New Look at a National Scar

Civil War photo of a young black in slavery tatters and
later in freedom as a Union army drummer boy.

Being an American history nut, I was drawn into a short article that appeared in the News-Gazette last week about comedian Bill Cosby seeking funds for the construction of a national slavery museum. Right away I thought, “This will be controversial.” And sure enough, after doing a little digging on the subject, there are pros and cons all over the place for the project, even disagreement among blacks, whose views range from "Get it built" (some saying rich black rappers and athletes should give a fair amount) to "Forget the past, build on what we have now and put the money where it is really needed."

The Gazette article did not mention that the museum was beyond the planning stage, so I was surprised when I came upon an aerial photo of the carving up of a forest along a river in Virginia where the museum is already being built. The slavery museum backers want a museum that is uniquely dedicated to slavery, but perhaps a better place to put the museum would have been as part of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is in the planning stages and will be adjacent to the Washington Monument and across the street from the National Museum of American History.

Interestingly, the slavery museum is being built in the middle of historic civil war battlefields near Fredericksburg, Virginia, 50 miles south of Washington, DC.