“Testify” exhibit shows Black experience in America
A traveling version of the Diane and Alan Page “Testify: Americana from Slavery to Today” exhibit is on display at the New Ulm Public Library. The exhibit features multiple panels detailing art and artifacts related to slavery, segregation and the history of African-American people.
The Testify exhibit includes different brands that used racial imagery. Among the product brands is a branding iron from 1860. The panel features different diction definitions for the word “brand.”
A traveling version of the Diane and Alan Page “Testify: Americana from Slavery to Today” exhibit is on display at the New Ulm Public Library. The exhibit features multiple panels detailing art and artifacts related to slavery, segregation and the history of African-American people.
The Testify exhibit includes different brands that used racial imagery. Among the product brands is a branding iron from 1860. The panel features different diction definitions for the word “brand.”
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NEW ULM -- A traveling exhibit of art and artifacts from the Diane and Alan Page collection has come to the New Ulm Public Library.
The exhibit "Testify: Americana from Slavery to Today" will be on display for the next six weeks.
Programming & Technology Service Librarian LeRoy Harris said the exhibit is the traveling version of a permanent exhibit in the Twin Cities. The art and artifacts in the collection were curated by former Minnesota Supreme Court Justice and former Minnesota Viking Alan Page and his family.
Page and his wife Diane Sims Page over the years collected thousands of items related to slavery and segregation. The objects tell the story of Black history in the United States.
Harris said the display covers a wide variety of subjects. Some are positive depictions of the Black experience, such as artwork of a jazz trio. Other images are neutral, but tell a story, such as a 1939 certificate for the Ladies Auxiliary Club to the Minneapolis Chapter of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP). There are also images that are more challenging, including an 1833 notice announcing the sale of enslaved people. The notice describes options for separating mothers from children and identifying which enslaved women could serve as "likely wenches."
Harris said in setting up the display, the library wanted to mix in the positive and negative aspects of history. One panel features an 1897 lithograph called "Alligator Bait." The image shows multiple African-American infants but labels them as alligator bait instead of human children.
Beneath the alligator bait image is a photo of the African-American 9th Cavalry Regiment from 1939. The two images heighten the country’s hostility to African Americans, even as they served the country in the armed forces.
Testify was first shared with the public in 2018. In February, the exhibit returned to the Cargill Gallery at the Minneapolis Central Library. The traveling version of the exhibit and has been shown in multiple libraries across the state.
Testify will be on display on the New Ulm Public Library's second floor for the next six weeks. The exhibit can be viewed during regular library hours.