The National Constitution Center will host the world debut of the America I AM: The African American Imprint exhibition, celebrating nearly 500 years of African American contributions to our country.
The exhibition is developed in partnership with Tavis Smiley, and organized by Cincinnati Museum Center and Arts and Exhibitions International (AEI), which also organized the King Tut exhibition that last year became the most attended touring exhibition in the world. America I AM will run from January 15 through May 3, 2009, presenting a historical continuum of pivotal moments in courage, conviction, and creativity that solidifies the undeniable imprint of African Americans across the nation and around the world.
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In 1955, Rosa Parks was riding a crowded Montgomery, Alabama, bus. When she refused to give up her seat to a white man, the bus driver had her arrested. At the police station, she was fingerprinted. Her arrest triggered the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Civil Rights Movement.
Credit: Mark Lyons
Omar Ibn Said was a highly-educated man from the Senegambia region of West Africa who was sold into slavery at Charleston, SC, in 1795. He later escaped to North Carolina but was recaptured. His final owner recognized his education and treated him well. He wrote his autobiography in 1831. Written in Arabic, the manuscript was found in a trunk in Virginia, purchased by a private collector, and has been displayed at Harvard University and other venues.
Credit: Mark Lyons
This key belonged to the cell where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was held following the 1963 Birmingham campaigns, where he authored the infamous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”
Credit: Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
Captive Africans were shackled from the moment of capture until sale in the Americas. Even afterward, enslaved people who were regarded as troublesome or rebellious were shackled. One of set of shackles shown here is African, while another was used during the Middle Passage.
Credit: Mark Lyons
This is the robe that Muhammad Ali wore as he trained in Kinshasa, Zaire, leading to the “Rumble in the Jungle” fight Oct. 30, 1974. Arguably the biggest upset in boxing history occurred when Ali defeated world heavyweight champion George Foreman to reclaim his former title.
Credit: Mark Lyons
Phillis Wheatley writing table, ca.1760. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, was the first book of poetry by a Black American, published in London in 1773. Phillis Wheatley (ca. 1753-1784) became a symbol of black achievement, and her writings offered eloquent testimony against white racial prejudice and the institution of slavery.
Credit: Massachusetts Historical Society.
Am I Not A Woman And A Sister glass embossing seal by unidentified artist after Josiah Wedgwood, 19th century Anti-slavery coins and emblems like this, most often of a male figure, were common in great Britain and the U.S. at the time.
Credit: John A. Andrew artifact collection from Massachusetts Historical Society
Dungeon doors from Cape Coast Castle, where captive Africans were housed under lock and key, sometimes for months at a time, awaiting ships that would take them to the New World. Referred to as “The Door of No Return,” this is the final door they were led through before boarding ships departing Ghana.
Credit: African American Museum in Philadelphia
Jail Cell Door and Door Key from Birmingham cell where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was held following the 1963 Birmingham campaigns. The infamous ”Letter from a Birmingham Jail” was authored behind this cell door.
Credit: Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
Guitar belonging to music icon Prince. Prince played this guitar during the memorable half-time show of SuperBowl XLI in Miami, FL in 2006.
Credit: Erin de Jauregui