A mobile exhibit featuring black history artifacts dating from slavery to present day is in Tulsa this week.
Around 150 pieces of the Black History 101 Mobile Museum’s 5,000 artifact collection are on display at the Greenwood Cultural Center through Saturday. Museum founder Khalid El-Hakim said there are important civil rights figures other than Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Junior and Malcolm X.
"I want people to walk away with a broader perspective of different ways that we've resisted and knowing that there's been blueprints to our success in the past," El-Hakim said. "And all we have to do is go back and look at the successes of the past and look at, you know, some of the mistakes, also, that have been made and not repeat those same mistakes."
El-Hakim said as a former social studies teacher, he hopes most of all for young people to see the exhibit.
"Because they're the future. They're the ones that have the most potential to make change in society and push this movement for social justice forward," El-Hakim said.
Kavon Shah — professionally known as Professor Griff of Public Enemy fame — is traveling with the exhibit and said it isn’t specifically for black people or white people; it's for everyone, because human suffering is human suffering.
"We can't look at aspects of what happened to the Native American and ask the question, 'Is it a red and white thing or a red and black thing?' It's for the human family to understand," Shah said. "We can't look at the Jewish question and what happened to Jews and say, 'That's only them and Germans.' No."
Artifacts in the exhibit range from slavery to modern times.
