The exhibit has six original pieces of artwork, along with digital reprints and lithographs.
(Devan Ridgway)
The Crispus Attucks Museum recently opened an exhibit that aims to educate people on the history of lynching in Indiana and memorialize the victims of racist violence.
The exhibit, Unmasked: The Anti-Lynching Exhibits of 1935 and Community Remembrance in Indiana, first opened at Indiana University earlier this year, and has now moved to its new location in Indianapolis at the Crispus Attucks Museum.
Alex Lichtenstein, IU professor of history and American studies, said the first two parts of the exhibit feature anti-lynching artwork both from a 1935 exhibit by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and from the U.S. Communist Party.
“We highlight these two dueling 1935 exhibits and try to bring them into the same space to suggest that there was a debate or dialogue around best ways to use art to protest lynching,” Lichtenstein said.
Robert Chester, museum curator and digital archivist, said some of the anti-lynching artwork shown is by Dr. Mattie Lee Jones. “Reaching for Heaven,” parts I and II, demonstrate how the life of a human being and the life of a tree are very closely connected.
“You cut the roots of one the effects are felt and seen throughout the generations of humanity or forestry,” Chester said. “Regardless of what you’ve done, the crime was your skin color.”
Chester said lynching was used as a form of capital punishment. Marion, Indiana, is home to the infamous lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith. The exhibit features a photograph from that event; even though almost every witness in the photo is identifiable, no one was charged with the murder of the two men.
The exhibit has a copy of Public Enemy's album cover, Hazy Shade of Criminal. The photo on the cover comes from the 1930 Marion Lynching. (Devan Ridgway)
“You can’t even begin to imagine how terrifying that is when others have that much power over your life, whether you live or die, whether you see one more sunrise or not. All because of how they may feel,” Chester said. “When they wake up, do they want to go out and falsely accuse someone, start a riot?”
The exhibit includes various other pieces of artwork that aim to memorialize the victims and depict those left behind. There are six original pieces of artwork, along with digital reprints and lithographs.
The exhibit features photographs that depict those left behind. (Devan Ridgway)
“I see myself in all these images and all these faces,” Chester said. “All these deceased men and women who have met their demise and ways unfathomable, unconscionable, tortured, burned alive.”
The museum is attached to a high school that was segregated from the 1920s to the 1950s. Lichtenstein said he wanted to center the exhibition in the African American community.
“We're at a moment historically where there's a battle over history,” Lichenstein said. “There are some forces who are trying to say no, you can't or shouldn't teach that kind of American past. It's too traumatic. It's too difficult, it makes people feel bad.”
Lichtenstein wants to give high school students the opportunity to learn about this history.
“This is a history we must look in the face, we must confront, we must remember so the place to start that is with youth,” Lichenstein said.
The exhibit includes a 1990 bronze sculpture, The Lynching, by Indianapolis native and artist John Spaulding. (Devan Ridgway)
The exhibit is seven years in the making. Lichtenstein and his team spent $60,000 to put the exhibit together, and plans to spend another $60,000 to make it more portable. The exhibit will show in South Bend, New Albany and at America’s Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee. Lichtenstein has applied for a grant to take the exhibit to South Africa and Germany as well.
“It's [exhibit] a sign of encouragement, a sign of promise, a sign of growth, a sign of overcoming,” Chester said. “We can look back and see how much progress we've actually made and how much more progress that needs to be made. And in the middle, we do what we can to support one another, encourage one another and help one another to understand this madness.”
The exhibit opened Aug. 18 and will be open until March 1. People can visit by appointment Monday through Friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission to the museum is $9.
