Dr. Spencer Crew, a distinguished professor of history and art history at George Mason University, has dedicated his career to exploring and interpreting African American history. His work spans from directing the National Museum of American History to serving as the interim director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). Crew's insights offer a valuable perspective on the historical context of African American identity, the challenges of cultural representation, and the impact of migration on American society.
The National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.
The Role of History in Identity
In a conversation with Professor Brian Lowery, Dr. Spencer Crew joins Dr. Clayborne Carson, professor emeritus of history at Stanford and the director of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute, to discuss the role history plays in our identity as a country.
Crew's extensive experience in museums and academia allows him to bridge the gap between historical research and public understanding. He emphasizes the importance of sharing historical narratives to foster dialogue and reflection on the nation's past. For inspiring historians, he would say if you love it go ahead and enjoy the journey along the way. You never know where it is going to wind up.
The Great Migration: An Exodus from the South
The Great Migration: Diverse Reasons Why Black Americans Moved North
One of Crew's notable works is "Field to Factory: Afro-American Migration 1915-1940," an exhibition that explores the Great Migration. This period, spanning roughly from 1910 to 1970, witnessed a significant demographic shift as millions of African Americans moved from the rural South to the industrial North and West.
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In 1910, 89% of African Americans lived in the South. But by 1970, this was true of only 53% of the African American population. This change, which has come to be know as “The Great Migration”, represents the largest internal movement of any group in American history.
Like so many before them, the men and women who were part of the Great Migration felt compelled to migrate to escape persecution and to search out economic opportunity. In the 20th Century, this meant the atrocities of the Jim Crow South combined with the employment opportunities afforded by labor shortages in the Industrial North. The combination led millions to leave the only world they knew for a new and uncertain life.
Number of African Americans Migrating from the South by Decade (1910-1970)
The First World War ignited the Great Migration. The war effort led to increased demand for industrial products made in the North, but also a labor shortage. With the native-born and immigrant populations usually relied upon off at war, companies looked south. “Northern companies offered well-paying jobs, free transportation, and low-cost housing as inducements to [African Americans] to move North,” writes the historian Spence Crew.
The conditions African Americans confronted in the North were improved but still full of hardship. Racism and prejudice abounded. Government policy kept African Americans out of many neighborhoods through redlining; the restriction of neighborhoods in which people of certain racial and ethnic groups could get approved for a mortgage. (Redlining remains an issue today.)
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There were two distinct waves of the Great Migration:
- First Wave (1910-1940): Over 1.6 million African Americans left the South, primarily heading to cities in the Northeast, as well as Chicago and Detroit.
- Second Wave (1940-1970): Over three and a half million people migrated, spurred by the Second World War and the resulting industrial boom in western and northern cities.
African Americans who moved as part of the Great Migration continued to face discrimination. The migrants of the second wave of the Great Migration still encountered a world of persecution.
"Before Freedom Came": An Exhibit at the Museum of the Confederacy
Crew's involvement extends to addressing the complexities of historical interpretation, particularly in sensitive contexts. In 1989, James Horton and Spencer Crew surveyed the field of African-American interpretation in museums, and mentioned the efforts of the Museum of the Confederacy in planning the exhibition under discussion.
The exhibit Before Freedom Came comprises 314 objects, including photographs, paintings, manuscripts, and artifacts; the assembly of this material was the exhibit’s most singular and important contribution.
The main label states: “Whether enslaved or free, African Americans living in the Antebellum South created a vital and dynamic culture based on their African roots and molded by their experiences. This emphasis on cultural roots in Africa is, of course, an important subject in the scholarship of slavery, but the exhibit does not do enough visually to convince the visitor of the connection.
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Despite the exhibit’s stated goal of examining African precedents and adaptations, the label copy sometimes assumes a strikingly ethnocentric set of cultural values and norms when describing slave culture. One label states that, “Slaves, for their own emotional reasons, forged traditional two-parent households and raised children, even though doing so served the economic interests of their masters.” Setting aside the question of whether West African societies structured families as described in this label, is it accurate to speak of a two-parent household as being “traditional”?
This section did not consider the work of Eugene Genovese, Mechal Sobel, and others who see a complex cultural interplay between whites and blacks, masters and slaves. When the curator and one of the consultants were asked at the exhibition symposium about the problem of presenting everyday contact and cultural interaction between masters and slaves, the curator responded that this was difficult to do in an exhibition and that some of this interpretation had to be carried out by the public programs connected to the exhibit, which include interpretation of servants in the White House of the Confederacy.
He noted that the curator was not a member of the permanent staff and cautioned that, “A temporary exhibit may not have a long-term effect on museum exhibition policy.”
Reconstruction and Its Legacies
More recently, Crew developed “Defending Freedom, Defining Freedom: Era of Segregation 1876-1968” as a guest curator. The exhibition is one of the permanent displays that debuted with the grand opening of NMAAHC. According the museum’s description, the exhibition explores “the years following the end of Reconstruction to show how the nation struggled to define the status of African Americans. This period represents a critical era for the United States and for African Americans.
The passage of the 13th Amendment was an important moment in the history of the country because for the very first time, slavery was no longer the law the land. As Frederick Douglass said the hope is that they would be left alone, be able to make their own way without our interference. The reality is, though, is it wasn't quite that simple, that there was opposition along the way that they had to fight through, but fight through they did, and they didn't do it alone.
During Reconstruction, African Americans gained new civil and political rights, including the right to vote and hold elected office, equal protection under the law and legal recognition as US citizens. Constitution. Between 1865 and 1876, over 1500 African American men served in public office in southern states. They were state senators and representatives, justices of the peace, sheriffs, superintendents of board of education, Lieutenant governors and more.
Efforts to construct black political power and create a multiracial democracy were challenged and resisted by those Americans who sought to reconstruct white supremacy. The widespread use of violence, fraud and intimidation to suppress black voting in the South, combined with the federal governments reneging on its promise to defend and enforce black civil rights, allowed white supremacists to regain control of state governments in the South.
Addressing Racial Issues Today
In the middle of it all, the museum launched the online portal, “Talking About Race,” to help people, educators, communities and families discuss racism, racial identity and how these concepts shape every aspect of our society from politics to the economy to the nation’s culture. The site is chock-full of digital and video tools, exercises and a host of multi-media resources.
“I think what we know of our work at our museum over many, many years, is that one of the issues that worry people or challenge people the most is the idea of how do you talk about race? . . . We believe our portal will provide tools and guidance and a way of beginning to have those conversations because they are tough conversations,” Crew says.
“The Talking About Race portal is for anyone in a learner stance,” Flanagan says, adding that there are tools there for anyone who wants to begin or deepen their knowledge and ability to speak about the role of race and racism in this nation.
