Concepts

In selecting the items to be included in Linking to Our Past, Dr. Lauranett Lee developed a list of themes:

Identity: What forms of material culture help us measure who we are in a society that values American ideals of individualism and liberty and justice as well as African values such as collectivity and ancestral acknowledgement?

Freedom: What does freedom look like for enslaved people and free blacks in a free society? How have gender conventions shaped the quest for freedom? In what ways does the quest for freedom drive the quest for justice? How is the quest articulated through material culture?

Education: As a cornerstone of upward mobility, how has the quest for education shaped individual and group aspirations? What benefits have been derived from literacy? How does illiteracy define power?

Community: What does community mean in an ever-changing society? How has it been re-fashioned through dislocation and migration? In what ways do community values shape life in slave quarters, churches, mutual beneficial societies, and federated organizations and local clubs?

Resistance: In what overt and covert ways do we resist oppression? What can we learn from re-examining ideals and concepts emboldened in national and state documents and/or documents created by those who have been denied equal opportunities?

Justice: In what areas can we identity the fight for justice? Who were the leaders in the fight for justice? How has the quest for justice changed the cultural landscape?

Triumph: How does post-Civil War and post-civil rights legislation impact life and race relations in America? Where can we identity triumphant moments in Virginia's history through the sustained efforts of African Americans?