New Exhibit Brings the Capitol to Catonsville

As the summer stretches ahead, families often think about how to find entertaining and enriching experiences during the vacation months.  One need not travel to Washington, D.C., and trek around in the heat to get a good feel for a fascinating aspect of our nation’s rich history.

A traveling exhibit entitled “From Freedom’s Shadow,” produced by the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, will be housed in the museum gallery of the Benjamin Banneker Historical Park on Oella Avenue.  In a series of panels which feature photographs, documents and explanatory text, the viewer learns about the role of African-Americans in the evolution of the Capitol.

On the second panel, entitled “Location: Benjamin Banneker and the Capitol’s Contested Meaning,” some of the central ironies of the exhibit immediately become clear.  Banneker, a free African-American who was a mathematician and astronomer, participated in the first survey of the District of Columbia in 1791.  However, most of the most grueling and dangerous work of creating the city which would become our young nation’s new capitol was to be done by enslaved African men who had been “rented” from their owners.  In the same year, Banneker wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson protesting the hypocrisy of using enslaved people to build a city to celebrate independence and the injustice of allowing slavery by law, in a nation which espoused freedom for all.

The exhibit highlights another ironic twist: the Statue of Freedom which stands atop the famous Capitol dome was cast in bronze by Philip Reid, a slave.  Fortunately, by the time the statue was erected in 1863, Reid would have been freed, the D.C. Emancipation Act having been passed in 1862 to end slavery in the district.

Though the Emancipation Proclamation officially abolished slavery in the nation on January 1, 1863, freedom under the law for African-Americans was still a long way away, even in the Capitol.   In 1928, Oscar De Priest was the first African-American elected to Congress in the twentieth century, but while he represented Chicago in the House of Representatives, for all other African-Americans, the Capitol buildings were segregated, with people of color entering only as waiters, cooks and janitors.

Shirley Chisolm was the first African-American woman elected to Congress, representing Brooklyn, NY, in 1968.  In 1969, she became one of the 13 founding members of the Congressional Black Caucus, along with Parren Mitchell from Baltimore.

The last panel of the exhibit features the inauguration of Barak Obama as the 44th president of the United States in 2009.

Museum staff will be on hand to answer any questions that arise in viewing the exhibit.  Willa Banks, the director of education and programming, also will be happy to introduce visitors to the other exhibits at the museum which features the life and work of Benjamin Banneker.  There is also the 142-acre historical park featuring more about the Banneker family farm as well as a place for picnicing in the pavilion or nature trail walks.

Betty Stewart, a Banneker board member, hopes that getting the word out about the exhibit will “keep people coming. The exhibit is here until November,” she said, “It’s no good to have a gala opening and then have it die.”

For a more low-key and free day at the capitol, try this exhibit right in Catonsville.  You can ride or walk there from downtown Catonsville almost entirely by trolley path and bike lane.

The exhibit is open Tuesday-Saturday 10-4.