One of the portraits of a blended black-American Indian family included in “IndiVisible.”If You Go
* What: “IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas” exhibit. * Where: Museum Center at Five Points, 200 E. Inman St., Cleveland, Tenn. * When: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturdays, through July 3. * Admission: $5 adults, $4 seniors and students, free for children under 5. * For more information: 423-339-5745.
Two old-fashioned, wooden auditorium chairs might be questionable additions to a Smithsonian Institution exhibition, but in the case of “IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas,” the folding chairs are silent reminders of the struggle for acceptance by the two featured minorities, especially those who intermarried between those races.
“The chairs are balcony seats from the Princess Theatre in downtown Cleveland, where blacks and American Indians had to sit prior to civil rights and desegregation,” explains Joy Veenstra, the Museum Center at Five Points’ curator of education.
Nineteenth-century sculptor Edmonia Lewis was the daughter of an Afro-Haitian father and Mississauga Ojibwe mother. Her work was known for its black and American Indian themes incorporated into neoclassical-style sculpture.“IndiVisible” is the Smithsonian Institute’s traveling exhibit that reveals unique information about the little-known history of people with dual African-American and Native American ancestry. It is a walkthrough display of 15 large panels that discuss the cultural integration of these blended marriages and the ancestors caught between preserving their individual heritage and embracing both cultures.
Veenstra believes the exhibit is an obvious fit for the Cleveland museum due to the area’s Cherokee history.