Black history artifacts

Art, ephemera go on exhibit at Mosaic Templars center

Come and Join Us Brothers: United States Soldiers at Camp William Penn, 1863, published by the Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Regiments
Come and Join Us Brothers: United States Soldiers at Camp William Penn, 1863, published by the Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Regiments

Khalil Kinsey recounts the time his father, Bernard Kinsey, received a historic document from a friend. The document had been found in a relative's attic in Alabama, and the man felt it was of such importance that he rushed it to his father, a noted collector of such things.

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The Kinsey Collection

Samuel L. Dunson Jr.’s The Cultivators, an oil on canvas, was painted in 2000.

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The Kinsey Collection

An early edition of Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave

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The Kinsey Collection

Four Cows in a Meadow, 1893, oil on canvas, by Edward Mitchell Bannister

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The Kinsey Collection

Supreme Court of the United States: Dred Scott Decision, 1857.

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The Kinsey Collection

A letter from Malcolm X to Alex Haley, Dec. 3, 1963

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The Kinsey Collection

The Underground Railroad, 1872, by William Still

It was, he said, "a bill of sale for a human being."

Art

‘African American Treasures From the Kinsey Collection’

Friday-July 2; reception 6-8 p.m. Friday

Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, 501 W. Ninth St., Little Rock

Hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday

Call (501) 683-3593; mosaictemplarscente…

Admission: free

When his father opened the envelope "it gave him chills. He felt like he was holding a human being in his hands."

Such is the power of "African American Treasures From the Kinsey Collection," a traveling exhibition opening Friday and showing through July 2 at the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center in Little Rock. During the show's journey across the United States, it has been viewed by about 6 million. Now, Khalil Kinsey said, they are also preparing for the first international exhibition.

Among the many noteworthy items in the collection are two documents, a baptismal record dating to 1595 and a marital record from 1598 that are from the Catholic Diocese in St. Augustine, Fla. They pre-date Jamestown, which would make them the earliest documentation of blacks in America.

There also are letters from Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. There are works of art by a number of important black painters and there will be first editions of historically significant books written by such luminaries as Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. Du Bois.

Quantia Fletcher, interim director of the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, first saw this collection of art, artifacts and ephemera last summer in Mississippi.

"It's a truly amazing collection," she said. "What I love about the collection is that it sheds light on periods of darkness in African-American history. So often, because you had so many African-Americans who were slaves or who didn't own property themselves, a bunch of our history is lost."

Kinsey notes his parents' humble beginnings: "They met in college in the '60s, and moved to Los Angeles in 1967 with a job contract and $26," he said. Bernard Kinsey went on to work at Xerox for 20 years, where he rose to become a vice president. He is now the president of a management and consulting firm he founded.

Early on, Bernard Kinsey and his wife, Shirley, began building an impressive art collection. Meanwhile, Khalil realized in third grade that, while many of his classmates could trace their family history back a long way, he could not. "I had a lot of questions, and we really couldn't get answers."

Noticing his concern, his parents adapted their collecting habits accordingly. "My father is one of those people who, once he focuses on something, he really goes deep," Khalil Kinsey said.

"They were already collecting art," he adds. "This changed the focus to history."

Today, Kinsey is the collection's chief curator and also the chief operations officer. To him, the collection "is a great tool for us to have a better dialogue about race in America."

He said that the Kinseys want to fill in the blanks about the black contribution to America, which he feels has been marginalized. Black history is "taught as though it's a footnote: It's very limited, and it's one month out of the year."

He mentions that the goal of the travelling exhibition is to "share all these incredible stories of people who have done amazing things ... have made this country a better place, but don't get any recognition, celebration or mention. We'd like to change that."

Fletcher feels it is fortunate that the Kinsey Collection is coming to Arkansas, and even more fortunate that it's going to be at the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center. For her, the show is not just about "African-American history, but American history, and history for Arkansas."

The collection mines a rich vein of black heritage, documenting important events with historical objects and documents as well as a trove of artwork of cultural significance. Here are some of the items in the collection:

MAYA ANGELOU'S TYPEWRITER

The exhibit includes a typewriter used by writer Maya Angelou, from collector Steve Soboroff of Los Angeles. "This is the first time it has ever been shown. To be able to share this typewriter that Dr. Angelou wrote some of her seminal pieces on," Kinsey said, "I think that is going to be extremely special."

MALCOLM X'S LETTER TO ALEX HALEY

This letter was written by activist Malcolm X to Alex Haley. In it, Malcolm X notes that he has cleared his schedule to work with co-author Haley on his autobiography. The resulting Autobiography of Malcolm X was published in 1965. Haley next published his most famous book, Roots: The Saga of an American Family, an account of his black heritage that won a Pulitzer Prize and was made into a highly popular television miniseries.

TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE

The collection features an early edition of Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, the book upon which the Academy Award-winning movie was based. Northup's memoir details his kidnapping and years of slavery in the South before being freed in 1853.

PAINTINGS

Kinsey said, "There are four paintings from three black men in the 1800s that were considered to be masters, one being Edward Mitchell Bannister, who won one of the highest awards for art in the 1870s." In addition to Bannister, other notable painters featured in the show are Robert Scott Duncanson, Charles Ethan Porter and Grafton Tyler Brown.

"These were men offering incredible beauty to the world during a time when it was extremely difficult to be an African-American in this country," he said.

DRED SCOTT DECISION

This is a published copy of the official Dred Scott decision, a landmark 1857 U.S. Supreme Court case. Scott spent more than a decade pursuing his freedom in the courts before the nation's highest court ruled against him.

THE CULTIVATORS

This charming, stylized oil painting places Bernard, Shirley and Khalil Kinsey in a field, harvesting books. It was painted by artist Samuel L. Dunson Jr. in 2000.

CIVIL WAR RECRUITING POSTER

Philadelphia's Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Regiments sought to attract black recruits with this poster from 1863. The Pennsylvania Civil War 150 website (pacivilwar150.com) explains the context for this: "During the spring and early summer of 1863, the Confederate army rampaged through Lancaster and Gettysburg, taking black Pennsylvanians as slaves. The real threat of enslavement propelled many black men in Pennsylvania to join the Union forces."

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

William Still self-published this rare book, a first-person account of black activities on the Underground Railroad, in 1872. Still was born free. He was an abolitionist and a successful Philadelphia businessman.

Style on 04/03/2016

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