Mobile History Exhibit Brings Black History to Students

KALAMAZOO, Mich.– The Black History 101 Mobile Museum connected Kalamazoo students Monday with artifacts ranging from the slave trade to the rise of hip hop. The museum was brought here as part of community wide Martin Luther King Day celebrations.

            The exhibit has been sent to 34 states and 300 institutions. The artifacts on display are part of the museum’s “Signature Series” and feature autographed memorabilia from notable figures like Eazy-E and General Colin Powell. The display was accompanied by a keynote speech by museum collector and curator Khalid El-Hakim.

            “It’s about, alright, we know this stuff exists. Let’s have a conversation,” he said.

            El-Hakim presented photos of collected artifacts. One of the artifacts were promotional soap bars from the campaign of Dearborn Mayor Orville Hubbard. The bars read “Keep Dearborn Clean” which El-Hakim said served as a dog whistle for racism. President Donald Trump’s campaign hats were also used as an example when El-Hakim said that the campaign’s “America First” message shared similarities with the 1920s slogan of the Ku Klux Klan. The hat was on display across from Klan artifacts.

            Natalia Carvalho-Pinto, director of Kalamazoo College’s office of intercultural student life helped bring the mobile museum to campus, Carvalho-Pinto said that its artifacts are still relevant today.

            “If you read Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham” it could have been written yesterday,” she said.

            College students and community members came throughout the day to view the exhibit despite freezing temperatures.

            First-year Kalamazoo College student Aaron Johnson said he came to educate himself after a friend told him about it. “We like to think we’ve come so far in the 21st century but we have a lot of work to do,” Johnson said.

            El-Hakim seems to agree.

“We’re going backwards,” he said on the progress of racial equality in the country. El-Hakim said that the future of the project is to have multiple traveling exhibits displaying the museum’s more than 700 artifacts.

If you missed the Mobile Museum in Kalamazoo on Monday, it will be at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and the Lansing Public Library on Tuesday.