What a Great 2011!
A huge Thank You to all of you for making 2011 a really outstanding year for the Museum. Thousands of people experienced African American history and culture via our exhibits, programs, workshops, this website, and the many tours. Over 20 communities throughout Iowa welcomed us for programming. Many educators used us for the first time to enhance their class lessons.
The very successful Military Exhibit has been taken out of the Changing Exhibit Gallery to make room for the new exhibit”The Only One”. This unique exhibit is scheduled to open Saturday January 14, 2012. Admission is free that day. The staff looks forward to serving you to make your 2012 a fun filled learning experience.
Book Signing This Weekend!
Come and visit the Museum on Saturday afternoon at 3:30 pm. There will be a presentation by Robert V. Morris, author of Black Faces of War. The Museum Gift Store has copies of the book available for purchase and your can have them signed by Morris. The Museum Gift Store also has copies of his book Tradition and Valor. Come early, take a self guided tour through the Museum and then attend the book signing. The Museum opens at 10:00am. We look forward to seeing you there!
The Museum Store is having a Fall Sale, all items with a yellow dot are 20% off and all items with a green dot are 30% off. The perfect time to get your Holiday Shopping started! We have a variety of items to choose from. Stop by and take a look!
What Have We Been Up To?
Our blog is woefully behind in the times. Only two posts in nearly 3 months? It’s most disappointing, and for that I apologize.
“But Michelle,” you may ask, “if you haven’t been blogging, then what have you and the other museum staff been doing??”
Well, let see…
July 7: “Dr. Carver’s Lab” children’s workshop and “Vietnam Syndrome” adult program in Dubuque
July 7: “Eat Your Way Through Africa” children’s workshop in Muscatine
July 8: “Summer Chama” Learning Safari at Hiawatha Library
July 11-15: “Secrets of the Underground Railroad” week-long Summer Camp at AAMI
July 11: “Vietnam Syndrome” adult discussion in Iowa City
July 19: Guided tours of the galleries
July 20: Guided tours of the galleries
July 21: Training seminar for Education staff called “Effective Instruction Methods”
July 24-July27: Michelle and Lynn at Midwest Museum Association Conference
July 26: “My Friend the Buffalo Soldier” adult presentation in Des Moines
July 27: “Battle within the Barracks” adult presentation in Council Bluffs
July 28: “My Friend the Buffalo Soldier” re-enactment at AAMI
August 1-3: Michelle and Tenika attend a teacher training to better understand the needs of Cedar Rapids teachres
August 2: Guided tours of museum
August 8-12: “Secrets of the Underground Railroad” week long summer camp
August 11: Staff represents museum at General Mills Diversity Day in shifts from 12-4am, 10am-2pm, and 4-8pm
August 16: “Red Tails” children’s program and “My Friend the Buffalo Soldier” adult presentation in Sioux City
August 18: Meeting with Davenport Schools to discuss programming for preschoolers
August 22: “Unconditional Loyalty” adult program in Fort Dodge
August 24: “Super Soaked” workshop and exhibit tours at museum
August 30: “Unconditional Loyalty” adult presentation and “Mysteries of Ancient Egypt” children’s program in Ottumwa
August 31: “Super Soaked” children’s workshop here, “Unconditional Loyalty” adult presentation in Davenport
September 2: “Exploding Volcanoes” Learning Safari at Hiawatha Library
September 6: Staff meets to discuss future Statewide Programming
September 7: Michelle and Tenika represent museum at Big Red Rally in Marion
September 9: Grant begins compiling information for the next “Iowa Griot”
September 14: Guided tours of the museum
September 17: Michelle and Tenika present “History in the Park” at Forest Avenue Library in Des Moines, Museum Staff/Board have annual meeting and social.
