African Slavery Holocaust Museum OpensJunious Ricardo StantonJoe Ragsdale was initiated into real Black history when he was a youngster sitting at the knees of an elderly uncle who along with his civil war buddies told tales of slavery and being soldiers in the Confederate Army. One night while they were sitting on the porch talking, one of them wondered aloud who was going to tell their story and keep their experiences alive. Uncle Buck without missing a beat declared “I guess young buck here, referring to little Joe, will do it. And for emphasis he said, “Won’t you young buck? ” Joe responded he would not knowing what he was getting himself into. Years later when Joe Ragsdale then a young adult returned South with his family to clear up some family business he went to his Uncle Buck’s empty and dilapidated shack and began clearing out his uncles’ belongings. There he found his uncle’s old Confederate uniform (Uncle Buck was thirteen when he was forced to take care of the Confederate soldiers’ horses and later became a Confederate soldier himself). Joe also discovered an old trunk in which he found shackles, chains and an assortment of additional slavery artifacts. Something inside him compelled Joe not to throw or give them away. He decided to keep them himself.This experience was the beginning of a relentless quest to salvage, find and collect slavery artifacts. Hearing stories about buried artifacts Joe purchased a metal detector and began using it to locate buried items first around his family members’ homes but subsequently throughout the South. Later joined by his wife Gwen Joe pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money traveling all over the world to find and collect thousands of artifacts: chains, branding irons, pistols, rifles, whips, chokers, uniforms, documents and photographs to chronicle the great Maafa known as the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Fortunately for us Joe is an entrepreneur who owned a very successful construction site clean up and window cleaning company which gave him the resources to totally immerse himself into this mission.In addition to the slavery artifacts they also have a huge collection of Jim Crow era memorabilia: pictures, newspaper clippings, retail items which depicted Africans as grotesque caricatures to reenforce the prevailing cultural notions of white supremacy and African inferiority, ugliness and being less than human. The Ragsdales have so much material they are able and willing to share their collection with other museums around the area and country. Several museums in the Philadelphia area have artifacts on display that were loaned to them by Joe and Gwen Ragsdale.Throughout the years as he traveled and stored his bourgeoning collection in his own home Joe Ragsdale envisioned creating a museum where he could display his collection and teach all people about the horrific history, resiliency and triumph of African people. Joe and Gwen eventually started sharing their collection several years ago and soon gained a reputation for having one of the best documented and largest inventories of slavery artifacts and memorabilia in the nation if not the world. They have over five hundred pieces of slave manacles, chains and torture devices alone. In addition to still collecting items whenever and wherever he could, Joe would salt money away for his dream museum. He eventfully acquired a building at 3650 Richmond Street in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia near the Delaware River. It was an old warehouse that Joe first used for his cleaning business. Originally he wanted to put the museum in the Black community but after experiencing numerous setbacks trying to acquire other sites, he soon realized this was where God wanted him to share his collection.Using his own money, sweat equity and labor with help from Gwen, his relatives and a few friends; Joe converted the warehouse into the Black Holocaust Museum of Slavery. He finally got the building ready for its first stage opening (he plans to expand the exhibits to include a tunnel and slave ship). The grand opening was held on Friday June 27. The museum contains documents, items, exhibits that depict the horrors of slavery. Their goal is to tell the real story. “Despite the fact this was a holocaust and every other people has had their own holocaust, the Irish, the Jews, the Chinese and Native Americans all suffered, but our holocaust lasted four hundred years. We have to tell the story. Our children don’t know about this. Whose fault is that? Ours, because we don’t talk about it. We don’t have living ancestors to tell the story but we have the stories, we have the written documents, we have these shackles and these artifacts. We tell it not to make one group angry or another groups ashamed, we tell it because this is our story.” Stated Gwen Ragsdale at the Philadelphia museum’s grand opening.While completing the Richmond Street site, the Ragsdales were also working on another building in New Jersey. They have so much material they can easily equip and exhibit at two sites as well as loan items to other museums. They will open their New Jersey museum on July 4 in Lawnside New Jersey. The museum is located at 327 White Horse Pike. The Philadelphia museum is now open for individual and group tours. The Lawnside Museum will be open July 4th. The hours of operation at both sites are Wednesday through Sunday 10 AM to 6 PM. For more information visit their Website at www.LESTWEFORGETMUSEUMOFSLAVERY.com To schedule and appointment call (888) 886-LEST (5378), (856) 427-4262 or E-mail at LESTWEFORGETMUSEUM@yahoo.com.-30-
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