programs

October 2003

Swann-Wright to Curate 2004-2005 Exhibit on Black Businesses

Dianne Swann-Wright, director of African American and special programs at Monticello, will serve as guest curator for Legacy’s next exhibit, on black businesses in Central Virginia between 1820 and 1970.

The exhibit will open to the public on Sunday, June 27, 2004.

In her prospectus for the business exhibit, Swann-Wright has written that “African-American labor has been an integral part of Central Virginia business for more than 200 years.” Well before Emancipation, enslaved workers and free blacks alike worked for profit. By the 1940s, Lynchburg’s black businesses included twelve barbershops, ten beauty parlors, nine grocery stores, five dry cleaners, and three funeral homes.

According to Swann-Wright’s prospectus, exhibit themes will include the following:

• From the first decades of the nineteenth century, African-Americans founded their own businesses, many of which became successful ventures.

• Written laws and local practices often attempted to impede and did in fact hinder African American efforts to establish and run their own businesses.

• African American businessmen and businesswomen served a stable market created by legally sanctioned segregation.

• The end of segregation changed the dynamics of black business enterprises, weakening them in immeasurable ways.

Swann-Wright will guide the Museum’s collection committee in locating artifacts and photographs to illustrate and exemplify these themes. The collectors meet at the Museum at 4 p.m. on the second Tuesday of each month. Anyone interested in working on the business exhibit is welcome to attend.

In addition to doing research and leading the collectors, Swann-Wright will write exhibit and brochure text, will train docents, and will work with the program committee to develop public programs to enrich and enhance the exhibit.

Swann-Wright was curator for the current exhibit, “By God’s Grace: The African American Worship Experience in Central Virginia, 1820-1950.”

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