America’s Black Holocaust Museum Goes Viral
The only memorial dedicated specifically to the victims of the enslavement of Africans in the United States has gone viral.
America’s Black Holocaust Museum, closed in 2008 due to financial problems, was recently reopened in a virtual space allowing visitors to interact over the internet.
The museum, originally housed in Milwaukee, provides access to key parts of Black history, from pre-captivity in Africa and slavery in the United States to segregation and legal rights, on a newly launched website.
Through the new format, users can view digital photographs and videos as well as ask questions of curators and contribute information. A panel of scholars will review the submissions to decide whether to include the contribution on the online platform.
"Part of the goal of the museum is to help people get a more visceral understanding of what the Black holocaust means and to personalize it more," Fran Kaplan, a museum board member told a Milwaukee newspaper.
Founded in 1988 by the only known survivor of a lynching, James Cameron, who was nearly hanged by white men as a teenager in Marion, Ind. in 1930, the former physical museum drew around 25,000 visitors a year.
To visit the online museum go to abhmuseum.org.
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(Photo: Abhmuseum.org)