Who Will Tell My Story? the Heart of East Oakland, California

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child-centered elementary school in Who Will Tell My Story? the heart of East Oakland, California. Our motto: The world is a child’s Two keynote speakers for the 2018 Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo encourage classroom. museums to create more inclusive education programs. When the children asked us for insight into the histories of black, By Ericka Huggins and Kevin Jennings Latina/o, Asian, and Native American people, we found answers for them. This was the late 1970s, before ducate, Engage, Elevate! Museums on the Rise— of California invited to help plan the 2016 exhibition “All the internet, social media, and the Ethat’s the theme of the 2018 Annual Meeting and Power to the People: Black Panthers at 50.” Museum of the African Diaspora MuseumExpo, May 6–9 in Phoenix, Arizona. And the meet- Kevin Jennings is the new president of the Tenement and the National Museum of African ing's keynote speakers include two distinguished leaders Museum. After graduating from Harvard with a history American History and Culture. The who have dedicated their careers to education in its many degree, Jennings spent a decade as a high school history Oakland Museum of California hadn’t forms, including in the museum context. teacher, during which he co-founded GLSEN (the Gay, yet been revitalized. Ericka Huggins is a human rights activist, poet, educator, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network) to address the When there was no exhibition Black Panther Party leader, and former political prisoner. problems facing LGBT students. This work led to his ap- worthy of a field trip, the Oakland She was the director of the Oakland Community School, the pointment as head of the Obama administration’s Office Community School staff brought the groundbreaking community-run child development center of Safe and Drug-Free Schools. He is the co-founder of histories of peoples to the children, and elementary school founded by the Black Panther Party. LGBT History Month, the author of seven books, and the and to the larger community. The Currently a facilitator and speaker on college campuses executive producer of two historical documentaries. children spoke to beloved friends like and in communities, Huggins discusses the importance of Huggins and Jennings share some thoughts on the Rosa Parks, Cesar Chavez, Sun Ra, an intersectional approach to serving humanity. She was power of storytelling, and how important it is to be au- Maya Angelou, and James Baldwin. among the community advisers that the Oakland Museum thentic and inclusive in that work. They were living history. Ericka Huggins I was inspired. With diverse staffing, at all levels, topic in decision-making rooms be- Decades later, I visited the Louvre in museums become laboratories of ex- fore, during, and after the exhibition. Paris and received a personal educa- ploration about the breadth of human- The museum can then explore the s a girl growing up in Washington, Exhibitions can intentionally inspire open tion about Egypt, and therefore the ity. Graphic images; natural, unedited exhibition’s impact on the individual, ADC, I participated in one field trip splendid cultures of Africa. In São sound; and tactile, fluid galleries family, community, and society and after another. The school bus drove communication, and participants can feed Paulo, Brazil, I was introduced to the create opportunities for inner learn- how it will affect the mental, emotion- from Southeast to Northwest DC so intriguing patterns of global migra- ing. Museums can be hubs of equity, al, physical, and spiritual well-being that we could go to the ballet, theater, back what they see, through many lenses. tion while visiting the Afro-Brazilian rooms for truth-telling. Exhibitions can of those who engage with it. galleries, and museums. Teacher told Museum. By speaking with people in intentionally inspire open communi- Artists plan with scholars in the us these trips would keep us from the townships in Johannesburg and cation, and participants can feed back field, inspired by those who live being “culturally deprived.” Her tone I was bored. Cape Town, South Africa, I gained what they see, through many lenses. their lives “in the field.” For example, dismissed the possibility of little black researched and presented? Which direct knowledge of the system of Curators can be fearless collabora- expert witnesses are critical when girls and boys already holding and As a teenager, I was painfully aware high points in global and local time- apartheid. tors, as René De Guzman and Lisa exploring the histories of women of expressing culture. that the books used in public schools lines are marginalized or removed? Silberstein at the Oakland Museum color; however, women of color—all lacked the full US history: the robbery Through whose lens is the visual, I was humbled, grateful. of California were with the exhibi- genders, ages, classes, abilities, and I was amused. of African men, women, and children auditory, and written commentary tion “All Power to the People: Black cultures—are the experts. from their homes and their subsequent on an era—and the people who lived Museums can foster necessary con- Panthers at 50.” As a community ad- With this inclusive focus, museum The nation’s capital was filled with enslavement in a land far away, the it—made public? Who is uplifted or versations about equity, inclusion, visor to the exhibition, I very quickly curators, staff, and funders create museums, but I didn’t connect with the holocaust of North American indig- dismissed? Who speaks for me? and diversity. A museum can be a realized that because education is worlds of learning, where empathy and exhibitions. I dreaded the fourth- and enous peoples. In answer to my daily hands-on, inclusive learning environ- multilayered, the planning team, understanding are the biggest take- fifth-grade field trips that required me questions, teachers told me that books I was invisible. ment, a place in the digital, techno advisors, staff, and curators must find aways. These are the seeds of personal to be quiet, single file, and “please don’t and museums were depositories of age where a slice of history comes to ways to unlearn that which is based in transformation and social cohesion. touch anything.” There was no permis- knowledge and history. As a young adult, and member of the life. Museums can be spaces where a historical inaccuracy. Museums support the larger sion to engage with the tour leader, no I read and I visited, and I walked Black Panther Party, I became director painting, a sculpture, a song, a poem, a When museums create a cogni- community in thinking beyond points of view. away with more questions. Who of The Oakland Community School, photograph, or an installation can be tive context, it is important to have nation-states. This is how we learn to decides what historical eras are a community-based, tuition-free, dissected and experienced. experts with lived experience on the be global citizens.

