by Allison Keyes
WTOP.com
WASHINGTON — They came with bags and boxes to see what their history is worth.
This weekend’s “Save Our African American Treasures” event is about learning and
preserving.
Co-presented by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History
and
the Historical Society of Washington, D.C., black people of all ages —
clutching
artifacts pulled from their attics — sat in front of conservators at the
L’Enfant
Map Room and Literary Hall.
Dwanna Dixon brought an auction slave collar and a slave whip from a Georgia
plantation. “You can kind of get a feeling when you touch it,” Dixon says of the
whip. “It kind of goes through you a little bit.”
Judith Welch brought a bank to the event. She also has a large collection of
black
history artifacts and says it’s important to her.
Young black people need to learn their culture, Welch says.
“Because that’s who we were,” she concludes. “That’s us.”
The workshops continue 11 a.m. Sunday at the Carnegie Museum, across from the
Walter E. Washington Convention center, 801 K St. NW.
Follow @WTOP on Twitter and WTOP on Facebook.
