Redemption

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An NAACP flyer campaigning for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 1922, but was filibustered to defeat in the Senate. Dyer, the NAACP, and freedom fighters around the country, like Flossie Baily, struggled for years to get the Dyer and other anti-lynching bills passed, to no avail. Today there is still no U.S. law specifically against lynching. In 2005, eighty of the 100 U.S. Senators voted for a resolution to apologize to victims' families and the country for their failure to outlaw lynching. Courtesy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Some Exhibits to Come – One Hundred Years of Jim Crow
Mammy Statue JC Museum Ferris
Bibliography – One Hundred Years Of Jim Crow
Claude, age 23, just months before his 1930 murder. Courtesy of Faith Deeter.
Freedom’s Heroes During Jim Crow: Flossie Bailey and the Deeters
Souvenir Portrait of the Lynching of Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp, August 7, 1930, by studio photographer Lawrence Beitler. Courtesy of the Indiana Hisorical Society.
An Iconic Lynching in the North
Lynching Quilt
Claxton Dekle – Prosperous Farmer, Husband & Father of Two
Joshua Glover Plaque
Some Exhibits to Come – Three Centuries Of Enslavement
Harriet Tubman, "The Conductor," with fugitive slaves in Underground Railroad station
Bibliography – Three Centuries of Enslavement
Ancient manuscripts about mathematics and astronomy from Timbuktu, Mali
Some Exhibits to Come – African Peoples Before Captivity
Shackles for Adults & Children from the Henrietta Marie
Some Exhibits to Come – The Middle Passage
Slaveship Stowage Plan
What I Saw Aboard a Slave Ship in 1829
Arno Michaels
Life After Hate: A Former White Power Leader Redeems Himself

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"Redemption" is one of America's Black Holocaust Museum's four themes, which serve as pillars in our virtual museum.

Redemption is the act of saving – or being saved – from sin, error, or evil. Sometimes one person redeems another, or many others. Sometimes people redeem themselves. We tell the stories of both kinds of redemption.

Many events and breaking news articles continue to showcase this theme as Black Americans break stereotypes and barriers to success.

Life After Hate: A Former White Power Leader Redeems Himself

April 22, 2012

Arno Michaels grew up as a gifted child of privilege. In his teens he became a white-power extremist, a leader of skinheads. Today he is an international activist for peace, justice, and basic human kindness. Read his story and watch a video about his transformation and redemption.

Inheriting Home: The Skeletons in Pa’s Closet

August 21, 2012

With its store of family memories, Arkansas defines home for me. But embracing and claiming it as my own is prickly business. “Home” has closets of skeletons that are anything but comforting: the Lost Cause, Jim Crow, the Ku Klux Klan, lynchings.

“Always In Season” Film on Lynching and Restoration to Screen in Milwaukee

October 30, 2016

Always in Season is a feature-length documentary film that shows the impact of past and current racial terrorism on our country today through the stories of four communities affected by lynchings. Screening at ABHM’s 2017 Founder’s Day Gathering for Racial Repair and Reconciliation will be followed by a Q & A and small group discussions with representatives from groups around the country who are healing through commemorations of lynchings and other forms of racial terrorism.

Shaking the Family Tree: My Journey of Recovery, Repair and Renovation

July 9, 2014

School teacher Warren Read never suspected that the beloved great-grandfather he had put on a pedestal had actively taken part in murdering three young African Americans in Duluth, MN in 1920. His discovery of the truth shook him and sent him on a journey to rebalance his world.

“Race” – The History of a Persistent Myth

July 26, 2015

For more than 400 years, the economic, social, and political behavior of Americans has been shaped by ideas about “races” and racial differences. Where did these powerful ideas come from – and are they true? How have your ideas about racial differences been affected?

Traces of the Trade: The North’s Complicity in Slavery

August 14, 2015

Learn about the significant complicity of the northern states in the slave trade and slaveholding in the history of slavery in the United States. Many northern industries and business were dependent on slave labor in both the North and South. Northern consumers were dependent on the products of this slave labor for food, clothing, and amenities like rum and sugar.

Peering Through White-Rimmed Glasses: A Letter to My Fellow White Americans

November 29, 2016

A long-time white anti-bias educator and activist finds that her fellow white Americans are increasingly eager to understand America’s racial hierarchy and their part in it. A discussion of the roots and impacts of the White Racial Frame and what white people can do about it.