Missouri: Arrow Rock Camping, Part 3: A Fuller History

Never Been Beat by Artist Joe Don Brave, Arrow Rock Historic Site Visitor Center, Missouri. May 2018.

The Arrow Rock State Historic Site's Visitor Center is very, very attractive. It is a space easy to miss, abutting the village, but tucked behind trees and a boardwalk. There's an expansive parking lot accessible from the rural highway that serves both the village and the state park.

Joe Don Brave exhibit, Arrow Rock Historic Site Visitor Center, Missouri. May 2018.

Given the diminutive size of Arrow Rock and its rural setting, it surprised and pleased me to see the permanent exhibit called Slavery, Racism, Violence: Justice and the Constitution -- the African-American experience in the Boone's Lick from Emancipation (1865) to the beginning of the Civil Rights Era.

History exhibit, Arrow Rock Historic Site Visitor Center, Missouri. May 2018.

For healing to occur in our society, it is imperative for us to look at our shared history, to gaze on it, to see it and to see the women, men, and children - our ancestors - who lived it.

History exhibit, Arrow Rock Historic Site Visitor Center, Missouri. May 2018.

The exhibit impressed me with its straightforwardness in presenting facts and the effect of slavery and post-slavery times on residents, both black and white.

History exhibit, Arrow Rock Historic Site Visitor Center, Missouri. May 2018.

History exhibit, Arrow Rock Historic Site Visitor Center, Missouri. May 2018.

History exhibit, Arrow Rock Historic Site Visitor Center, Missouri. May 2018.

History exhibit, Arrow Rock Historic Site Visitor Center, Missouri. May 2018.

The visitor center featured a beautifully-lit room of art work by Joe Don Brave, an artist of Osage and Cherokee heritage.

St. Louis: History Museum: #1 in Civil Rights Exhibit

#1 in Civil Rights Exhibit, Missouri History Museum, St. Louis, Missouri. March 2018.

I learned about the #1 in Civil Rights Exhibit at the Missouri History Museum through the Readings on Race Book Club at the Ferguson Municipal Library.

Although I'm not much of a museum person, the exhibit captured my attention for about an hour.

I plucked the bits that I ingested on the spot or that I will investigate more deeply in the future.

#1 in Civil Rights Exhibit, Missouri History Museum, St. Louis, Missouri. March 2018.

Harriet Scott?! Why had I only heard about Dred Scott all these decades of my life? Here is one story of Harriet Robinson Scott's adult life. In this account, we learn that Harriet Robinson was only 16 when she married Dred Scott. This suggests another story, untold. Further, because the legal status of children of enslaved persons followed the maternal line (i.e. if the mother was enslaved, then her children were also enslaved), one could argue that Harriet Scott's name should have been the more prominent one on the Supreme Court case, as the futures of their two children depended on the outcome of the case.

#1 in Civil Rights Exhibit, Missouri History Museum, St. Louis, Missouri. March 2018.

It was only a few weeks before I visited the History Museum that I learned about the East St. Louis Massacre. The confounding range of estimated killed between 40 and 200 reminds me of the similar obliqueness about the Opelousas Massacre.

#1 in Civil Rights Exhibit, Missouri History Museum, St. Louis, Missouri. March 2018.

 The above quote by William Wells Brown countered the mealymouthed exhibit on slavery in the state capitol's history exhibit.

El Paso: History Museum Stairwell

Stairwell, El Paso History Museum, El Paso, Texas. November 2016.

November 2016


When my daughter was a toddler, I took her to the zoo. We entered the children's petting zoo enclave. I was sure she'd be dazzled by all of the little critters up so close and touchable.

But no. Head bent toward the ground, she crouched, lifted some tiny pebbles and slid them into her pants pocket. She walked a few steps, crouched, gathered more pebbles, inserted them into her pocket. On that day, pebbles called her and not the main attractions.

Given my ambivalence about most museums, it seems quite natural that I might do as my daughter did, in a way.

The stairwell at the El Paso History Museum! 

Stairwell, El Paso History Museum, El Paso, Texas. November 2016.

The colors, the angles, the varying textures of the surfaces, the velvety view of the city through a window. The light.

Stairwell, El Paso History Museum, El Paso, Texas. November 2016.

I quite like the stairwell.