“Students were particularly moved by seeing Emmett Till's casket and Nat Turner's Bible. In a very different way, of course, they enjoyed seeing Chuck Berry's red Cadillac.”
That’s one observation offered by English Professor Saundra Liggins following a field trip that she, History Professor Jennifer Hildebrand and students enrolled in the Ethnic Studies 389 course made during fall break to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.
The Fredonia contingent – three students, two faculty members and one member of the community – followed on the heels of more than a million visitors who have explored the museum, the newest Smithsonian museum on the National Mall, since opening last September.
A tour of the museum, the only national museum devoted exclusively to the documentation of African American life, art, history and culture, is the focus of the Ethnic Studies course team-taught by Drs. Hildebrand and Liggins.
“I think that everyone found different highlights to the museum,” Liggins explained, and also observed different responses that visitors had to exhibits. “Students were familiar with some exhibits in the museum, but they also learned about things that they didn’t know,” she added.
Students met before the trip to discuss assigned readings and talk about their expectations for the museum. Journals of their museum experience will be kept and students will give presentations devoted to the history and specific aspects of the museum to other students in a course taught by Liggins or Hildebrand.
Visits to other sites, including the Vietnam War Memorial Wall and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, were included in the two days spent in the nation’s capital.
