Unmuting Black History: SPLC funds museum projects in Deep South to
preserve, amplify struggle and accomplishment
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Esther Schrader | Read the full piece here
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Friend,
On pedestals a mile apart in Montgomery, Alabama, two sculptures rise
into the air. The first, about 8 feet tall, is a traditional bronze
statue of the so-called "father of modern gynecology," a
physician named J. Marion Sims who in the 1840s performed experimental
surgeries on enslaved women with neither consent nor anesthesia in the
name of medical progress.
The second just went up in September. Almost twice as high as the Sims
statue - and that is no coincidence - it uses steel,
shards of glass and discarded metal objects to depict, in searing,
intimate and bold detail, Anarcha, Lucy and Betsey, three of the women
whose bodies were mutilated by Sims. Its title, "The Mothers of
Gynecology,"
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stands as rebuke and reckoning.
The two sculptures are just a short walk from each other. But they
represent an understanding of history that could not lie at any
further remove. And while the Sims statue, erected in 1939, stands on
public ground at the Alabama State House, the Mothers of Gynecology
monument is the concept and creation of one bold Black woman who
cobbled together the money for it out of her own savings and private
donations.
The Southern Poverty Law Center recently granted $50,000 to Michelle
Browder, the artist who created the monument and who has ambitious
plans to construct around it a center for education, art and
discussion about Black women leaders, women's health and a broad
array of issues surrounding civil rights, activism and social justice.
The grant was one of five awarded by the SPLC to support the work of
museums, monuments and cultural centers devoted to Black history. In
addition to Browder's project, the recipients are the Zora Neale
Hurston National Museum of Fine Arts
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in Eatonville, Florida; the Thiokol Memorial Project
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in Woodbine, Georgia; the Fannie Lou Hamer Civil Rights Museum i
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n Belzoni, Mississippi; and the Cecil Williams South Carolina Civil
Rights Museum
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in Orangeburg, South Carolina.
The SPLC has also commissioned artwork for billboards honoring each
museum. The billboards will be displayed along highways near each
museum throughout February in celebration of Black History Month.
"If there's a father of gynecology, there must be a
mother," Browder said. "This is our legacy, in all its
pain and all its strength. Why aren't we talking about the
mothers and what Black women have contributed to this country for the
past 400 years?"
The grant will help Browder get people talking.
READ MORE
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In solidarity,
Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center
The SPLC is a catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond,
working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy,
strengthen intersectional movements, and advance the human rights of
all people.
Friend, will you make a gift to help the SPLC fight for
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