SAINT ALBANS CITY — The Saint Albans Museum is putting together its first-ever exhibit on local Black history. But there’s a problem: They can’t find any images of the history they want to tell.
The museum has plenty of photos and documentation of the area’s wealthy, white families, said Executive Director Lisa Evans. Yet curators have struggled to find historic photos of local Black people — an issue that is complicating, and informing, the institution’s push for a more inclusive telling of regional history.
“That’s the trouble that we are now running into with these exhibits,” Evans said. “Basically you’re just going to read a big block of text, and that’s all there is.”
Black people in northwestern Vermont were less likely than white people to be documented in the sources used for historical research today, such as newspapers — a product of racism and discrimation, Evans said.
And many formerly enslaved people were illiterate, said Janet Bailey, the co-president of the museum’s Board who is helping create the upcoming exhibit, which may have made it challenging, if not impossible, for these people to record their own history.
The exhibit, titled “Untold Stories, Unheard Voices,” will detail the lives of Black figures from northwest Vermont between the Revolutionary War and the mid-20th century.
“Untold” will be a mobile exhibit, and the museum wants to take it into local schools and community spaces. It should be completed by the end of August, Evans said.
The museum hasn’t settled on what visuals it will use instead of photos, and is open to help from the public, she said. One option they have considered is using historic photos of St. Albans as a background, with blank silhouettes of people on top.
Evans said the idea for the exhibit came from former museum director Alex Lehning following the murder of George Floyd by police last summer. The museum also formed a Diversity, Equity, Accessibility and Inclusion committee at the time, Evans said.
‘Folklore, not fact’
One goal of “Untold” is to confront knowledge about Black history in Vermont that is “folklore, not fact,” Bailey said, referencing a phrase used in the book, “Discovering Black Vermont” by Elise A. Guyette.
For example, it’s often said Vermont was the first state to abolish slavery — but this is not entirely true, Bailey said. Vermont’s 1777 constitution outlawed slavery for men over age 21 and women over age 18, meaning children still could be enslaved.
“Vermonters tend to go to school and hear, ‘Oh, we never had slavery here,’” Evans said. “And that’s just not the case. Acknowledging the truth is very important in this exhibit.”
One popular piece of local “folklore,” Bailey said, is that the Brady & Levesque Funeral Home on South Main Street was a stop on the Underground Railroad.
There is no documentation of that being true, she said. In fact, it’s more likely that hidden spaces in the building were used to smuggle liquor during Prohibition, not people.
One figure whom “Untold” will focus on is Jeffrey Brace, a formerly enslaved Black man who got his freedom by fighting in the Revolutionary War. After the war he came to Connecticut, and then to Poultney, where he bought a farm and married.
Brace was run off his land by white people in Poultney, Bailey said, and they tried to take his children into slavery — which still was legal in Vermont at the time. Brace ultimately moved north to Georgia, Vermont, where he lived for the rest of his life.
Bailey said Brace’s story shows how unwelcoming Vermont could be to formerly enslaved people, even if many white Vermonters were morally opposed to slavery.
The exhibit also will discuss Lawrence Brainerd, a white businessman in St. Albans who owned ships that carried formerly enslaved people to Canada across Lake Champlain.
Brainerd was an outspoken abolitionist, Evans said, and there is documentation that he provided a key stop on the Underground Railroad. Still, it’s important for the exhibit to focus mainly on the work of Black people, she said, and not a “white savior.”
The museum’s staff and volunteers have, historically, been white men and women, Evans said. This means as they push to share more nuanced history of the region, she said, “that really can’t come from us.”
“We are trying to partner more with the community,” Evans said, “to really make this museum more representative of everyone who lives here.”