September 19-20: Michelle and Tenika give a workshop to every preschooler in Davenport school district
September 21: Staff presents about Museum Jobs at local Middle School, the travels to Dubuque for teen workshop on the Harlem Renaissance
September 22: After months of preparation, the AAMI throws a successful semi-formal event, our annual History Makers Gala
September 23: Hundreds of women attend our African American Women’s Leadership Conference
September 24: Tour of museum
September 26: Journey to Freedom rehearsal
September 27: Guided tours at museum, “Super Soaked” children’s workshop at Muscatine
September 28: Guided tours at museum, Journey to Freedom rehearsal
September 29: “Meet the Inventors” children’s workshop in Muscatine, museum staff preps Journey to Freedom materials
September 30: 3rd Annual “Journey to Freedom” School Day has record participation
October 1: “Journey to Freedom” event has more than 75 people registered and 100 people in attendance
October 5: all third grade classes from two elementary schools visit, keeping Michelle and Tenika busy all day
In conclusion, we’ve been busy! We’ll still be busy, but the school year tends to offer a more stable schedule, so please look for more frequent blog updates in the near future. Thank you for your understanding and support!
Join Us at the Women’s Leadership Conference!
The 2011 Iowa African American Women’s Leadership Conference is coming up in September. Mark your calendars for September 22 and 23 and register NOW!
This annual conference is a great opportunity for all women to come together and celebrate African American heritage and the rich her-story of African American women in Iowa. Join us!
We begin by celebrating our “2011 History Makers Gala” at the African American Museum of Iowa, Thursday evening, September 22, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. We will honor our 2011 recipients of the History Makers Award; Marian Coleman of Iowa City, Honorable Judge Romonda D. Belcher of Des Moines and Nancy Humbles of Cedar Rapids. The evening includes fellowship, celebration and live music. A three course dinner will be served. Dress is semi-formal. To register for the Gala, contact me at 319-862-2101, ext 16 or email me at kgfsmith@blackiowa.org.
The conference, “Laying Claim to Our Spirit,” begins the next morning Friday, September 23 at the Cedar Rapids Marriott, 1200 Collins Road NE in Cedar Rapids. We will begin the morning at 8 with registration and breakfast at the main ballroom of the Marriott.
Twelve break-out sessions will include topics important to you such as; “YES, You Can Start Your Own Business”, “Shop, Cook and Eat Your Way to a Thinner and Healthier You!”, “Preparing Your Children for College”, “The Best Defense is No Offense” and “What Are You Worth?”
Student Breakout Sessions include; “Loving Her-story: Journeys of Life, Legacy and Future” by Jada M. Drew, “A Call to Our Sisters: Coming Together to Talk about Sexual Healing”, and “The Devastating Effect of Self-Neglect” by Natasha Nicole Lake.
Ms. Vikki Pryor, CEO of the American Red Cross in Greater New York is our honored keynote speaker. Dr. Terry Wahls, Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Iowa is our special guest speaker, and Miss Black Iowa Alexcia James, will perform during the luncheon.
Tickets to the History Maker’s Gala are $35. Conference Registration (including Gala ticket) is $99. Student registration (including q Gala ticket) is $60. Scholarships are available. Registration is required.
Please contact me at kgfsmith@blackiowa.com or call me at 319-862-2101, ext. 16 to register or if you have questions. We can’t wait to see you there!
Welcome Tenika
Hi Everyone!
My name is Tenika Johnson and I’m the new Assistant Educator here at the African American Museum of Iowa. I am a native of Richmond, Virginia and received a degree in accounting from North Carolina A&T State University in 2007. I came to Iowa in 2008 to begin my career and spent a little over three years in the Accounting profession. Because I enjoy working with both numbers and people, I recently decided to switch to a profession that will allow me to do both. I felt joining the team here at the museum would be an excellent way of increasing my interaction with people as I work on my Master of Business Administration at the University of Iowa. I’ll be assisting with statewide education programs for children as well as interacting with librarians and community advisory groups for adult programming. I look forward to learning all there is to know about the history of African Americans in Iowa so I can share it with others!
Tenika 
We Need Your Help!!!!
