America’s Black Holocaust Museum Needs Your Help!

[Ɔkyeame Kwame]

America’s Black Holocaust Museum Needs Your Help!
August 5, 2008

America’s Black Holocaust Museum has temporarily closed its doors last week after 20 years, because of financial difficulties. ABHM is the first museum to commemorate and memorialize victims of lynching. Its mission is “to educate the public of injustices suffered by people of African American heritage, while providing visitors with an opportunity to rethink their assumptions about race and racism.” ABHM does not have an endowment and relies strictly on individual donations and corporate philanthropy.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

“When James Cameron first opened the museum 20 years ago in the basement of his home, he told the story of how he was almost hanged in Marion, Ind. Cameron and his two teenage friends were charged with the murder of a white man and with the rape of his girlfriend. President Clinton pardoned Cameron for any role in the crime. He said he ran before the man was killed.

An angry mob wanted blood, so it pulled Cameron’s friends out of jail and lynched them in the Grant County courthouse square. When the mob put the rope around Cameron’s neck, someone from the crowd yelled he was innocent.

Cameron’s life was spared, and he vowed to tell his story and the stories of other African-Americans. He first told the stories from the basement of his home to small groups and later to larger groups from the museum building he purchased for $1 from the city. In 1999, the museum expanded and hosted the ruins of the Henrietta Marie slave ship, winning national acclaim. Cameron used that opportunity to keep telling stories of injustices to African-Americans.”

To learn more about America’s Black Holocaust Museum, or to find out how you can help - please visit their website at http://www.blackhol ocaustmuseum. Org.

Editor’s Note:

There are black cultural institutions and organizations throughout the country that are likely also going through rough patches. If we don’t support those institutions that are dedicated to telling our stories and fighting for our causes, who will?


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s. E. Anderson is author of "The Black Holocaust for Beginners"
Social Activism is not a hobby: it's a Lifestyle lasting a Lifetime
http://sites. Google site/blackeducat or
http://blackeducato r.blogspot. Com
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