CHANGING AMERICA DISCUSSES CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT AND EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION AT DUPAGE COUNTY HISTORICAL MUSEUM
January 12, 2017
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DuPage County, Ill.—When acclaimed Macomb, Ill.-based folk singer Chris Vallillo performed “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize” at the Traverse City Film Festival, he received applause. Then he received a story.
“Two days after I did the song, a man stopped me on the street, thanked me for playing the song, and went on to tell me his story,” Vallillo said. “He had been one of the Freedom Riders on one of the buses that had been attacked. He had been on the bridge in Selma that day
[Bloody Sunday]. He was beaten bloody and thrown into jail.”
Vallillo will share this and other stories as he performs Oh Freedom!, a collection of 11 critical songs from the Civil Rights Movement, January 28, 2P to help welcome the DuPage County Historical Museum’s (102 E. Wesley St., Wheaton, Ill.) new traveling exhibit, Changing America.
Opening January 27, Changing America discusses two events separated by a century but linked by liberty: the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and the March on Washington in 1963.
Eight panels will live in the Museum’s Auditorium through March 9, sketching the circumstances, from the slave trade in America to the scope of the Emancipation Proclamation, vocalist Marian Anderson’s 1939 concert at the Lincoln Memorial, and leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, Bayard Rustin, and others who planned the March on Washington.
“In America, we really value our freedom, but America has not always provided freedom for everyone,” said Museum Manager and Educator Michelle Podkowa. “I think it’s a great exhibit to draw light to parts of those social freedoms we haven’t always given to everyone equally.”
The exhibit is complemented by recordings from Voices of DuPage, a partnership between the Museum and the Wheaton Public Library (225 N. Cross St.) to preserve local oral histories.
“We are super excited because we partnered with a local church and were able to get several interviews from people who lived in DuPage or now live in DuPage,” Podkowa said. “A lot of them tell stories about segregation and desegregation, the marches for open housing here in the county. And these are very influential people in the community today.”
To recognize Black History Month, the library’s Contemporary Book Discussion Group will examine Whistling Past the Graveyard by Susan Crandall on February 2, 8, and 14, and on February 8, its Great Books Discussion will compare Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address and King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
Copies of these readings are available at the library one month prior to meeting. Readers can reserve their spot by contacting [email protected] or 630.868.7533.
Letters, articles, posters, copies of the Emancipation Proclamation, and especially music were among the techniques used by abolitionists in 1863 and demonstrators in 1963.
“Songs were used as an organizational tool, as a way to create solidarity,” Vallillo said. “Music has this ability to go beyond the moment and the time and to spread the message. It was a way to create bravery and security among demonstrators, who faced physical violence.”
Changing America provides context for Vallillo.
“There will be places in the show I can quite literally point to one of the panels and say, ‘This song was sung on that day, in that place, by the people in that photograph,’” he said. “We’re not that far removed. Fifty years is not a long time at all.”
Though daily events can seem inconsequential beside the long tapestry of history, they’re not.
“People feel that history did not happen in their own lifetime, but history’s being made every day,” Podkowa said. “You may not be able to historically analyze it in your lifetime, but it’s still being made, and it will still be recorded through primary sources—newspapers, emails, texts—and it could be pieced together at a later time and analyzed by future generations.”
Residents can still contribute their own memories of the Civil Rights Movement, March on Washington, segregation, discrimination, and other recollections of the period January 14, 12-4P in the Museum’s Auditorium. Call 630.510.4941 to reserve a 45-minute interview or to arrange an interview on another day.
Changing America is presented by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and the National Museum of American History in collaboration with the American Library Association Public Programs Office. The tour of the exhibition is made possible by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor.
To learn more about Changing America, visit ala.org/programming/changingamerica, and to view programs at the DuPage County Historical Museum, visit dupagemuseum.org/calendar. Information on Chris Vallillo is available at chrisvallillo.com.
Acclaimed Macomb, Ill.-based folk singer Chris Vallillo will perform Oh Freedom!, a collection of 11 critical songs from the Civil Rights Movement, January 28, 2P at the DuPage County Historical Museum (102 E. Wesley St., Wheaton, Ill.) to help welcome its new traveling exhibit, Changing America.
Photo courtesy of Chris Vallillo.
Written by: Brett Peto