The Santa Fe Trail Center Museum in Larned announces that Dr. Leo Oliva will give the program “Civil Rights and Racism, 1965-1896: Emancipation to Separate but Equal” at 2 p.m. on Sunday in the museum’s West Gallery. This program is free and open to the public.
Slavery and racism were enshrined in the Constitution. The Civil War was fought over slavery, and the Civil War amendments to the Constitution brought emancipation and some civil rights for African-Americans. Reconstruction in the South enforced those achievements with federal administration in the former Confederate States. The reaction was the rise of new forms of racism, including the Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow laws. Legal racism was restored by the Supreme Court in 1896 with the “separate but equal” doctrine that reinforced segregation until 1954 Brown v Topeka Board of Education launched a new road to legal equality. The era 1865-1896 is critical to understanding the racism that continues in the U.S. today.
Dr. Oliva’s presentation is part of a series of Sunday programs that will be given while the nationally traveling exhibit “For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights” is on display at the museum. Using artifacts and video clips to demonstrate the power of images, the exhibit offers evidence of the problem of racism and segregation during the Civil Rights era. These images helped shape public opinion and built consensus by providing stark visual confirmation of injustice. The “For All the World to See” will be on display until Aug 11, 2017. For a full schedule of programming, please visit www.santafetrailcenter.org.
This exhibition has been made possible through NEH on the Road, a special initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities. It has been adapted and is being toured by Mid-America Arts Alliance. “For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights” was organized by The Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, in partnership with the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution.
The Santa Fe Trail Center Museum and Research Library is located two miles West of Larned on K-156 Hwy. For more information call 620-285-2054 or email museum@santafetrailcenter.org.