African Americans: from slavery to freedom

UMBCs new gallery exhibit explores the unheralded places instrumental in the battle for African American freedom. Photos by William Earle Williams provide a powerful manifestation of their journey.

   “All persons held as slaves are, and henceforth shall be free,” Abraham Lincoln said in the famous Emancipation Proclamation that set this country on a new journey for equality. But the journey that preceded it – a journey from slavery to freedom – was a hard fought battle that was deservingly won.

William Earle Williams attempts to capture the emotion and impact of the Civil War through his collection of black-and-white silver gelatin print photographs. Located in the Albin O. Kuhn Gallery, black and white photos encased in white frames adorn the powder blue walls. The small white cue cards next to each photo bear the name of the piece, as well as the location and the year the photo was taken.

Some examples of the photographs displayed include: Forks in the Road, Slave Market Site, Natchez, Mississippi, 2004; Exterior, Slave Cabin, Oakley Plantation, Saint Francisville, Louisiana, 2004; and Slave Graveyard, Booker T. Washington National Monument, Wilmington, Delaware, 2006.

The stark solitude of the gallery – the very quiet that makes it feel as though it is a completely separate entity from the library – works to enhance the power of such a compelling topic. Some of the pieces have an overpowering characteristic that seems to immediately haunt audiences.

A photograph that exemplifies this is titled Earth Works, Battle Site, Fort Pillow, Tennessee, 1999. At this location, on April 12, 1864, a group of African–American soldiers were slaughtered while surrendering at a battle they had already lost to the Confederacy. The massacre included women and children.

Fort Pillow, Tennessee is the home of the mass grave for those killed in the attack, though the bodies were later removed and buried at the Memphis National Cemetery. The photograph that captures the current condition of the grave site reveals the blatant disregard for humanity that existed back then, as well as the cruelty that humans are capable of: it is palpable and halting.

Precisely placed throughout the open floor plan are stand–alone walls displaying archived newspapers from the 1700s and 1800s plastered with ads and rewards:

Nov 23, 1796: the Columbian Centinel held an ad offering a $50 reward for the return of a negro man named Peter, about five foot, five inches and 35 years of age.

June 21, 1845: The New York Herald noted the arrival of new slaves and the new slave convention.

Sept 12, 1831: The United States Telegraph had an ad offering a $600 reward for the return of “three runaway black negro men.” The owner of Robert, his brother Nealy and another man named William posted this ad, claiming:

“These negroes have been well treated and much indulged by me, and they have ran away from me without any provocations whatever.” It advertised the three slaves as 33, 24 and 35 years of age, respectively, and that Robert and Nealy were literate.

These photographs, along with the archived newspapers, show the audience America’s troubled and violent past, and the cultural scars it has left.

Male cardinals are red. Male peacocks have bright tail plumage. Conventional biological wisdom says that species look different because they are adapting to different environments — food, predators, or climate. That assumption is missing a major piece of the puzzle, say researchers at UMBC and the University of Colorado, Boulder.

In a recent study published in the journal Ecology Letters and featured in The Baltimore Sun, Tamra Mendelson and her co-authors suggest that sexual attraction plays a significant role in how animals — even those of the same species living in similar environments — can adapt different characteristics to attract mates. The researchers propose that animals don’t just respond to their environments, they respond to each other.

“It turns out males in particular don’t have to adapt to the environment,” says Mendelson, an associate professor of biological sciences at UMBC and lead author on the study. “They’re adapting to the opposite sex.”

This implies, says Mendelson, that populations in similar environments may come up with different ways to solve the same problem. For example, males in one population might evolve a flashy feather to attract females, whereas males in another population might evolve a colorful beak.

This helps explain the wide array of vivid colors and arresting features we finding in creatures like birds-of-paradise. It also highlights the point that just because two individuals don’t look the same or act the same, doesn’t mean they’re not the same species.

The next steps will involve testing the model, Mendelson explains. She will do experiments called reciprocal transplants: placing species A in the habitat of species B, and species B in the habitat of species A. According to Mendelson’s model there shouldn’t be any difference in how the males perform in their reversed habitats.

Next, Mendelson and her colleagues will do a reciprocal transplant of the sexual environment. This involves allowing males of species A to compete with each other for females of species B and vice versa.

Mendelson says, “I want to understand why and what ornaments are going to be particularly attractive.” She hopes this will help scientists understand the development of such varied and complex ornamentation.

“What kind of a mutation would be successful?” Mendelson asks. “Mutations drive evolution. You could argue that it is mutation that is the most important thing. What is it about the female fish brain that makes certain male ornamentation more attractive?”

Mendelson and Natalie Roberts, PhD student in biological sciences, will use video animations of darter fish to ask that question in their ongoing research. Amazingly, fish respond readily to video images of other fish, so the researchers will manipulate videos of male darters to see if and how they can make them more attractive to fish of the opposite sex.

“We can use the videos to create mutations that don’t exist yet, to see what could happen in the future," says Mendelson.

Will an extra fin stripe or spot of color make a fish more attractive? Only the TV-watching darters can tell us.

Venture for America is a fellowship program for enterprising recent college graduates to launch their careers as entrepreneurs and revitalize American cities. After five weeks of training, VFA Fellows spend two years in the trenches of a startup in an emerging U.S. city where they learn how to contribute to a high-growth business. Afterwards, VFA provides the mentorship, network, and resources Fellows need to become entrepreneurs. 

Their goal is to fuel job growth in cities throughout the U.S. while empowering the best and brightest to create value in their communities. They aim to produce effective and high-character builders who will found and lead quality organizations throughout their careers.