Library exhibit to feature Cape Girardeau's black history

The historical exhibit at the Cape Girardeau Public Library is simple: a few panels and a museum case that give just a hint of the story of the city's black population.

Through pictures, artifacts, written interpretations of history and copies of historic documents, the exhibit gives library visitors a taste of how Cape Girardeau's black population has lived from the pre-Civil War era until now. The stories of community organizations, former slaves, black soldiers in the Civil War and one of the city's first black police officers help make up the exhibit.

During February, the exhibit, "Building a Community: African Americans in Cape Girardeau," will be on display at the library in honor of Black History Month. But in March the expanded exhibit will open at the Cape River Heritage Museum, presenting visitors with a more complete -- yet still unfinished -- history of Cape Girardeau's black community, possibly the first synthesis of that history that has been created.

"We wanted to have something to kind of pique community interest," said John Chandler, one of the researchers. Chandler and six other people -- Muriel Anderson, Tricia Bayer, Zachary Daughtrey, Andrea McEntire, Sam Sampson and Michael Tornetto -- are credited as creators of the exhibit, which they worked on as graduate students last fall in Southeast Missouri State University's Department of History.

Chandler's academic specialty is actually early European history, but as he started work on this project, his interest in this particular aspect of local history grew. He hopes this teaser exhibit, and the larger one coming next month at the River Heritage Museum, will do the same for others who view it.

The library's current Black History Month display is the beginning of what will make up a larger exhibit in the Cape River Heritage Museum when it opens in March. A variety of police memorabilia from the 1950s and 1960s accompany information about Joe L. Woods, one of Cape's first black police officers.

"We're hoping this will snowball," Chandler said.

Most of the information gathered for the exhibit came from archival sources like local newspapers and records kept in libraries. The researchers found stories about people like Joe L. Woods, a black man who served on the Cape Girardeau Police Department in the 1950s and 1960s, retiring from the force in 1968. Woods wasn't necessarily first, said Muriel Anderson, but he was one of the first, and his story exemplifies the black community's early chances to enter civil service occupations.

Another story told in the exhibit is that of Steve Brown, a former slave who was interviewed for a federal oral history project conducted under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration.

"The students did a lot of original research that I don't believe has been done before in Cape Girardeau," said Dr. Bonnie Stepenoff, who instructed the class in which the research was gathered.

That research shows an important role for blacks in Cape Girardeau -- from working as laborers on the Louis Houck railroad that led to development of the area to the formation of the self-sufficient community following the Civil War centered around churches and community service groups.

The library's current Black History Month display is the beginning of what will make up a larger exhibit in the Cape River Heritage Museum when it opens in March. A variety of police memorabilia from the 1950s and 1960s accompany information about Joe L. Woods, one of Cape's first black police officers. (Kit Doyle)

Churches were some of the best resources for records, Anderson said. But the information is incomplete.

"We were working on this in a limited time frame," Chandler said. "It wasn't supposed to be all encompassing."

The hope is that seeing the exhibit at the library will encourage community members with information on black history in Cape Girardeau to come forward and help make the history more complete, Chandler and Anderson said.

As for the reasons for synthesizing the history of Cape Girardeau's black population into one exhibit, Chandler said he hopes the exhibit might show people that Cape Girardeau, like the rest of the country, still hasn't totally overcome the effects of slavery. Nor has the city's history been told from an African-American perspective in the few histories of the city that have been written.

"The only think I can think of is that many times it's been overlooked," Chandler said. "When I came into this subject, I thought studies had already been done, but they haven't. I think the attitude has always been 'somebody's done this.'"

Southeast Missouri State University graduate assistants John Chandler, left, and Muriel Anderson helped research and assemble the new African-Americans in Cape Girardeau exhibit at the Cape Girardeau Public Library. The exhibit will be displayed throughout February, which is Black History Month. (Kit Doyle)

Exhibit creators also hope to take the traveling exhibit now on display at the library to local schools.

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182