We are still collecting photographs, advertising, and children’s toys for our upcoming exhibit, The Only One. Do you have any photos reflecting African American life in Iowa over the last 30 years? What about advertising or toys that depict African Americans? We could use them! Contact our Curator, Lynn Koos, and let her know what you have! She can be reached at lkoos@blackiowa.org or 319-862-2101 x27.
Engaged Learning
Over the weekend, the Cedar Rapids community celebrated Juneteenth at Viola Gibson Park. There was live music, food, a bouncy castle, vendors, and a number of children’s activities. One of my favorite parts was the “Timeline to the Past”. Whether you’re a grown up or a child, it seems most people have difficulty with deciding what events happened before or after other events in history. The “Timeline to the Past” is a simple concept: there are signs staked into the ground marking every 50 years between 1750 and 2000, then small flags with a year and event in American history. As families arrive at the timeline, they are given new flags to add. Throughout the day, we saw moms, dads, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and even a few teenagers walking through the timeline, reading the events in order and calling out to each other with things like “Oh look, here’s when Rosa Parks sat on the bus” or “So the NAACP was founded after the Tuskegee Institute, I didn’t know that.”
One of the best parts of my job is watching people engaged with history. Too often history is painted as a stagnant, boring topic, when in fact it’s anything but.
Hello!
Hi Folks -
My name is Grant Stevens and I’m the new Development Assistant here at the African American Museum of Iowa! This is a new position at the the AAMI and I’ll be doing a variey of things – fundraising/grant-writing and membership recruitment, but also some marketing/public relations tasks as well. I graduated from Coe College (Cedar Rapids, IA) in May with a double major in Political Science and American Studies. I’ve been interning with the Marion Chamber of Commerce and the Marion Arts Festival since January of 2010 and been volunteering with several other area non-profits. I’m very excited to be working here and with such a fantastic staff. I look forward to seeing you at the museum!
Grant Stevens
Evans Liberian Pottery Collection is One Step Closer to Completion!!
AAMI just recieved another peice of the Evans Liberian Artifact Collection!!
Several months ago the AAMI received a large collection of Liberian pottery from James and Mary Evans of Mt. Vernon, IA. The majority of the pieces are from small villages near the Liberia-Cote d’Ivoire boarder and the Nimba mountain range. In the case of these objects, the identity and origin is often difficult to determine, and the information from the traders cannot be verified, but there is one source of written documentation about their history.
Jim and Mary, as well as their family members, saved every letter they wrote back and forth for the duration of their stay in Kakata. The history of the villages, the indigenous peoples’ way of life, stories behind the artifacts, and simply the experience of living and working in West Africa in the 1970’s is documented in these letters.
Mary recently brought in all these letters so that the museum could copy them and record the included information about the pottery. They include facts about most objects in the collection, diagrams drawn by James detailing the layout of the homes they lived in, and little keepsakes such as a section of a weaver bird’s nest.
These letters help to keep the story and the history of these artifacts alive, as well as serve to document a historical time period.
Mary will also be bringing in photographs to share with the museum from their stay in Africa. Stay tuned for more information. Interested in hearing more about these pieces? Contact Curator, Lynn Koos, at 319-862-2101 X27 or lkoos@blackiowa.org
Shopping in Downtown CR??
Are you shopping in or near Downtown Cedar Rapids?? If the answer is yes, point your vehicle in the direction of 12th Avenue SE. To be more specific 55 12th Avenue SE, the location of the Museum. Inside the Museum is the Nikee Museum Store. There you will find some unique gift items for yourself, a friend or family member. Books for adults and children, quilted items such as purses and dolls, musical instruments and framed prints. After walking around the Museum store take a hour or so to go through our galleries.
Now that school is out you could take a morning or afternoon with the kids for a unique activity that they can discuss with you afterwards. If you would prefer a guided tour call at least a week ahead to schedule a tour. We have scavenger hunts for both exhibits available in the Museum Store.
Have a wonderful summer and remember the African American Museum of Iowa is right near Downtown Cedar Rapids, come by and visit us soon!
