(Photos by Cory Bilicko)
Sharon McLucas conducts a tour of “Forgotten Images,” the exhibit of extensive African-American artifacts that she and her husband David have amassed over the years.
By Cory Bilicko
Staff Writer
Walking through and beholding the memorabilia of the “Forgotten Images” exhibit— the traveling “museum” that displays African-American artifacts— evokes a strange sensation of mixed feelings.
On the one hand, there’s the Ku Klux Klan uniform, hovering above the tables like a deflated white phantom— now lifeless, but still menacing. On the other, there are cheerful salt-and-pepper shakers in the form of black children eating watermelon.
Whereas the KKK outfit is a blatant symbol of lynchings— summoning images of violence against blacks and other minorities in the South, the seemingly harmless ceramic shakers present a more complicated side of African-American history. They are remnants of a period when defenders of slavery perpetuated an image of black people as being unfit for freedom. As historian John Hope Franklin indicated in his book From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, the pervasive stereotypes portrayed them as docile, tractable and happy— childlike and dependent upon the master.
As evidenced by “Forgotten Images,” these innocent-looking figurines, by dehumanizing blacks, were essentially forms of propaganda that paved the way for bigots to discriminate against, humiliate and violently attack people of color.
Signal Hill residents David and Sharon McLucas are the collectors who have amassed the collection featured in the exhibit. He began with music— collecting old vinyl records. She started with pictorial images that she hung on her walls.
Together, they focused their attention on pre-Civil War and Reconstruction-era memorabilia and began shopping for items around the country, eventually extending their avocation into 20th Century realia.
“It’s very important for young people living in this generation to know the trials and tribulations of the struggles that came before them,” said Sharon, who began using her collected items as educational tools years ago. “My daughter’s friends would come over, and I’d give them a history lesson.” Sharon said she’d make a game of it by quizzing the children upon their return to her home, telling them they couldn’t come back unless they’d remembered what she had taught them.
Her daughter, Sheba Gillis, has joined David and Sharon in conducting tours of the exhibit. She said initially she didn’t comprehend the significance of her mother’s and stepfather’s collection. “I’d ask, ‘Why do y’all keep buying all that junk?'” she said. After time, the meaning and importance did sink in, even to the point that she herself felt compelled to educate others about the history that her parents deemed so necessary. She earned a masters degree in secondary education and now teaches at Celerity Nascent Charter School in Los Angeles, where she incorporates the artifacts into her lessons. “The kids don’t know. They have no clue,” she said. “I bring in stuff to show them because it’s different when you see it right in front of you. If you can see it and touch it, it makes it real.”
But David says not everyone is receptive to the often disturbing images, some of which include alligators preying on young black children, exaggerated ruby-red lips, and African-Americans behaving as savages right out of the jungle. “A man [attending the exhibit] asked me, ‘Why is your exhibit so negative?’ A lot of black people have no idea of how highly marketed we were,” he said. “It was embedded into the society, a part of everyday life. Even today, there are echoes that come to the surface of what went on then.”
David points out that, in addition to being an educational forum, the exhibit is a tribute to those who suffered and sacrificed so much so that future generations could have better lives. “It’s been said before, but we’re standing on the shoulders of so many giants who went through so many trials. They couldn’t vote. They couldn’t get into restaurants. Their lives were in danger because of Jim Crow laws,” he said. “What your great-great grandfather and great-great grandmother went through so we can be better off today.”
“Forgotten Images” will be exhibited as part of the African Heritage Festival at the Aquarium of the Pacific, 100 Aquarium Way, Saturday, Feb. 21 and Sunday, Feb. 22 from 9am to 5pm. For more information, call (562) 590-3100.
