“The Civil Rights Struggle, African American GIs and Germany,” an exhibition at UNC’s Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History, will be free to the public through Oct. 28.
The exhibition of 54 photos, cartoons and political posters illustrates how American and German history became intertwined in the struggle for civil rights. The display is in the Robert and Sallie Brown Gallery and Museum of the center, located at 150 South Road.
The exhibition traces the encounter between African Americans and Germany from the mid-1930s through the 1970s. It depicts how African Americans’ demands for civil rights at home and abroad were framed in reference to the struggle against Nazi Germany, then played out in occupied Cold War West and East Germany.
“The Civil Rights Struggle, African American GIs and Germany,” was curated by Maria Höhn, a history professor at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and Martin Klimke, Ph.D., a research fellow at the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C.
The exhibition, open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays (closed on University holidays), is the first of numerous programs at the center this semester. Highlights will include the ongoing Diaspora Festival of Black and Independent Film; lectures by artist and filmmaker Zina Saro-Wina and Carolina School of Dentistry alumna Dr. Janet Southerland; and a conversation with Mark Auslander, author of “The Accidental Slaveowner: Revisiting a Myth of Race and Finding an American Family.”
Call the center at (919) 962-9001.