Grace LaTourelle-

TESTIFY: “Americana from Slavery to Today” is an art exhibit featuring artifacts of Black history, segregation, and slavery, and curated by Justice Alan Page and his wife, Diane. While it began as Page’s personal collection through the efforts of her and her husband, former Minnesota Viking, and Justice Page, it became widely available to the public. The traveling exhibit is on display in the St. Peter Public Library from Sept. 1 through Oct. 15, 2023, available free to the public during regular library hours.

TESTIFY was first shared at the Hennepin County Library in 2018. The permanent collection, along with this traveling set, narrates a dehumanizing colonial past to America and prompts a recognition of that past to set the foundations of a just future.

The goal of the art exhibit is to reflect on the grim realities of the nation and to provide a sense of hope and advancement. This is achieved through what is described as the “truth-telling process”: a presentation of the emotional turmoil and strife that African-Americans in the United States have faced, and to “disrupt the romanticized and simplified” version of history that has been perpetuated.

“Before reconciliation, there must be [the] truth- and the truth can be ugly,” Justice Page said, on the Page Education Foundation website.

“We analyze the legacies of the race-based system of American slavery, which empowers us to deconstruct the mythologies around Black bodies and the Black experience in the present,” Assistant Professor of African-American History, Dr. Kate Aguilar said. “The impact of Black material culture – to show how such artifacts were used to caricature, dehumanize, harm, and exclude Black Americans and yet how Black Americans collected and cataloged their own experiences to provide a counternarrative is such a powerful testament to the resilience of Black America.”

TESTIFY has vertical banners encircling the back half of the library, situated amongst the bookshelves. Auditory readings of the captions are available via QR code and a meaningful progression through the pieces is encouraged.

The first banner is a photograph of two women, one holding her skirt out to the camera, and the other posed solemnly, looking off into the distance. Entitled “Domestic Workers in Glen Iris Neighborhood”, this piece from 1910 depicts the women holding indescribable expressions. The caption calls attention to the overlooked juxtaposition that plagued the country: a normality of work by enslaved people within white households, to a traumatic segregation in the larger public setting.

“How did the image come to be and who was the intended audience?” the caption reads. The exhibit elicits these open-ended questions throughout, making one consider the difficult truths of the stories behind the pieces. Viewers are encouraged to look at the photograph critically, to analyze conceptions of compliance. “Who was she, and if not for her servitude-who might she have become?”

Another poster features a brick made by enslaved people; the brick, just as in the U.S. Capitol buildings, was used as the foundation of the White House. The nation, economically and infrastructurally, was built on a foundation of the work of enslaved people. This point is amplified throughout the exhibit; that the influence of African-Americans is in every cultural, social, economic, political, and religious aspect of the country.

Another piece upholds two different posters to show the inhumane treatment of these individuals who developed the nation. The bottom image is the “African-American 9th Cavalry Regiment”: a wholly brave group that fought for a country that would deny its valor. The top image is a fearful depiction of African-American babies with the tag: “Alligator Bait”.

“We analyze the legacies of the race-based system of American slavery, which empowers us to deconstruct the mythologies around Black bodies and the Black experience in the present,” Dr. Kate Aguilar, Assistant Professor of African-American History said. “The impact of Black material culture – to show how such artifacts were used to caricature, dehumanize, harm, and exclude Black Americans and yet how Black Americans collected and cataloged their own experiences to provide a counternarrative is such a powerful testament to the resilience of Black America.”

An almost-disregarded scrapbook of St. Paul through the 1920s and 30s begs the question, “What else do we lose when we throw away (or are dispossessed of) the past?”

“This collection brings that historical debate to life. It shows what was put in and left out of the historical record and how Black Americans – as Diane and Alan Page do – speak back,” Aguilar said.

The library gives an opportunity to sign into the guest book and consider what was learned. Art can be considered a venue for introspection, one that asks obscured questions that others might not want to approach. This exhibit stresses the imperativeness of the nation’s reflection on its history and personal conversations regarding prejudice and race. The value of having these conversations was recognized by Page and his family and is thus now an opportunity given to the larger Minnesota communities it has been a part of.

“Our hope is that it sparks conversation of slavery and Black history,” St. Peter librarian Brenda McHugh said. “And it’s not a topic that’s easy to talk about or easy to learn about. My hope is that people who see the exhibit might learn something or spark conversations between folks in our community.”

Community is a picture of the historical narrative of a place and its commitment to its established values moving forward. By examining the significant cultural artifacts of a time period, one can situate themselves in the context of their community. Gusties are a part of the Gustavus community as well as the St. Peter, Nicollet County, Minnesota, United States, and global communities. This exhibit conceptualizes what it means to be a part of these communities of tragedy, hope, and deconstruction.

“Currently, about a third of the St. Peter school district is made up of Black and Brown Americans, as well as a significant portion of the Gustavus community. To deny their history in service to nostalgia or mythology is to deny all American and world history,” Aguilar said.

The atrocities of slavery and the prevailing racial injustices of the modern era are echoed throughout the pieces. They are ripples that move generations into a future of acceptance, reconciliation, and reconstruction.

The central poster of the ring is a portrait of political activist Angela Davis by Shepard Fairey, in celebration of Davis’ influence.

“Radical simply means grasping things at the root,” Davis said.