1. Black Citizen in the Age of Jim Crow examines African Americans’ efforts to achieve rights and racial equality after the abolition of slavery that took place 50 years after the Civil War. While Black Americans achieved freedom following the Civil War, they were sabotaged by a harsh racial regime known as Jim Crow. Documents and artifacts from the struggle for justice throughout these years are shown in the exhibition. The Constitution of the United States of America: the 14th and 15th Amendments is one of the exhibit’s artifacts that brings the story to life. The amendments, which address citizenship rights and equal legal protection, were introduced in response to concerns facing former slaves following the Civil War. It also forbids the federal and state governments from refusing citizens the right to vote on the basis of their race, color, or prior condition of slavery. The ‘Retreat’ artifacts depict the history of the Ku Klux Klan and its origins. The Ku Klux Klan was a white supremacist group that used harassment, brutality, and murder to maintain its dominance. The ‘WW1’ artifact demonstrates how over 400,000 African Americans participated in the battle. African American women were employed as nurses, ambulance drivers, and munition workers to aid in the war effort. Although black troops fought with honor, they were subjected to widespread discrimination and defamation from their white soldiers. (Xiomara Mejia)

2. Something that really surprised me in the exhibit was when the Republican party of Lincoln and the Democrat party of Andrew Johnson crashed, the republicans sought to create opportunity for African Americans, this took me by surprise because today the republican party says questionable things when it comes to equality and race. One memorable bit of information that stuck with me is about a woman named Mary Horn, despite the 13th amendment being declared her owners still decided to keep her, until her husband in fact told a soldier, resulting in the soldier himself summoning Mary and moving them away. This stuck with me because we truly don’t know how many slaves were still kept by their owners even though this law was out, fortunately for Mary she was able to be freed but I’m sure for others this wasn’t always the case. Another bit of information that gleaned on me was the goal of reconstruction. During the reconstruction 90% of black men became registered voters but by 1892 that number dropped drastically to 6%. That number stayed that way until the 1960’s. This is absolutely outrageous, the white men used lynching and death as a way to stop the black men from voting. Although they had the rights too, the white men completely forced the black men to stay quiet, thus kicking off the black white alliance that had governed Virginia the past 4 years. Last but not least, one more piece of information that completely blew my mind was how integrated schooling only became a thing after a federal mandate was laid out in 1961, this is less than 100 years. 100 years is not a long time at all, these African American kids were not even allowed to join cooking classes or any basic medical course but once allowed the opportunity to learn, the amount of African Americans becoming doctors and teachers expanded immensely.