Slice of Life

SU alumni, professor curate exhibit on Black History for Smithsonian Museum

A Ku Klux Klan hood, letters hand-delivered by slaves and a segregated mailbag are just a few artifacts featured in the “Freedom Just Around the Corner: Black America from Civil War to Civil Rights” at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum in Washington, D.C. Three Syracuse University alumni and a professor collaborated to curate the exhibition, which will close on Feb. 15.

“There are other museums that explore this story, but the National Postal Museum is different because it specializes in stamps and mail,” said chief curator Daniel Piazza, an alumnus of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

Piazza, who spent almost a year preparing for it, and his team put together a collection of stamps, artifacts and documents from various places. All this material was drawn from the National Postal Museum collection, the United States Postal Service archives and other museums and universities across the country.

“It’s the first time our museum has ever done a Black History Exhibit — our museum opened in 1993,” Piazza said.

Because it is a paper collection, the exhibition is only on display for a year. If kept out too long, exposure to light, temperature and humidity can degrade the paper and ink.



Calvin Mitchell, an SU alumnus and assistant curator of the exhibit, assisted Piazza in compiling pieces for the exhibition. So far, the reception has been outstanding and all sorts of people are fascinated by the exhibition, he said.

“I have gotten repeat visitors, and people who encourage their relatives and friends to come see the exhibit,” Mitchell said.

He added that one of the artifacts in the collection is a hood worn by a member of the KKK. It originally belonged to a member who had an epiphany and decided to leave the organization.

Piazza said visitors to the museum stop to look at this specific artifact, which frequently sparks conversation in the gallery.

“They all stop in front of the KKK hood and remark on how creepy it is,” he said.

Professor Kishi Ducre, chair of the Department of African American studies at SU and contributor to the exhibit, spoke behalf of SU at the opening ceremony of the exhibition. Ducre said one of the most interesting parts was seeing letters that slaves were asked to deliver for their owners.

Another display features a mailman’s bag from a rural area in Virginia, dating from when mail was first delivered to remote locations. The postman even segregated the mail in his bag, with one side of the bag for white residents and the other side for black residents.

“You can see the faint outlines, when you raise the bag up,” Mitchell said. “You can see etched, ‘white’ and ‘colored.’”

He added that the exhibition is special because it examines a group of people and an era in history, specifically through postal history.

Said Mitchell: “A number of people have never really looked at the African-American experience through the lens of stamps and postal material.”





Top Stories