Samad Hakani, Photography Editor

The New Haven Museum hosted a Community Day on Saturday to celebrate its exhibit “Shining Light on Truth: New Haven, Yale, and Slavery.” 

Among the New Haveners in attendance were members of the New Haven chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, the University of New Haven football team and representatives from New Haven Public Schools. 

“The stories here are stories of Black history, which is another way of saying that they are stories of Yale history, of New Haven history, of Connecticut history, of American history,” Michael Morand ’87 DIV ’93, the New Haven City Historian and a co-curator of the exhibit, said to commence community day.

Artist Denise Manning Keyes Page gave a presentation, “Ubuntu Storytellers: Sweeps and Scholars,” about her enslaved ancestors’ history. The museum also screened a documentary produced by the Beinecke Library entitled “What Could Have Been,” on the 1831 proposal for America’s first HBCU in New Haven, which was the central focus of the exhibit. The proposal was squashed by a town vote of 700-4. 

Morand’s co-curator Charles Warner Jr. explained that this exhibit has been nearly 25 years in the making. Three graduate students had done the research for the exhibit in 2001, but, according to Warner, they presented their report the day before September 11, 2001. Their research was paused.

In 2020, former Yale President Peter Salovey commissioned the Yale and Slavery Working Group, which Warner is involved in, to investigate the history of slavery in New Haven and at Yale. Warner commended Salovey for launching the initiative.

“You cannot be on the outside of what’s happening,” he remarked, especially not at Yale, “an institution that has so much impact in terms of scholarship.”

Stamped in bold black letters on the floor at the entrance to the exhibit is a directive for museumgoers: “You are here as a participant in the future.”

Morand told the crowd that “no work ever has a single author.” He thanked everyone in attendance and deemed them museum VIPs. This education or re-education of Black history in the city is a collective effort, Morand explained, that requires all to participate. 

“It’s not up to the historians or the curators to tell people or institutions or governments what to do, but rather to give them the ingredients so that they can cook up the policies and programs,” he said. 

New Haven Museum Director of Learning and Engagement Joanna Steinberg is thrilled with how the exhibit has been received. According to her, the museum has had over 11,000 visitors since the exhibit’s opening in February 2024.

Museumgoer April Pruitt, who is a Yale doctoral student in neuroscience and a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, or AKA, said the museum is “a very reflective space that allows us to think about the progress that could have been and what is our current responsibility to the broader New Haven community, to the Black community, for making sure that progress continues.”

Much like Pruitt, Morand believes the exhibit has succeeded in exposing the truth about Yale, New Haven and slavery. In the exhibit, Connecticut is referred to as the Georgia of the North. It was the last state to abolish slavery in New England. Until recently, there were monuments in New Haven to Confederate and Union soldiers.

Morand noted that “the names that matter are the names you haven’t heard before” in the exhibit.

“We need to acknowledge that Yale and New Haven have been doing history for a long time. In previous histories, we ignored the centrality of slavery as an institution and enslaved people as people. And therefore, the history is incomplete,” Morand said.

David Walker ART ’23, a professor of graphic design at Yale, designed the exhibit. According to Walker, education about the history of the caliber the exhibit provides is more important now than ever. 

“Who knew a short twelve months later that this work would be much more urgent as our history–our imperfect America–would be under attack from within,” Walker remarked. 

Warner echoed Walker’s sentiments in his own presentation. 

“Truth is not truth anymore. This is not political. It is not Democrat or Republican. It is not liberal or conservative. It is simply the truth,” he said. Warner’s remarks were met with applause.  

The “Shining Light on Truth: New Haven, Yale, and Slavery” exhibit will close on March 1.