Museum Trip Connects Students With Black History

It was Emmett Till’s casket that left the largest impression.

On Friday, February 7th, the final day of Black History Month, a group of 43 Poughkeepsie High School students traveled by bus to Washington, D.C. to visit the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. The massive building is filled with moving imagery, tangible artifacts and interactive displays.

While the museum features plenty of fun, pop culture elements and brightly colored activities, it was the immersive historical experiences that caught the attention of most students. Among them is a solemn room in which a memorial for Emmett Till was recreated.

“There was an open casket with his face,” Jayden Stuart recalled. “Just to see it – he was around my age – it was crazy.”

Till, of course, was brutally murdered in 1955 in Mississippi at the age of 14 after allegedly whistling at a white store clerk. His death served as a spotlight on the treatment of Blacks in the south and an important moment in the Civil Rights Movement.

“It was literally set up like a funeral,” said Ashalet Gooden, the Multicultural Club adviser and English teacher who coordinated the trip alongside English teacher Kathy Dudley. “You walked in, you couldn’t talk, you couldn’t take any pictures and you literally step right in front of the casket. They had the facts presented and they had a clip playing before you entered showing his story.

“The kids, they were very respectful. As soon as they left they wanted to cry. They said, ‘I can’t believe this is a true story. Look at what my ancestors went through.’ They were moved by that. They had no words.”

It wasn’t the only such experience the kids talked about, though. Amylei Austin was struck by a display of a pregnant woman who had been hanged. She mentioned seeing something similar in her Black Studies class. “It kind of reminded me of that and made it more real.”

Stuart was in awe of an enormous representation of a slave ship illustrating to him how inhumane the conditions must have been during the trip across the Atlantic. “Seeing it, how big it was, and how many slaves were on it, and how they were clustered together … People died on the boat. Black people. When they died, they couldn’t move. They had to just sit there.”

The eight-floor museum opened in fall 2016 following years of fundraising efforts. Gooden said this was the first trip from Poughkeepsie High School to the facility. She said it was needed because “the kids don’t know about their history.”

They left the school around 7 a.m. and arrived back around 1:20 a.m. The group was composed of Multicultural Club members and other students Gooden has taught or currently teaches; as space was limited, only those who handed in permission slips first were able to attend.

“I’m interested in museums, I like learning about history, I like history, social studies, stuff like that,” Sophia Sero, a freshman, said for her reasons for going. However, she noted, seeing illustrations of how racism of the past is still evident today “makes you sick to your stomach.”

Gooden says she hopes to repeat the trip in future years, perhaps with bigger groups and overnight stays to allow the kids time to digest what they saw and see the rest of the Capital.

It wasn’t all tragedy, either. The kids also enjoyed seeing the pop culture aspects, like Chuck Berry’s Cadillac or clothes worn by people like Oprah, Michael Jordan and Prince.

There were also interactive games for music and stepping.

“There were a bunch of fashion displays – what the celebrities were wearing, the props that they used, their cars, the instruments they used,” Sero said.

Despite the quick turnaround, Gooden marveled at the students’ engagement.

“Sometimes when you go to museums, a lot of kids are not too interested or they find it hard to be connected to the information presented,” she said. “They were just so fascinated with everything presented to them.”