The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center in Skokie is all about taking history to heart while taking a stand for humanity.
“Purchased Lives,” a touring exhibit about the American slave trade, is an example of the types of deep conversations the museum strives to curate around the history of systemic oppression in the United States.
“We use our special exhibitions to go deeper into aspects of the Holocaust, but also to go broader into other areas of human rights,” says Susan Abrams, the chief executive officer of the Illinois Holocaust Museum.
Originally curated by The Historic New Orleans Collection, “Purchased Lives: The American Slave Trade from 1808 to 1865” showcases more than 75 original artifacts, slave narratives and oral histories.
As visitors walk through the exhibit, they engage directly with historical records of the more than 70,000 slaves shipped to New Orleans. Of those records is a collection of newspaper ads called “Lost Friends.”
“We see these ads appearing in newspapers across the country,” Arielle Weininger, the museum’s chief curator of Collections and Exhibits. “These are people looking for their loved ones that were separated during slavery.”