Letter

Our Letter to The Board of Directors.

2100 West Fairy Chasm Road Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53217 February 2, 2009 The Board of Directors United States National Slavery Museum Fredericksburg, Virginia Dear Board of Directors:

Our literature circle group visited your museum’s website. We tried to determine what your mission was and decided on this: “They are committed to telling a more complete history of slavery in our country. The museum wants to commemorate former slaves and give people a better understanding of what slavery was like in America.” Also on your website, a letter from Vonita W. Foster, Executive Director of the Museum, explains that the “creation of the Museum will present the complete heretofore untold story of slavery in America.” Our literature circle will carry out both of these missions by telling the little-known story of slaves during the Revolutionary Period in American history. Slaves played an important role in the Revolutionary War, but few people are aware of that. Our exhibit will give these slaves the recognition they never got but definitely deserved. To tell the complete story of the American slave, the museum must include the stories of people from all time periods in our country’s history. The time around the birth of our nation is no less important than any other era; in fact, that period in time was // hugely // important in the history of American slavery. The fact that our nation was born with help from slaves yet our Founding Fathers did not give them rights in the Constitution is unbelievable! The stories of these people must be told. If we were able to create a physical exhibit for your museum, we would divide it into three main sections. The first would be the “stocks.” This would be a recreation of the stocks were slaves awaiting punishment would be held. There would be examples of branding irons and other tools used in punishing slaves as well descriptions of different methods of punishment. This section of our exhibit would also include information about the living conditions in the prisons were captured soldiers were kept during the Revolutionary War. We would make sure to mention that slaves who were captured were often treated unjustly; their fellow prisoners often took more of the food, water, and other provisions, feeling that they deserved more than slaves. Our group would also include information about who slaves fought for in the Revolutionary War and why. The second main section of our exhibit would be a recreated “bookstore.” The bookstore exhibit would be full of information about writing and opinions on slavery in the Revolutionary Era. We would include quotes from the works of various writers from the time and have recreations of books, pamphlets, and articles available for patrons to read. The exhibit might even feature live actors portraying writers from the 1700s; they would read several passages from “their” works to give the audience a unique learning experience. The third and final section of our exhibit would be a recreated house from a Revolutionary-period American city. There would be two rooms; a kitchen and a cellar. The kitchen would contain displays with descriptions of the work that slaves in homes and the punishments they would receive if they did something incorrectly. The cellar would reveal how horrible the conditions that many slaves lived in really were; in some households, they would be forced to live and sleep in a cold, dark, damp cellar. It is our hope that you will consider including our exhibit in your new museum. We hope to hear from you soon. Yours truly, Emma Kulick, Meredith Jeffers, and Claire Inda 