Review: D.C. Museum Exhibit Illuminates the Brutalities of Slavery

The National Museum of African American History and Culture illuminates the brutalities of slavery and Jim Crow while also celebrating black Americans’ political, intellectual, and cultural achievements. The D.C. museum is currently featuring “In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World,” running until June 8 before traveling the globe.

The brilliantly curated exhibition gives voice to the 12 million Africans trafficked across the Atlantic (and their descendants) and to those who remained in the homelands rent asunder by the slave trade. Its displays include 100 objects, 250 images, and 10 multimedia interactives and films. These include clear explanatory maps, iron implements of torture and control, effigies of spiritual liberation, accounts of rebellions on land and sea, and contemporary artworks. The persistence of efforts to control black people’s movements is illustrated by contrasting early 19th century copper slave passes from South Carolina with late 20th century South African passbooks.

“In Slavery’s Wake” aims to reveal the hidden, often willfully misrepresented, history of how “enslaved and colonized people resisted overwhelming oppression, refused dehumanization, and planted the seeds of liberation across centuries and geographies,” as the scholars Paul Gardullo and Johanna Obenda explain in the book accompanying the exhibition. It succeeds wonderfully.

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