Emmett Till slept here
For Black History Month, you know what would be really cool? I’d love to see more cities preserving significant sites related to the Movement for Black Lives. Maybe city leaders across the country could follow Chicago’s recent example.
Chicago’s city council has granted landmark status to the apartment building where Emmett Till once lived, up until he was lynched in Mississippi in 1955. Breonna Taylor’s life deserves to be remembered too. The tragedy of Emmett’s murder launched the 1960s civil rights era; Black Lives Matter activists continue to demand justice for people like Breonna. You might remember a Kentucky grand jury refused to bring murder charges against the Louisville police officers who shot her as she slept.
Here’s the thing that really gets me: that grand jury announced its decision exactly 65 years after Emmett Till’s murderers were acquitted in Mississippi.
Breonna’s memorial has since been moved to the Roots 101 African American Museum in downtown Louisville. If you’re in a position to support them, please consider donating to help the museum preserve Breonna’s memorial. If Mississippi can memorialize 51 sites connected to Emmett’s death, and Chicago can commit to protecting one building from being torn down, it should be comparatively easy to establish one permanent museum exhibit in Kentucky.
BLM Artist Grant: What about the kids?
I can’t wait to hear more about the fall 2021 exhibit planned at Washington State University! The twenty Black Lives Matter Artist Grant winners have been announced. Now for the next step: showing our work on campus, in the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.
I’m glad the selection committees included a few students like Mikayla Makle, president of the Black Student Union. Now that the first jolts of excitement have worn off, though, I wonder how the exhibit will land with other WSU students. I don’t expect anti-BLM protests. But as recent graduate Promise Calloway observed, micro-aggressions are fairly common.
I’m well aware there are plenty of people who think BLM means “only Black Lives Matter.” Not just in Pullman, Washington, but in Eugene and Portland, Oregon, where the two other branches of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum are located. I hope the only thing (and it’s a big one) that might interfere with the exhibits is another spike in coronavirus infection rates. The current lockdowns in Washington and Oregon are supposed to end on December 14th and 16th, respectively. So mask up, all right? Let’s not delay The Big Show any longer than necessary.
Riding the second wave of museum closures
Thank goodness art museums are reopening! Now I can see the new Barbara Earl Thomas exhibit — oh wait…
[bitter laugh] Just kidding. Coronavirus rates are spiking again and we’re under a second stay-home order until at least mid-December. When one door closes…
If you’re art-starved and longing for The Before Times, search my blog for posts tagged “museum,” including:
Parents’ Day Out with me (and without the kids)
“Double Exposure,” contrasting portrayals of indigenous people in the Northwest
In the meantime, I guess we put museum visits on the raincheck list of restricted activities. ‘Raincheck in Rain City’ thanks to the ‘Rona. Ha. We are not amused.