THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, February 11, 1997 TAG: 9702110229
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PHILLIP PURYEAR, CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: 65 lines
Between running Junior to his soccer game, picking up Susan from band practice and the other rigors of everyday life, it is easy to let slip that February is Black History Month.
The occasional report on television or in the newspaper about the achievements of African-Americans flies in and out of minds. It seems like there's no time to think about the past when the now is breathing down your back.
But the Dwayne Cuffee Collection of Slavery and Reconstruction Era Artifacts, now on display at Elizabeth City State University, demands that audiences pay attention.
And that is exactly what the exhibit's collector and the staff and students at the predominantly black university in Elizabeth City want.
Looking upon all the artifacts, which include ``For Sale'' ads for slaves, emancipation letters and rusted shackles, observers are overwhelmed by the sense of old spirits still lurking about.
The exhibit is a turbulent part of America's history come to life.
``This is reality,'' said Dwayne Cuffee, the African American who brought the collection to ECSU. ``This is not some teacher giving you facts. Some black man or woman wore these shackles. White or black, it relates to you.''
A Maryland native now serving as a petty officer in the U.S. Coast Guard, Cuffee's collection started through mere curiosity about the black experience in the military. However, curiosity turned into a compulsion.
``Someone has to collect this stuff. We have to remember our history,'' Cuffee said, adding that he is far from finished with his collection.
``Horror'' was the only word that one white viewer, ECSU student Becqui Myers, could come up with as she drew her child in closer to her and looked at the hand-hewn field cradle made so a slave mother could tend to her child and the fields.Feelings of terror and awe were common among opening night spectators Tuesday. An overwhelming sorrow mingled with a sense of pride, especially when people looked upon original issues of The Liberator, one of the newspapers responsible for sparking the abolitionist movement.
``This is a very powerful exhibit,'' said ECSU Chancellor Mickey L. Burnim. ``It's a pretty potent reminder of the suffering and sacrifice our people have made so that we can have what we have today.''
The slavery and Reconstruction Era exhibit grew out of Cuffee's interest in displaying what actually represents only one-fifth of his private collection of artifacts documenting the black experience throughout the centuries, according to Drusiano Scerbo, an ECSU art teacher and co-designer of the exhibit.
The university hopes to expand the exhibit by putting selected items on tour. Cuffee also plans to devote more effort to compiling the collection after he retires from the Coast Guard. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
DREW C. WILSON/The Virginian-Pilot
Drusiano Scerbo, an art teacher at ECSU, looks over the Cuffee
exhibit on slavery in the college's Evelyn A. Johnson Hall art
gallery. Scerbo helped design the exhibit, which features slavery
and Reconstruction artifacts. The exhibit runs through March 7.
EXHIBITION HOURS
The exhibition will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through
Fridays until March 7 in the Evelyn A. Johnson Hall Art gallery on
the second floor of Johnson Hall.