For Many Black Museums, It's "Buy-Buy History"

When Charles L. Blockson heard in November that the Christie's auction house in New York had provoked an angry telephone protest by callers who were irate over a scheduled auction of American slavery documents, it came as little surprise to him that auction company officials had not considered the vehement public opposition to such a sale.

According to Blockson, who is curator of the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection at Temple University, the auction of documents relating to slavery merely represented business as usual to the community of traders and collectors of historical artifacts. Over the past four decades, he has watched the trade in what is known as Afro-Americana become big business.

"There are more than 50,000 collectors of [B]lack memorabilia in the United States, many of whom started it as a hobby but now view their finds as money-making ventures," according to USA Today.

According to experts Ralph and Terry Kovels, authors of Kovels' Antiques and Collectables Price List 1998, a third of all Americans are active memorabilia collectors.

Black museum professionals and collectors, such as Blockson, say interest in Black history artifacts and memorabilia is at an all-time high. The Christie's incident represents just a small part of a larger picture. Among historical artifacts and documents relating to African American history, slavery- related items are valued most highly by collectors and dealers.

Blockson, who has been collecting rare books and documents since the 1940s, says that profit- seeking private dealers and collectors harbor very little sensitivity and sentiment about the buying and selling of artifacts relating to slavery. They are motivated purely by the marketplace.

"I'm opposed to the collection of Black history artifacts and documents for profit, but it's reality," Blockson says.

The sentiments of African Americans are at odds with profiteering collectors and dealers, according to Blockson, because Blacks would rather see their history preserved than traded for profit. Collectors like Blockson, instead of pursuing rare and valuable artifacts for eventual profit, usually donate their acquisitions to an institution. In 1982, Blockson donated a collection of some 20,000 documents and rare books to Temple University. He became curator of the collection, which has since grown to 150,000 catalogued items.

An Everyday Occurrence

Museums and universities depend heavily upon the generosity of donors who make collections of historic artifacts and documents available to them. However, organizations acquire many artifacts and documents by buying them on the open market, as any profit- seeking collector or dealer would.

"I'm not as horrified as the uninitiated might be," is the reaction of Debra Newman Ham, professor of history at Morgan State University and the curator of a major exhibit of African American materials at the Library of Congress. (see story on page 27)

"The buying and selling of historical materials is very common. This made the big news, but it happens every day," she says, adding, "I personally am more pleased that we are valuing our history and we are valuing our tradition than I am turned off by the market in African American history."

"If we are to claim our history, we've got to go out and buy it," says Dr. Thomas D. Battle, director of the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University.

Battle says Christie's is not alone in auctioning off items relating to American slavery. He says auction houses have engaged in such trade for "as long as I can remember." What the public knows even less about is the trade of Afro-Americana that takes place outside the auction houses among collectors and dealers, according to Battle.

"The reality is that Black history is bought and sold every day," Battle adds.

Battle says that while numerous Blacks are active in trading and collecting Afro-Americana, there's a great need for Blacks in general to get busy with maintaining and preserving their own family artifacts and records.

A Telephone Protest

Christie's plan to auction off eight slavery documents initially came under fire from New York State Rep. David Patterson and Black Entertainment Television broadcaster Tavis Smiley. The documents included posters announcing a reward for runaway slaves, a slave auction poster announcing "Chancery Sale of Eight Likely Negros," and a receipt for "a mulatto boy named Joe." The items were part of a collection of Civil War-era autographs and manuscripts being sold on behalf of an unidentified family, according to The Washington Post.

Patterson and Smiley complained that while Christie's observed a policy prohibiting it from auctioning off items relating directly to the Holocaust, the company did not have a similar policy on items relating to American slavery.

On November 11, Smiley told listeners of the nationally syndicated "Tom Joyner Morning Show" radio program about the planned auction. And he made a point of noting that Christie's Holocaust policy did not extend to artifacts relating to American slavery. Listeners to the program, which is not heard in the New York City area and yet claims to have a national audience of three million people, were urged to call Christie's in protest.

Call they did, and in response to the ensuing protest, the owners of the documents had Christie's pull the items from the auction. The auction house also announced that the owners had decided to donate the documents to an institution, which still has yet to be named, for preservation.

A statement issued by Christie's said: "It is the intention of the consignor to donate this property to a museum or historical society that collects African-American history."

A spokeswoman for Christie's said the protest will make the auction house more sensitive to how artifacts and documents relating to slavery are handled in the future.

An Expensive Tradition

Blacks have a long tradition of preserving their history in America, dating back to the eighteenth century, explains Blockson. That tradition was institutionalized by historically Black colleges and universities, which became major repositories for the preservation of African American history. Howard University, Hampton University, Fisk University, and Tuskegee University are cited by Blockson as having important historical research centers and museums.

More recently, Black history museums have opened in Detroit, Memphis, Nashville, Atlanta, and other places. The establishment of such centers has greatly expanded the infrastructure behind African American history collection.

However, some experts worry that despite the tradition of Black institutions in historic preservation and the establishment of new museums, the market in Afro- Americana is making it increasingly more difficult to develop, establish, and enhance collections.

"The vast majority of our history is in the hands of White people," says Currie Ballard, a historian-in-residence at Langston University in Oklahoma. "They have priced us out of our own legacy."

Ballard has been collecting African American history artifacts and documents for the past twenty years. In that time, he has amassed one of the largest African American history collections by a single individual. His collection of 12,000 items includes maps of Africa from the 1600s, hand-forged slave shackles with the original keys, 140- year-old letters from runaway slaves, Amos 'n Andy sheet music, and collections of autographs and photographs of famous African Americans. He estimates that slavery-related artifacts and documents constitute almost 50 percent of his collection.

As a collector-turned-historian and curator, Ballard loans out - for a fee - portions of his collection to institutions that are developing history exhibitions.

His collection has also enabled him to produce and host a series of Black history public television documentaries known as, "The Ebony Chronicles." He earned an Emmy award for the show's profile of White photographer Flip Schulke, who achieved prominence for his photography of the civil rights movement and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Ballard was to begin hosting a series of African American history features for CBS Television's "Saturday Morning" news show starting last month.

"A Very Different Concept"

Black institutions are going to have to find ways to increase the budgets with which they acquire artifacts and documents, according to Ballard. He advises Black organizations to couch their corporate fundraising appeals in messages that remind companies of the vast wealth that was accumulated in America because of slavery. He believes that if reminded, today's corporate America will realize that it has a responsibility to give something back.

Dr. Raymond A. Winbush, director of the Race Relations Institute at Fisk University, was among the angry callers in the Christie's protest. His Institute has launched the HOLDINGS (Holding Our Library Documents Insures Nobility) initiative to retrieve, preserve, and distribute historical material about the African American experience. (see Black Issues, May 29, 1997)

The project is intended to allow owners of African American memorabilia and documents to turn over their collections to Fisk and retain ownership of the material. Fees generated by the HOLDINGS exhibitions and Internet-based dissemination of rare documents will be passed on to owners, according to Dr. Shirley Sims, program coordinator at the Race Relations Institute.

"This is a very different concept. It's a way to generate, revenue and still hold onto to our artifacts," says Sims.