Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 11, 1992 TAG: 9202110245
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: NF-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: WENDI GIBSON NEWSFUN WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
HARRISON MUSEUM REFLECTS BLACK HISTORY
At one time it was a schoolhouse.Then it was boarded up and left dark and empty, open only to mice, bats and the builders of cobwebs.
Today it stands to preserve a history far deeper than the one this building has endured.
Today it represents the African-American culture, both in Southwest Virginia and nationwide.
The building is the Harrison Museum of African-American Culture.
On the corner of Fifth Street and Harrison Avenue Northwest in Roanoke, the museum lies on the bottom floor of the three-story brick building that once was a high school.
Built in 1917, the school was the only one past elementary school open to blacks in Southwest Virginia. Before the Harrison School opened, the closest black high school was in Petersburg, just south of Richmond - a three- to four-hour drive from Roanoke.
Now the museum serves both black and white school children and adults from all over Virginia. And more importantly, it serves as a reminder of the black struggle it records inside its walls.
When blacks began arriving in America in the 1600s, they came as slaves, mostly working in the fields for white families who provided them with homes and food. As slaves, they were not given the same rights as white men: They could not vote or own property. They were owned by their masters and weren't free to go or do as they wished.
Not all Americans agreed with the enslavement of blacks, and in 1861 the issue of slavery was one of the reasons our country broke out in civil war. Most of the Northern states were opposed to slavery, and the South was for it. The war lasted until 1865 when the North defeated the South, and slavery as an institution was destroyed.
With slavery abolished, many people, especially those from the victorious North, sought to have rights granted to the newly free black population. Much of this effort resulted in the passing of the U.S. Constitution's 13th, 14th and 15th amendments. These made slavery or "involuntary servitude" illegal and granted the same rights, privileges and protections to all citizens and granted the right to vote to all Americans regardless of their race or color. These formed the first basic rights of the black American.
More was needed, though, to counter the negative sentiment many white Americans felt toward the blacks. Many thought blacks shouldn't go to the same schools as whites, shouldn't eat in the same restaurants or use the same restrooms. Whites even forced blacks to sit in the back of public buses.
This began to change in the 1950s with the beginning of the civil rights movement. The first major episode was sparked by one black woman, Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her bus seat to a white person. Soon the whole town of Montgomery, Ala., where Parks lived, boycotted - or stopped - riding the bus.
Similar demonstrations began happening all over the country. Sit-ins, where demonstrators refused to leave public places that banned blacks, were held. The demonstrators usually were arrested, but this only helped draw attention to their cause.
In 1954 a major case was heard in the Supreme Court in Brown vs. Board of Education. This case outlawed segregation (the isolation of the black community from the white community, like in the buses and lunch counters) in the schools.
In 1963 Martin Luther King Jr., a leader in the civil rights movement, delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech which encouraged peaceful demonstrations of protest to the laws that wouldn't let blacks visit the same public places as whites.
In his speech he said, "I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
Soon after King's speech the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. This law made segregation illegal in public places and in employment.
The next year the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed, making it illegal to give blacks literacy and other tests to keep them from voting; in 1968 the passage of the Fair Housing Act prohibited discrimination by race in housing.
In 1968, King was killed by an assassin. Today, King's birthday is a national holiday, celebrated annually on Jan. 15. We also mark February, the month after King's birthday, as Black History Month.
It's a time to learn or remember the struggle that black people have fought to get the rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. It's also a time to celebrate their accomplishments.
The Harrison Museum of African American Culture's displays and exhibits depict some of the successes of the black culture.
The museum is open weekdays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and weekends by appointment. 28. For more information, call 345-4818.