Connecting cultures, sharing values
Letters to human rights heroes
A collaborative team from the Michigan State University Museum and the Nelson Mandela Museum in South Africa has created a one-of-a-kind interactive exhibit that is inspiring young people around the world with its message of “ubuntu,” a Zulu word that means literally “humanity to others.”
Dear Mr. Mandela, Dear Mrs. Parks: Children’s Letters, Global Lessons features a collection of letters written by children from around the world to renowned human rights leaders Nelson Mandela and the late Rosa Parks. Designed to raise awareness of social justice challenges that South Africans and Americans have faced, the exhibit opened in South Africa in July 2008 to kick off a yearlong celebration of Mandela’s 90th birthday.
Bringing history to life
“Today youths in South Africa and in the United States know little about the antiapartheid struggles in South Africa and the civil rights movement in the United States,” says Kurt Dewhurst, director of the MSU Museum and professor of English, who was part of the curatorial team. “This exhibition introduces them to those important eras of history by examining the values of two remarkable leaders of those movements—two leaders who have inspired others to realize that literally every individual can make a difference.”
Alive with color and design, the exhibit is interactive and multifaceted, incorporating photographs of Mandela, Parks, and children; quotes from, and biographies of, Mandela and Parks; enlargements of children’s letters; a workstation for writing more letters; and video messages from Mandela, MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon, South African cleric Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and U.S. President Barack Obama.
Though their specific contributions were different, both Mandela and Parks made extraordinary advancements in the area of human rights, and, as the exhibit demonstrates, they worked with a similar courage, strength, and resolve. The displayed letters reveal how Mandela and Parks have influenced and inspired youth around the world—and will continue to do so.
The exhibit already has had a profound effect on those who have experienced it. Attendees at the unveiling of the exhibit responded thoughtfully, respectfully, and joyfully.
“Many individuals and groups—young and old alike—walked great distances to attend, and many wore traditional attire; the experience was truly remarkable and tremendously moving to be a part of,” says Dewhurst, who was joined on the curatorial team by Marsha MacDowell, curator of folk arts at the MSU Museum and professor of art and art history; Khwezi kaMpumlwana, director of the Nelson Mandela Museum; and Noel Solani, curator of the Nelson Mandela Museum.
Strengthening a global community
Rachel Laws, third-year doctoral candidate in the African American and African Studies program at MSU, also contributed to the exhibit as an intern at the Nelson Mandela Museum. Laws, who helped research and edit content, believes the biggest lesson to be gleaned from the exhibit is that everyone can learn from others’ histories.
“This exhibit reminds people—through the innocence of children’s letters—that future generations are watching our actions and that they are inspired by people and actions that are humane and fair to everyone, regardless of difference,” says Laws. “South Africa and the United States may be separated by an entire ocean, but our histories and our present situations are not so different at all.”
Response to the exhibit—one of the first four binational exhibitions funded by the American Association of Museums’ museums and community collaboration abroad program—has been so positive that additional versions are planned. One will tour museums throughout major cities in South Africa, and another will be featured in locations across the United States. The U.S.-touring exhibit is scheduled to open at the MSU Museum in 2010.
The museum partnership also has resulted in the Nelson Mandela Museum/Michigan State University Museum Graduate Curatorial Fellowship, which was announced at the exhibit’s opening. The $125,000 fellowship will help fund an MSU graduate student each year for five years to work on research, exhibits, development, collections, and stewardship at the Nelson Mandela Museum, providing MSU students with opportunities to expand their knowledge of social and cultural values demonstrated by Mandela and his accomplishments.
By helping bring to life the shared social and cultural ideals and the courage of Mandela and Parks—and by showing how they made a real difference in the world—MSU is strengthening a global community that is rooted in core values much like its own—quality, connectivity, and inclusiveness.
*Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to read PDF documents.