Jacob Gelt Dekker

U.S. Nat. Slavery Museum

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U.s. national slavery museum

Through greater knowledge and understanding of the history of slavery, our nation can hope at long last to become free of its legacy.” The Honorable L. Douglas Wilder The United States National Slavery Museum is committed to telling a more complete story of American slavery. Its honesty will lead the nation in commemorating, understanding, and overcoming slavery and its enduring legacy. For several years, the museum's educational outreach programs have been working toward this goal with pilot school groups and community organizations across the nation. We are proud to announce the 2006 groundbreaking for the permanent museum that will carry this story to all Americans. Spectacular architecture will establish a permanent monument. Innovative permanent galleries will create penetrating insights and experiences. Changing exhibitions will reveal the need for ongoing vigilance against slavery. Inspirational programs will deliver the tools to transcend the limitations of America's past and forge a better future for generations to come. For more information and contribution take a look at the website of the US National Slavery museum
	Exhibits The United States National Slavery Museum will offer 100,000 feet of permanent and temporary exhibit space. Exhibits will take visitors on a journey through time, beginning with Africa as the cradle of civilization through the Middle Passage on slave ships, to the slave resistance movement, the Civil War and the continuing struggle for equality today.
Library The library and archives at the United States National Slavery Museum will serve all those seeking information pertaining to slavery in America like no other facility. Through a vast and ever-growing collection of materials in all formats - oral histories, maps, rare editions, film and video - it will tell the individual and collective story of a people and their pursuit of freedom.
	The Journey The Museum complex will include classrooms and lecture halls, an auditorium, archives and a library with a capacity of 250,000 books. There will also be a theater, virtual reality exhibits and a reproduction of a slave ship.
Mission To vitalize and interpret more completely the human drama and toll of slavery in America. The museum will educate some, re-educate others by presenting slavery in a larger and more balanced economic and political context.
	Purpose "those of us associated with this project hope to provide, through education and a true exposure to the history of our nation, those who come to visit the Museum with knowledge of who WE the people were, and who WE the people are."
Goal To open new and exciting vistas of knowledge regarding slavery in America and its impact on our nation's institutions and individuals.