The blanket chest was aged and lovely, but the image painted on it was even more impressive. It was more than just a chest for storing blankets; it was folk art, created by someone with talented…
Category: Black history
George Washington Carver on a whisky decanter
Posted in Advertising, Black history, collectibles, Figurines, and history
The figure looked like many of the other ceramic sculptures of African Americans that I’d seen in discount stores. This was an image of George Washington Carver, the man who experimented with peanuts at Tuskegee back in…
Jim Crow signs separated a people & a nation
Posted in Advertising, Black history, collectibles, Signs, and slavery
Lest we forget. That’s what came to my mind when I saw the Jim Crow signs in the glass case at the auction house. As I stood there looking at the signs outside the case,…
‘Stop busing’ buttons & meat rubber stamps from another era
Posted in Black history, history, Politics, and School
The box of red and white pinback buttons was pushed under a table near the door to the auction house, but their message was loud and clear: “Stop Forced Busing.” It was not the only…
Broadside shows slavery’s awful practice of splitting families
Posted in Black history, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and slavery
The bold title was very clear in its mission: “Public Sale of Negroes by Richard Clagett.” If you didn’t know better, you’d think it was the title of a book and its author. But this was…
“Blacula” movie poster recalls ‘70s blaxploitation films
Posted in Black history, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and Movies
One wall at the auction house was plastered with movie posters, but I saw only one that I actually wanted. It was for the movie “Blacula,” a black Dracula for those movie-goers who in the…
Queen Charlotte – Britain’s first biracial queen
Posted in Black history, history, and Women
I had never heard of Queen Charlotte until after the royal wedding on Saturday. A friend who spent the weekend immersed in all things royal mentioned it. She’d read that a woman with African roots…
Artifacts tell their own story of Martin Luther King’s life
Posted in Black history, civil rights movement, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, Photos, and theater
One artifact was a photo of Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, two men who sought freedom for African Americans in their own ways. Another was a large pinback button from the Southern Christian…
Promise of fair treatment made & broken at 1939 NY World’s Fair
Posted in Black history, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and history
The newspaper pages were tucked behind a seemingly unrelated art print of a stone church. I was a bit interested in the artwork but was more intrigued by the newspaper. I assumed that it contained an…
The auction house had played the portrait prominently on its website. That was understandable since the artist who painted it and the subject were both famous African Americans. The auction house expected it to bring in…