memorial’s overall “effect.” It was Bacon, a New York architect, who chose Jules Guérin to create the interior murals, Emancipation and Unity, which bring Abraham Lincoln’s ideals to life.

Bacon also ensured that it would be uniquely “American,” by using Alabama marble for the ceiling, granite from Massachusetts for the terrace, Colorado marble for the upper steps and façade, pink marble from Tennessee for the interior chamber floors, Indiana limestone for the columns and interior walls. The Great Emancipator’s likeness was hewn from Georgia marble.

Construction began in 1914; the memorial was officially dedicated in 1922.

Dedication of the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C., 30 May 1922. (U.S. Library of Congress, public domain.)

 

Truly Iconic in a World of Faux Icons

Although the word iconic has been misapplied in today’s media to everything and everyone from fad fashions to one-hit wonders, it is a word which does truly befit the Lincoln Memorial, which has served as the gathering point Americans during critical periods in the nation’s history.

It was here, on Easter Sunday in 1939 at the urging of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, that Marian Anderson sang for the nation when the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow America’s great contralto to sing before an integrated audience at the DAR’s Constitution Hall.

And it was here, on August 28, 1863, that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. inspired generations to fight for a world in which children would “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Rubenstein, in giving this particular gift to the National Park Foundation, has reinvigorated the words of Abraham Lincoln, who said during his 1863 Gettysburg Address:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Said U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell of Rubenstein’s generosity, “His act of ‘patriotic philanthropy’ will not only safeguard one of our most visited and recognizable memorials for future generations, but will also help preserve Lincoln’s legacy to this country.”

 
Image (top): America’s great contralto, Marian Anderson, stands before Abraham Lincoln’s statue on the day of her most triumphant performance, April 9, 1939. Refused permission by the Daughters of the American Revolution to sing for an integrated audience at the DAR’s Constitution Hall, she was invited by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to perform at the National Mall. An estimated crowd of 75,000 witnessed Anderson make history at the Lincoln Memorial while millions tuned in via radio that Easter Sunday, 1939. (U.S. Library of Congress, public domain.)

 

U.S. National Park Service Partners with Google to Help Share America’s History: Google Cultural Institute to digitize U.S. artifacts

 

Tuskegee airmen in briefing, Ramitelli, Italy, March 1945. Source: 332nd Group Fighter Pilots and U.S. Library of Congress (public domain).

 

“The magic of technology is that it allows us to fold space and time to bring people together with places, experiences, artifacts, and each other in ways that before were impossible.” – Malika Saada Saar, Google’s Senior Counsel on Civil and Human Rights.

 

In celebration of February’s Black History Month and in preparation for the Centennial Anniversary of the U.S. National Park Service occurring on Aug. 25, America’s Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced Feb. 11 that the Google Cultural Institute will “make thousands of historically and culturally significant objects in the [NPS] museum collection available online.” Explained Jewell, Google will photograph and then digitally link artwork, historical records, photographs, and other artifacts to Google Maps, using “technologies similar to Google’s Street View” as part of a partnership agreement with the U.S. Department of the Interior.

“This marriage of technology and history means that anyone anywhere can see artifacts and sites that provide a taste of the rich and diverse story of America,” said Jewell. “Our hope is that this partnership will not only illustrate and elevate our nation’s history and culture, but inspire more people to visit the wonderfully diverse places that the National Park Service protects and preserves for current and future generations.”

With more than 450 million objects and 76,000 linear feet of archived records scattered across nearly 400 national park-based museums, the U.S. National Park Service is now operating one of the largest museum systems worldwide, but simply does not have the physical space to display even a fraction of its holdings. So, this partnership is seen by many public historians and open source enthusiasts as a key victory for the arts and humanities.

One of the park-based museums to be made more visible thanks to Google is the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site where Jewell made her announcement as part of a special Black History Month event featuring survivors of the famed World War II Army Air Corps squadron. The collections from the Tuskegee Airmen NHS document the heroism in the air and on the ground of more than 1,000 African-American aviators and 10,000 military and civilian support personnel who defended the nation while raising awareness of the discrimination they faced on the home front.

In addition to bringing more information about the Tuskegee collections to light, said National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis, website surfers will likely enjoy a special Centennial Virtual Exhibit from the NPS, and “will have the unique opportunity to see rare Native American artifacts, browse inspiring works of art that convey our nation’s history and natural beauty, and virtually walk through the homes of great American thinkers, like Frederick Douglass and Thomas Edison.”

“The magic of technology is that it allows us to fold space and time to bring people together with places, experiences, artifacts, and each other in ways that before were impossible,” said Malika Saada Saar, Google’s Senior Counsel on Civil and Human Rights. “That’s what the Google Cultural Institute does, and we are thrilled to work with the National Park Service to help preserve these beautiful American places, objects, and stories.”