Newly renovated museum of Civil Rights reopens in Memphis

I read in The New York Times about the recent renovation of the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. The museum, which is at the site of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination, commemorates the long pathway to Civil Rights for African Americans.

Among its many exhibits is one on Charles Hamilton Houston, a Civil Rights lawyer who we’ve written about on this blog. In order to mount his argument that separate education facilities were not equal in the Jim Crow South, Houston shot a good deal of 16mm footage of the conditions in the South during the 1930s, which is today stored in the National Archives in the Harmon Foundation Collection. Since Houston filmed several of the Rosenwald Schools, we plan to use some of this footage in our upcoming documentary on Julius Rosenwald’s life.

You can read more on the museum’s website. Prominently displayed there is a powerful quote by Houston:

“Maybe the next generation will be able to take time out to rest, but we have too far to go and too much work to do.”


Charles Hamilton Houston with Mary McLeod Bethune, from the outtakes of A Study in Educational Inequalities in South Carolina
Film still credit: National Archives, College Park, Harmon Foundation Collection, 200 HF 265×3

Portrait of Maya Angelou unveiled at Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery

Last weekend, Maya Angelou was on hand for the unveiling of her portrait in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. The image of the poet and author was created by Ross Rossin and donated to the gallery by former U.N. ambassador Andrew Young, according to The Washington Post.

Angelou attended a Rosenwald School in Stamps, Arkansas. She described her experience growing up under segregation for the 1993 documentary The Great Depression. Although she said her school (the Lafayette County Training School) was “grand,” she remembered the hand me down books her school got from the white school in town, and how the students were expected to make repairs to the bindings. One of Angelou’s teachers saw her potential and was able to get her some new books:

I had never seen a new book until Mrs. Flowers brought books from the white school for me to read. The slick pages, I couldn’t believe it, and that’s when I think my first anger, real anger at the depressive and the oppressive system began.

We plan to incorporate parts of this interview in The Rosenwald Schools documentary.

Short film about Dr. E.B. Henderson, founding father of basketball

Edwin B. Henderson II, who we interviewed last week, shared a link to a short video made about his and his wife Nikki’s quest to establish the legacy of his grandfather Dr. E.B. Henderson, a historic basketball pioneer in Washington D.C.

After Mr. Henderson came across a box of papers, letters and photographs belonging to his grandfather, he began advocating for Dr. Henderson to be inducted into the National Basketball Hall of Fame. Finally, in 2013, that goal was achieved due to Edwin and Nikki’s hard work. Dr. E.B. Henderson’s home in Falls Church, Virginia has also been added to the National Register of Historic Places.

GVI of Washington D.C. has put together a lovely short feature on the Hendersons. You can watch the video here.

Poem inspired by the Rosenwald Museum in Chicago

Inspired by his son’s love for the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Julius Rosenwald founded the Museum of Science and Industry for “every young growing mind in Chicago” (Tribune, Apr 17, 1926). Years later, Rosenwald’s vision for an interactive, awe-inspiring experience has been cemented as an icon of the Chicago cultural landscape and continues to be a must-see attraction for natives and visitors alike. In her poem, “Doll’s House,” Chicagoan Donna Katzin fondly remembers visits to the Museum of Science and Industry with her father. Like for many young girls, Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle captured her imagination and created a lasting impression.


A room from Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle
Photo credit: kthypryn (flickr)

Doll’s House

Every Sunday we visit the museum.
My father takes my hand, leads me
to the miniature glass mansion
of pinpoint lights embroidered on midnight
like winking opals on taffeta.

He never breaks the spell,
as if fine filaments strung through the rooms
might shatter with a word,
wears the smiling mask
I never lift or question.

We hold our breaths,
do not risk a whisper
that might snuff out the magic,
condemn us to the darkness
of duties and debts.

I tiptoe through the corridors,
sit on matchbox thrones, ascend spiral stairs,
waltz in the vaulted ballroom to imagined melodies —
a princess in a palace
abandoned by the king.

These years later, his wrinkled hand is gone
with letters of his pen, notes of his violin.
Now he is the museum. I am still
the one on the outside
watching.

Donna Katzin
January 31, 2014
New York City