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Christy Coleman, Incoming Leader of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation and Former Leader of the American Civil War Museum

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Christy Coleman, Incoming Leader of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation and Former Leader of the American Civil War Museum January 2020 | soulvisionmagazine.com EDITORS NOTE BK Fulton Photo by Jessica Knox Photography. “Thoughts come before things.” Welcome back for another year of SoulVision Magazine. We kick off 2020 with the amazing story of Christy Coleman, incoming leader of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation and former leader of the American Civil War Museum. Christy was named one of the “31 people changing the South” by Time magazine. She is a pioneer and reminds us of the irony that “history is about how we are living in the present.” As we were putting together this issue, I was reminded of what I had to let go in order to be where I am today. Before this uplift I had to go through the process of an upshift. My habits, friends, actions and faith all had to change for the best me to become what God intended for me to be. I AM grateful for my journey. As we begin another fruitful year, it is important that we give our youth a fighting chance. If they don’t learn, we did not teach. Thoughts come before things. Assemble the youth and show them how to turn their dreams and ideas into their tangible equivalents. We are the way. Become the change you seek …. one race: humans. One reason: LOVE. “If [our children] don’t learn, we did not teach.” 2 January 2020 | soulvisionmagazine.com CELEBRITY Christy Coleman: Rethinking Our Relationship With the Past Photos by Kim Brundage “Inevitably, history is about how we are living in the present.” Christy Coleman is one woman with the knowledge and expertise to help us build a more inclusive nation. Her passion is history. She lives and breathes it. It is a result of a knack for resourcefulness and a determination that many adults in her youth found inspiring enough to open the doors of opportunity for her to walk through. Like many African-Americans of her generation, Christy grew up in the church. A place that she credits for building the foundation for the values she carries with her today. “Of course when you are a child growing up in the church, you not only learn to sing and learn the word, but you also learn how to comport yourself publicly and how to share ideas respectfully,” she explains. 3 January 2020 | soulvisionmagazine.com Christy Coleman: Rethinking Our Relationship With the Past (contiuned) She grew up in Williamsburg, Virginia, a place rich in Christy’s parents also played a positive and critical role the history of the beginnings of our nation. “Colonial in her upbringing. “My parents taught me the power Williamsburg was literally in our background, five of using your mind. They taught me to stand up for minutes away from where I grew up,” she explains. myself,” she says. They were fearless and brave in “So, I remember my church family and school friends how they stood up for my well-being, even in the face who had parents that worked there in a variety of of systemic discrimination. When Christy scored capacities. I got to see history behind the scenes on a exceptionally well on her standardized test but was daily basis and it helped cement my love for history not put in a gifted program, her parents advocated and museums.” She references a master printmaker for her education and made sure their daughter was named Willie Parker, who worked at the Book Bindery. not pushed out of places where she would be able to He was an African-American man who was a “master of blossom. She credits their approach to them being his trade.” For Christy, her love for history never began young and having a lot of energy. “My parents led the with dates and facts, but it was what Coleman calls a way for our family in addition to working every day “living experience from people like Parker and others.” and making sure we were cared for. We were able to “The connection between what people do and what they do what we needed to do to be contributing members are and how they interacted was brought to life for me of society,” she says. pretty early,” she explains. Dr. Rex M. Ellis, who was the Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), was the man who gave Christy her first museum job at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. She applied for the job at the age of seventeen (a fact Dr. Ellis was not aware of). He hired her as a living history character. She would portray a young slave girl. After finding out she was still in high school, they worked around her schedule until her June graduation. After graduation, the museum gave her the opportunity to continue to work. “Dr. Rex M. Ellis has been a mentor, a friend, and a colleague for 35 years,” she says. “Watching his grace, passion and power was inspiring. I will always be appreciative of the care that he gave to us in providing a safe space in a really emotionally unsafe environment.” She credits him for helping her understand the work that they were doing was more than just a job. Even when they didn’t agree, he was still supportive. “His example has led me to try to be the same kind of mentor to young museum professionals, particularly those who are black,” she says. As Christy went about her career, she learned the importance of using her voice. “I understood there 4 January 2020 | soulvisionmagazine.com Christy Coleman: Rethinking Our Relationship With the Past (contiuned) was a special lens that I could look through and We asked Christy about her view of Richmond and question the past to bring about new answers and a the conversation surrounding the Confederacy deep understanding of the past and that there were and monuments. “What is remarkable is that the stories I wanted to share,” she explains. “It allowed my conversation has expanded,” she explains. Christy creativity to really shine because I wasn’t trying to do Coleman remembers the time she first came to the work from someone else’s lens.” She learned to be Richmond to run, what was then called, the American prepared. In her work, people will always question what Civil War Center. One of her first tasks was to go out you know or what you are thinking. “You have to be and introduce the Center to the funding and grants twice as good. Always be prepared because inevitably— community. While everyone was polite, there was whether by my gender or by my ethnicity—there will be one member of a foundation who was more direct and people that will question my place or try to define my honest with his opinion. “He said to me, ‘Listen, I’m place,” she says. going to tell you, we are sick to death of dealing with the Civil War in Richmond. We don’t know what to do “My parents taught me the with it. It’s a mess. It’s divisive. We don’t want it. We power of using your mind. will not be funding anything related to it.’ I greatly appreciated his words because it helped me understand They taught me to stand up what a heavy lift I had,” she says. Christy’s hard for myself.” work did not go in vain. Today, people of all ages and ethnicities have walked through the doors of the When asked if she has made it, Christy Coleman looks American Civil War Museum. “I could not have asked at it a little differently. “I believe I’ve reached a point in for better,” she says. my career where the impact that I had hoped to have in my field is, in fact, coming to fruition,” she says. “Am I Christy emphasizes that to say it is “just a Confederate impactful? Am I making a difference?” She refers back story” neglects the story of so many others. “There to 25 years ago when she became the director of public are people of every hue who lived through that crisis. history for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and People of every ethnicity and religious background as part of an estate sale, executed a reenactment of a and gender identifications which you can imagine have slave auction. The response from other museums made been impacted by our collective past. Yet, the story of it all worth it. “They would say, ‘my god, if you guys our past has traditionally either been told as a military could pull off such a powerful program that gave pain or a political one, when in fact it is so much more,” a face and helped us understand the intersection of our Christy explains. Christy acknowledges and is grateful early republic and its connections and its paradoxes, for the changing dialogue surrounding the Confederacy the least we can do is get more research and just talk and monuments in Richmond and around the country. about enslavement and what it did in our location,” “How are we going to reconsider what we have allowed Christy Coleman explains that in her role at the to be venerated? Do these things or places reflect our American Civil War Museum in Richmond, Virginia, values now? Those are really powerful conversations, she continues to think about the impact of her work and though I don’t really have the answers myself, I and what role history plays in contemporary life. think every community needs to decide those issues “Inevitably, history is about how we are living in the for itself,” she says.
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