ST PAUL, Minn. — It's the beginning of Black History Month and Minnesota History Center gift shop employees are stocking new books to coincide with the new exhibit upstairs.
Debuting Saturday, Feb. 3, Black Citizenship in the Age of Jim Crow explores the fight for racial equality and full citizenship that occurred between the end of the Civil War and the end of World War I, a 50-year time period.
Senior public historian Chantel Rodriguez with the Minnesota Historical Society says visitors can expect to learn about the year 1868, when all persons born in the U.S. were technically citizens and equal under the law, but efforts to create an interracial democracy were widely contested in the "separate but equal" age of Jim Crow.
"That can include some very difficult history," Rodriguez said. "History that involves hardship, discrimination and violence, but it also very much highlights the experience of African Americans persevering through that hardship."
To paint the picture, there's both a copy of the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery, and authentic shackles worn by those like Mary Horn, a teen held captive for another year despite abolition.
Rodriguez says one intriguing item on display is a hat worn by newly freed men working for the Pullman Company as porters, a job of servitude but a paid job.
"Objects can seem mundane but they tell stories," she said. "We had a lot of Pullman sleeping cars operating in Minnesota, meaning that we had Black advancement and the creation of middle class here in Minnesota."
The exhibit first opened in New York in 2018 and has since toured the country. Minnesota is its last stop.
"It's not just a story about African-American history, it is a story about Minnesota history," Rodriguez said. "It's a story about U.S. history. So this is a shared story, and we hope that Minnesotans that come here will get to see how this story connects to their own lives and the world that we live in today."
To celebrate the opening of the exhibit, local scholars Dr. William Green, Dr. Duchess Harris and Dr. James Robinson will host a program on the history of African Americans in Minnesota during the post-Emancipation era. It's set for Saturday from 1-3 p.m. at the Minnesota History Center.
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