Minnesota History Center exhibit looks at Black citizenship in the age of Jim Crow

ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - Inside the Minnesota History Center, some pieces from the past are shedding a different light on the present. A new exhibit titled "Black Citizenship in the age of Jim Crow" looks at the resistance and resilience of African Americans in the 50 years following the Civil War.

Museum officials say even though the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment ended slavery, laws that limited the rights of Black people to vote, work and live where they choose sprung up in their wake.

"I think it's really important to inform people of the rights that were given to Black Americans and kind of the struggles in the face of white opposition for them to get to claim those rights," said Annie Johnson, Museum Curator at the Minnesota History Center.

Among the artwork, artifacts and photographs on display is a portrait of Dred Scott, a slave from Missouri, who sued for his freedom and lost while living at Fort Snelling.

There's also a hat worn by Black railroad employees called pullman porters, who helped launch the Great Migration and the Civil Rights movement, as well as shackles cut from a slave who was held captive after slavery was abolished.

"Those artifacts become a springboard for that kind of larger discussion of where we were as a society that hadn't fully understood what it meant to be free," said Dr Bill Green, a professor of history at Augsburg University.

Museum officials hope the exhibit sparks discussions on the importance of citizenship and how using it to its fullest has been a  fight for many communities, both during the reconstruction and now.

"A lot of the issues that are raised in the exhibit, voting rights, citizenship, are still being talked about today and really affect people's lives today," said Johnson.