Speakers unveil King Key
Speakers unveil an item that will become part of the exhibition at the National Constitution Center press announcement - the key to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s jail cell, where he authored his infamous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” Left to right: John Fleming, executive producer of the exhibition; and Lawrence J. Pijeaux Jr., president and CEO of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute; Mayor Michael Nutter; Tavis Smiley; Joseph Torsella, National Constitution Center President and CEO.
Photo credit: AEI and The Smiley Group, Inc./ Abdul R. Sualyman
Birmingham Jail Cell Key
This key belonged to the cell where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was held following the 1963 Birmingham campaigns, where he authored the infamous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”
Photo credit: Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
The Door of No Return from Cape Coast Castle
Enslaved Africans were housed under lock and key at Cape Coast Castle in Ghana, sometimes for months at a time, awaiting ships that would take them to the New World. This is the final door they were led through to board departing ships.
Photo credit: African American Museum in Philadelphia
Am I Not A Woman And A Sister glass embossing seal
By an unidentified artist after Josiah Wedgwood, 19th century?, anti-slavery coins and emblems like this, most often of a male figure, were common in Great Britain and the U.S. at the time.
Photo credit: John A. Andrew artifact collection from Massachusetts Historical Society
Phillis Wheatley writing table, ca.1760
Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was the first book of poetry by a Black American, published in London in 1773. Phillis Wheatley (ca. 1753-1784) became a symbol of black achievement, and her writings offered eloquent testimony against white racial prejudice and the institution of slavery.
Photo credit: Massachusetts Historical Society