ARTIFACTS OF INJUSTICE: From Oppression to Resistance to Optimism
The Seattle Times has a pair of articles today about the importance of learning and acknowledging our history in the United States, especially how our history of slavery and the struggle for civil rights has shaped who we are as a people and nation.
The first article is about how and why a man in Seattle gathered an extraordinary collection of historical artifacts, in the effort “to preserve history that has been “very deliberately overlooked and very deliberately distorted.”
Coopersmith began collecting in the 1970s because, “growing up in Washington, D.C., I witnessed history and I saw people struggle over that story.” He saw there was history behind the political and social conflicts of the 1960s and ’70s. “I knew that this story wasn’t really being told because I could see it.” He collected both items associated with famous people and those not.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattle-man-collects-thousands-of-rare-artifacts-that-reveal-americas-past-and-present-and-how-little-we-know/
The artifacts spotlight women’s suffrage, Japanese-American internment, and the anti-Chinese immigrant fervor that led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. But the great majority focus on slavery and the oppression and resistance that followed.
“Too many people do not appreciate how central this story is to our success and our flaws as a country,” Coopersmith said. “It was not a side story. It was the story.”
The second article shows some of the artifacts, arranged into the categories of Oppression, Resistance and Optimism. These images are moving, in ways ranging from horrific to hopeful. Given our current immersion into yet another cycle of hate and struggle to overcome it, I think viewing these and fully acknowledging our past and envisioning our future is more important than ever.
https://projects.seattletimes.com/2018/artifacts-of-injustice/
One image that especially stood out for me is the picture of two brothers who volunteered for the Union army.
The larger image is of two brothers who have signed up to fight in the Civil War with the United States Colored Troops, or USCT, a volunteer regiment out of Connecticut. “You can see in their eyes, both the fear and the hope, and they’re holding each other’s hands. It’s just a very emotional, moving moment that shows that, yes, they’re proud to be in their uniforms, but they’re scared, as they should be. It’s the real human face of the war, and we imagine that the cause meant so much to them to fight for their freedom.” It’s unknown what happened to them afterward.
