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AMERICA'S BLACK HOLOCAUST MUSEUM
The Future is At Hand - How Will You Impact It?
Throughout the course of American history, there has been an incredibly large societal impact made by the concept of race. In the present, many groups around the nation are actively working on reducing the negative impacts that this discourse has had on the American people. The ABHM - MSOE Honors Group joined the ranks of these organizations by working with Milwaukee's own America's Black Holocaust Museum to raise awareness of the historic issues that continue to plague many African Americans around the country to this day. By specifically honing in on the struggles Milwaukee has in this realm, the goal of the ABHM - MSOE Honors Group was to make a positive impact on the present situation of a city that would in turn create a positive ripple effect into the future.
OUR PARTNER
Without our partner organization, there would be no project in the first place.
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Founded in 1984 in Milwaukee, America's Black Holocaust Museum has sought to illuminate the history of oppression that African Americans have faced on this continent over the past 400 years. The severity of the treatment of these people over portions of that time period prompted the Museum's founder, Dr. James Cameron, to refer to the subject as a holocaust in the naming of his institution.
Dr. James Cameron was the only known survivor of a lynching in the United States. His book, A Time of Terror, details his story and brings to life for all its readers the harsh reality of life for American Americans at that time, of which he unfortunately saw the worst firsthand. Leveraging his story, Dr. Cameron dedicated his life to reaching out to as many Americans as possible to inform them of their shared history in hopes of building a brighter, safer future for all Americans, especially those of color. One of the ways in which he accomplished this goal was through the founding of America's Black Holocaust Museum.
The Museum fell on hard times during the Great Recession of 2008, however, forcing it to close its doors. Since that time, Museum volunteers such as Dr. Fran Kaplan, our group's chief liaison with ABHM, have spearheaded efforts to keep the late Dr. Cameron's vision for ABHM alive by placing its content online in the America's Black Holocaust Virtual Museum. It was in an attempt to continue the growth of ABHvM that our Honors group was enlisted to not only draw additional visitors to the virtual museum by posting excerpts from breaking news articles from African American media, but also to research, curate, and create a new gallery analyzing the microcosm of segregation that is the city of Milwaukee: the Through One City's Eyes Gallery.
OURÂ VISION
In the early days of the project, our team quickly found that in order to more fully gauge the success of our undertakings further down the line, our vision of what this project should achieve would need to be articulated.
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Vision Statement
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An early version of what would one day become our Vision Statement took the form of a question:
How do we effectively expose visitors to the virtual museum to different perspectives of race relations in Milwaukee and the rest of America?
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With time and additional details of exactly what our community partner organization expected from us, our original vision question developed into its final form:
The ABHM - MSOE Honors Group aims to expose visitors to the various perspectives of race relations by creating an active online community that encourages users to participate in discussions and share their own views on different subject matters.
TIMELINE
Over the course of the year, the ABHM group has created numerous presentations and done a good amount of research. The timeline was created to visually show what has been completed and when it was completed relative to the school year. Hopefully, the timeline allows viewers to understand the amount of work done for ABHM and how it was done over the course of a year.
THE PRODUCT
Over the course of the year, the main project involving ABHM was the creation of the Through One City’s Eyes Gallery for the online museum. The gallery represents a culmination of research and planning done primarily throughout the third trimester. This section includes the final drafts of the gallery. Outside of the gallery, we were tasked with updating the Breaking News category of ABHM with relevant news, authored by prominent African American media outlets.
OUR RESEARCH
In order to achieve the creation of the Through One City’s Eyes Gallery, great amounts of research and presentations were required. This section contains the research and presentations that the ABHM group has prepared over the course of the year. The research and presentations helped our group grow, become more oriented with the ABHM, and more fully understand the topics we would be addressing in the production of the gallery. Also, a survey was conducted within the Greater Milwaukee Area that discussed the relevance of ABHM in the city, as well as the educational state of Milwaukee.
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OUR SURVEYS
This section contains the two surveys run by our group in the Greater Milwaukee Area. The first button is linked to the survey and presentation that mainly focuses on the educational segregation of Milwaukee. The second button primarily focuses on the awareness that other people have of ABHM.
THE EVENT
The ABHM group decided to host an event within MSOE to promote the museum. The event was held in the Campus Center, and involved the showing of RACE: The Power of an Illusion - The House We Live In, followed by a brief discussion about what was shown in the film. The turnout was greater than expected, and the discussions were very engaging. Audience members walked away from the night with new thoughts to consider when analyzing their place in the American socioeconomic hierarchy. Click on the RACE: The Power of an Illusion picture below to view clips from the program yourself!
