Diorama depicting the Fisk University Jubilee Singers, based on a painting by Edmund Havel, 1873. Made of wood and paper applied to plexiglass box with electrical low-voltage lights affixed to the side panels. Seven female figures and four male figures made of porcelain with cotton or synthetic lower torso. The diorama includes a grand piano and bench, two chairs, and a settee, all in miniature, made from painted wood and fabric. The women's clothing is made from silk taffeta and the men's clothing from wool. Made by Diedra Bell, Washington, D.C., assisted by Stephney Keyser, Falls Church, Virginia, 1994-1998.
From the nation’s beginning, Americans have grappled with who gets educated and who pays for education. Both public and private schools have relied on a combination of public and private funding. Disparities in wealth and political influence have affected Americans’ ability to support schools. As a result, educational philanthropy has reflected inequalities in the American economy and society. Giving through contributions of time and money have both created opportunities for students and increased inequalities among them.
Barred from schools for white children due to racist practices, African Americans in the late 1800s established and supported a wide variety of educational institutions of their own. In the 1870s the Fisk University Jubilee Singers began touring the United States and Europe to raise money for the African American school. Familiarizing white audiences with black spirituals, the group also advocated for African American rights and independence.
Mary Rhopa la Cierra made this quilt on the occasion of President Barack Obama’s Inauguration in 2009. She was inspired by the television coverage of the crowds of people in attendance. Mary embroidered the very small emblem of the US Capitol at top center with radiating lines and many pieces of patterned fabrics to represent the massive crowds in attendance and the distances many had come. The title, “OUR PATCHWORK HERITAGE IS A STRENGTH” appliqued at the top of the quilt was taken from the President's inauguration speech.
The quilt is machine strip pieced, appliqued, embroidered and stamped or stenciled. “OUR PATCHWORK HERITAGE IS A STRENGTH” is hand appliqued (blanket stitch) and outline machine quilted across the top. The word “HOPE” is stenciled with gold paint on the majority of the blocks and border squares and then machine outline stitched. One hundred 7-inch blocks make up the center of the quilt; each with a red center, creating an appearance of diagonal sashing. She used fabrics recycled from clothing found at yard sales and thrift stores, especially the shop that supports a local women’s shelter. The muted colors of the blocks evoke the winter coats worn by the massive crowds in the very cold weather that day. These blocks are framed by forty-four 7-inch yellow and tan blocks as a border.
Mary Rhopa la Cierra, born in Iowa, is a retired theatrical costume designer living in Florida. On her retirement, among many other activities she began quilting. At her 80th birthday party she gave away most of her quilts to friends. One friend, the donor, was particularly interested in having this quilt, “Patchwork Heritage,” which she had admired for its beauty and its message. She enjoyed it in her home for a time, and then donated it to the Collection, with the approval of the maker, Mary Rhopa la Cierra.
This lace collar is made with fine Brussels bobbin lace motifs in Louis XVI style, connected by droschel bobbin lace ground. The attached tag has a red wax seal embossed with “Commission for Relief in Belgium, Dentelle Belge” and includes an image of the Belgian Lion in the center.
The card on the back of the seal reads: "N° 13/0446 Point Bruxelles Droschel Louis XVI made by hand. Sold by the C'on for Relief in Belgium". The lace was made by Belgian lace makers during World War I.
Defaced historical and memorial marker from the Emmett Till Interpretive Center in Sumner, Mississippi. The marker is silver metal, painted purple with white lettering. The sign is rectangular with a bell-like curve at the top. Inside of the curved space, there is a circle with a white magnolia flower at the center. The paint is peeling and the flower is obscured by bullet holes that have passed through the sign from both sides. The title, “River Site,” is centered in larger font just below the image of the flower. The word “Site” is illegible due to bullet holes. Below the title, in smaller, centered font, the sign reads: “This is the site where Till’s body was removed from the river. It was then taken to Greenwood, MS. Then the body was sent back to Money, MS for burial. Via a phone call from Till’s mother, ‘not to bury her son,’ the body was then taken back to Greenwood. The body was then sent to Tutwiler, MS for final preparation to be sent to Chicago, IL.” The sign’s surface is disfigured by hundreds of pellet gun and bullet holes. Dozens of larger bullet holes have fully pierced the metal and stripped the purple paint and white letters from the sign, leaving a ring of bright silver metal around each hole, and making it difficult to read the words.
The Emmett Till Memorial Commission (ETMC) donated the River Site historic marker to share Emmett Till’s Mississippi story with national and global audiences. The defaced marker speaks to anti-black violence past and present, and to ETMC’s decades-long determination to recognize this history. The ETMC was founded in 2006 by Jerome G. Little, Tallahatchie County’s first Black President of the Board of Supervisors. Little and six other Black men, known as the Magnificent Seven organized in 1977 to seek public office and provide clean water, housing, voting rights, education, and healthcare to Tallahatchie County’s Black residents. They sued the county three times to procure Black voting representation in the county. After gaining political office, Little connected Black history to the effort to secure human rights and formed the Commission. In 2007, ETMC secured a public apology for the Tallahatchie County’s miscarriage of justice in trial of Till’s murders. In 2008, they erected several historic plaques across the county marking sites Emmett’s kidnapping and lynching. These markers as well as a state historic marker commemorating Till continue to be defaced with acid, stolen, and riddled with bullets.
This River Site marker is the second of four markers placed at this site by the Tallahatchie River. The first marker was stolen, the second marker was riddled with 317 bullet holes, and the third marker was shot up in 2019 and captured media attention when three University of Mississippi students from the Kappa Alpha fraternity posed with rifles in front of the sign. The ETMC installed a bullet-proof marker in 2019. Within months, a security camera which captured images of a white supremacist rally at the site.
The bullet holes represent more than just random attacks. For many community members, these aggressions are an extension of the violence inflicted on Black people—in 1955 through the present. The Commission remains undeterred. As Little remarked in 2008 “I want to make sure that whoever did this knows that. . . . [e]very time [this sign is] taken down, it’s going back up.”
Members of ETMC and Till family friends and family co-curated an exhibition Reckoning with Remembrance: History, Injustice, and the Murder of Emmett Till in 2021.
One of a set of six identical curved stylized cone or paisley shaped black silk Chantilly bobbin lace appliqués or insertions. The attached paper tag states "131, 6 pieces, No 10/55, Chantilly, made by hand in Flanders for the C'on for Relief in Belgium, M. Kefer Mali". Each piece is labeled "10/55, $.45 each". Madame Kefer-Mali was one of four women on the Lace Committee working with the Commission for Relief in Belgium. The lace was made by Belgian lace makers during World War I.