The Museum is housed in the U.S.'s first academy for African-American women, which operated from 18331834. The school was run by Prudence Crandall (18031890), today designated as Connecticut's state heroine. The museum includes period rooms, changing exhibits, and a small research library.
The museum offers exhibits, research library access, and educational and recreational programs.
This iCue Mini-Documentary describes how, at the outbreak of World War I, industries in the north opened employment to African Americans. They left the south in record numbers for jobs in the north.
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This iCue Mini-Documentary describes the early-20th-century setbacks in civil rights, as racial segregation was common on rail cars, in schools, and in the workplace.
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This iCue Mini-Documentary describes a new tax on liquor which provoked many of the frontiersman in western Pennsylvania to form the Whiskey Rebellion. President George Washington responded by sending troops to quell the uprising.
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Populism and Progressivism developed in the early 20th century. Professor Steven Hahn of the University of Pennsylvania compares the two political movements.
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This iCue Mini-Documentary describes how the production demands of World War I draw blacks and whites from rural areas to factory jobs in the cities. However, along with that migration came racial tension.
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This iCue Mini-Documentary describes how, after the Emancipation Proclamation, blacks filled local and national offices, but white southerners were determined to pass new state laws to curtail this progress.
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This iCue Mini-Documentary introduces Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court decision that allowed "separate but equal" conditions for blacks and paved the way for widespread segregation in the south.
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This iCue Mini-Documentary describes how, to assure citizenship to blacks after the Civil War, Congress proposed the 14th Amendment. However, most Southern states refused to ratify it.
Professor Eric Foner of Columbia University discusses the Black Codes, which were written by white southerners to force blacks to keep working on plantations.
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