Crowning Glories: Status, Style, and Self-Expression
Now through September, 2010
Crowning Glories is a tribute to the beauty, style, and self-expression of black women, and a historical survey of their hat-wearing traditions from the late 1700s to the present. The tradition of African American women adorning themselves with extraordinary headwear goes back generations. Wrapping one’s head with cloth, for example, finds its roots among West African women. This practice, which survived the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, continues to be part of black women’s cultural heritage in the United States and throughout the Americas.

Crowning Glories features vintage drawings, photographs, and a variety of exciting hats loaned from the collections of local hat queens, including the renowned Martha Jean “The Queen” Steinberg. Also presented are hats created by locally and nationally recognized hat designers, such as Mr. Song, designer of the internationally renowned “Aretha Franklin” hat. From enslaved African American women, whose head coverings often doubled as protection from the elements during the week and subtle fashion statements on Sundays, to the extraordinary hats worn by Queen Mothers in the Red Hat Society, to the elaborate headwear that has evolved into symbols of high social status, viewers will gain insight into the culture surrounding the hat wearing traditions among black women.

Sponsored in part by The Detroit News.

Joe Louis: Hometown Hero
Now through October, 2010
This comprehensive exhibition on the life of an iconic Detroit native is a must for sports fans everywhere. Born the son of an Alabama cotton picker, Joe Louis, known to many as the African American heavyweight champion named the "Brown Bomber," became a national hero and symbol of American democracy versus Nazi intolerance. Muhammad Ali said of Joe Louis, "I just give lip service to being the greatest. He was the greatest." The sportswriter, Jimmy Cannon, summed the Brown Bomber up best when he wrote; "He was a credit to his race – the human race."

Joe Louis: Hometown Hero presents the museum viewer with an extraordinary view of Joe Louis and his rise to iconic status. The exhibition presents in two parallel timelines: the Joe Louis Story and the American Story. Louis’ life story, in chronological sequence, is viewed against the backdrop of American history. Museum visitors can at once follow the life of Joe Louis and contemporaneously view his life within the context of many of the most important events in American history during the post Civil War Reconstruction Period and the 20th century: the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Plessy vs. Ferguson establishing “separate but equal” as a legal basis for enforcing the separation of the races, World War I, the Great Migration and Depression, World War II, the U. S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Plessy in Brown vs. the Board of Education and the continuing struggle of African Americans for true equality and the end of racism.

Celebrating Figurative Art: The Works of Mychael Shane, Zeina Carla Washington, and Denemours L. Lockeet
Now through August 22, 2010

The works of art created by the artists featured in Celebrating the Figure are strikingly different from each other in several ways. Each artist has his or her own style, medium, and palette. Mychael Shane is a scratchboard artist who uses a multiplicity of lines to create stark black and white images. Zeina Carla Washington is a mixed-media artist whose paintings are created with vibrant colors. Illustration artist, Denemours L. Lockeet, uses pencils to create stunning, detailed works often in black, white, and blue, as well as in warm, muted colors. Although each artist is unique in his or her approach to creating art, they also have something in common: their penchant for creating figurative art. Moreover, their objectives are obviously the same—to present people, especially African Americans, with beauty, dignity and pride.

This exhibition was organized as part of the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History Contemporary Artist Program.

Who Am I?  My DNA Diary
Now - October, 2010

Scientists have utilized several scientific methods to answer the question where did humankind come from and how did they evolve into present day humans.  The Who Am I Exhibition explores two of these methods. The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, in association with the International Museum Institute of New York, presents LUCY: The Story of Human Origins, which explores the use of anthropologic findings and fossil casts and The Genographic Project Exhibition that explores the use of genetic/DNA scientific techniques in understanding the origins of humankind. 

Lucy, The Story of Human Origins, traces the beginning of humankind to modern man through the examination and comparison of 24 fossil casts of primates and hominids.  These fossil casts are augmented with panels of supporting illustrations and an interactive computer program developed by the Arizona State University Institute for the Study of Human Origins.  The program is narrated by Donald Johansson, the anthropologist, who discovered “Lucy.” This program provides video documentaries, visual timelines and maps that tell the story of human origins.

The Genographic Project is a real-time research effort that uses DNA as a study tool to map how humankind populated the planet. Launched in 2005, the project is a multi-year nonprofit partnership of National Geographic and IBM with global field research funded by the Waitt Family Foundation.  At the core of the project is a global consortium of 11 regional scientific teams following an ethical and scientific framework and who are responsible for sample collection and analysis in their respective regions. The Project is open to members of the public to participate through purchasing a public participation kit from the Charles H. Wright Museum. Participants can also choose to donate their genetic results to the expanding database on the Genographic Web site (www.nationalgeographic.com/genographic). Sales of the kits help fund research and support a Legacy Fund for indigenous and traditional peoples’ community-led language revitalization and cultural projects.