EVENT: Program Seeks To Save African American Treasures

Venue: Auburn Avenue Research Library
Phone: (404) 730-4001
Address: 1, 1, A

VIA: AJC.com

You will hear a lot about African-American history this month. From the sit-ins to bus boycotts to personalities such as the Rev. C.T. Vivian, Ralph Abernathy and, of course, the late Martin Luther King Jr.

It isn’t likely, however, that Amelia Platt Boynton Robinson’s name will come up. And yet, decades before any of those civil rights leaders would make their mark in history, Boynton Robinson was making the rounds with her mother handing out voter registration cards, encouraging black women to vote.

In 1964, she became the first woman, black or white, to run for Congress from the state of Alabama, winning 10 percent of the vote at a time when only 5 percent of registered voters were African-American.

Then, on what became known as Bloody Sunday, she was brutally beaten and left for dead by Alabama State troopers as she and other African-Americans tried to cross the Edmond Pettus Bridge to march on Montgomery.

This weekend she will help kick into gear a daylong program called “Save our African American Treasures” aimed at helping metro Atlantans identify and preserve items from that history.

“Save our African American Treasures: A National Collections Initiative of Discovery and Preservation” will get under way at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Auburn Avenue Research Library. The event is free and open to the public.

Boynton Robinson, a treasure in and of herself, takes every opportunity to remember black history because she said it is necessary.

“I think that’s why God has let me live as long as He has,” said the 99-year-old great-grandmother in a telephone interview from her home in Tuskegee, Ala.

“We need to tell our children how rich their heritage is, physically and spiritually,” Boynton Robinson said. “They need to know we handed civilization to the world.”

Although every nationality has been enslaved in one way or the other, Boynton Robinson said, for too many young blacks, history begins and ends with slavery.

“The beautiful thing about my mother,” she said, “is she talked about our legacy and how proud she was to be who she was. That’s what I want for our children, to be proud of who they are.”

Boynton Robinson was only 10 years old when she rode with her mother, in a horse-drawn buggy around her native Savannah, encouraging blacks to register to vote.

“That was the beginning of my being involved in politics,” said Boynton Robinson, who served 11 years on the board of the Martin Luther King Center in Atlanta.

Even when she was beaten by Alabama state troopers, Boynton Robinson said she was never afraid.

“I made a vow to myself and was more determined that people would register to vote,” she said. “I knew it could be done, but I knew it would be done because of blood, tears and even death.” Her own near-death experience, she said, “left a scar on me that I will take to my grave.”

“Treasures” is the brainchild of Lonnie Bunch, founding director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and former president of the Chicago Historical Society.

Bunch said the moment he realized that much of the African-American history was stowed way in the attics and basements of people, he decided to create a program that would, in his words, “shake the tree so that those things in the homes would be made visual.” “I wanted to make sure that they weren’t lost so we came up with a program to help preserve them.”

DO YOU HAVE A TREASURE?

Participants may reserve a 20-minute consultation with experts to examine up to three personal items. Those who would like their items reviewed, must make reservations, e-mail treasures@si.edu or call 877-733-9599 toll free.