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» My TAKE

hen the Black Lives Matter Wmovement emerged, many (almost always white) people were outraged. “Shouldn’t all lives matter?” was a common retort. Well, yes, of course, in an ideal world all lives would matter. But we don’t live in an ideal world. In the real world—including the real world of museums—not all lives matter equally, and it shows in our collections and in the stories we tell. As the #MuseumsAreNotNeutral campaign has demonstrated, every choice we make about what things we preserve and what stories we tell is a value judgment about whose lives Kevin Jennings matter. Ruth Abram, the founder of the Tenement Museum (where I serve We don’t tell the story of the indig- Participating in Your Story/Our as president), believed that the lives enous people who were pushed aside Story was difficult for me. I come from of ordinary people deserved pres- so our city could be built. We don’t tell a poor family: my mom grew up in ervation and retelling. In 1988, she the story of African Americans who Appalachia without running water or acquired a dilapidated multistory, were brought to this city and country electricity, and my dad was the son of multifamily dwelling (commonly involuntarily. We don’t tell the story of New England millworkers. Their child- known as a tenement) built in 1863 people who immigrated in the last half- hoods were even poorer than mine. We on New York’s Lower East Side. She century, as the last family whose story don’t have family heirlooms, since my wanted to create a place to tell the we tell came in 1965. In light of these family could never afford things that stories of the real people who lived in omissions, we simply could not with a nice, and I had very few things handed the buildings—none of whom were or straight face continue to use a slogan down to me that I could use to make became famous. In so doing, she was that we all knew in our hearts was a my entry. But I found an inexpensive making a value statement that such falsehood. family Bible that my older siblings gave lives mattered. At the Tenement Museum, we pride my mom in 1961 (before I was born), Creating the Tenement Museum ourselves on telling stories that too of- and I used it to tell my family’s story. was a radical choice, but it has proved ten don’t get told in museums, so it was This Bible symbolized my family’s popular with the public. Today, over difficult to admit our shortcomings and migration journey: my father was a a quarter of a million visitors a year give up our cherished slogan. We start- Southern Baptist evangelist, and he LED IMAGE PROJECTOR 120/277V wedge themselves into the tiny (325 ed asking ourselves how we could do and my mother relocated to the South 12” Length, 15 watts, 10,000+ CBCP Beam Angles From 20º to 60º square feet) three-room apartments in better, how we could preserve and retell so he could pursue his ministry. While BP mini our tenement to learn about the lives a wider range of American stories. not of great monetary value, our family 3 Plane Shutters Glass or Metal “E” Size Gobo once considered too inconsequential The result was a new online program Bible is of great family historical value, The BPM Series is a petite, architecturally designed LED image projector. At 12” in length, the BPM is a to merit a museum. called Your Story/Our Story, where we and as such is a statement that the lives high performance instrument with 10,000+ CBCP at 15 watts. To learn more about the long list of professional For a time, we used the slogan encourage people to upload photos of people who “couldn’t afford nice grade features of the BPM Series, please visit our website. “Telling America’s Story” to describe of objects that help tell their family’s things” matter. Lighting Services Inc The premier specialty lighting manufacturer. the education we offered. But we immigration and migration stories. As I believe we who work in museums recently decided to drop that slogan a result, we now have thousands of sto- should take a hard look at what stories because it is historically inaccurate. ries to interpret, including many from we tell—and don’t tell—and consider While we do tell the stories of im- groups our education programs have what that says about whose lives migrants who helped build our coun- not previously addressed. While we are we feel matter. We must constantly try—stories we feel are central to the far from perfect, we’re a lot closer to assess who is being left out of our American experience—we don’t tell all living up to our former slogan than we narratives and seek to be as inclusive of America’s story. were a year ago. as possible. Lighting Services Inc 800 999-9574 www.LightingServicesInc.com

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