FOUR DONOR STORIES
Marian Anderson’s jacket and skirt
Donated by Ginette DePreist, Portland, Ore. DePreist’s husband, James, was Anderson’s nephew. Anderson, the first African-American soloist to perform at the Metropolitan Opera, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and a Grammy lifetime achievement award. She wore the outfit to perform at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday, 1939, after being barred from the Constitution Hall in Washington because of her race. “I know that she was scared to death. That’s one thing that she kept telling us. Here is this young woman coming from Europe full of hope and sees that she is the object of racial division and found herself in front of 75,000 people on a Sunday morning. By nature, Aunt Marian was very softspoken. She really wanted throughout her career to be known as the woman with the golden voice more than the woman who started this movement, and so I don’t think she was very comfortable in that role.”
Althea Gibson’s tennis racket
Donated by Don Felder, South Orange, N.J. Felder is Gibson’s second cousin. In 1971, Gibson was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. “I was at her mom’s house visiting with family members who were still residing at the house. They had some pieces I was interested in and I told them I wanted to give them to the museum. I was elated that I was able to obtain some things, so that we could keep her legacy alive. The more I could find, the better story we could tell of Althea Gibson, of who she was, what she did. They (the Smithsonian) came to my office in South Orange, N.J., with gloves and they went through photographs, letters, her writings that I had, the tennis racquet and immediately walked over to a FedEx shipping store near my office and shipped what they could. Althea was an incredible bowler, golfer, tennis player. She was an all-around athlete.”
Croix de Guerre medal
Donated by Gina McVey, Oak Grove, Calif. McVey’s grandfather was a member of the Harlem Hellfighters, an infantry unit of black soldiers that fought for several months as part of the French Army during the First World War. “In 2010, I took my car to the dealership to get it fixed and there was a man sitting next to me in military uniform and we started talking. I happened to mention that my grandfather fought in World War I and was awarded the Croix de Guerre medal. He said, ‘Do you know what you have?’ I said, ‘A medal.’ He said, ‘You have history.’ It had been sitting in my parents’ home, in a steel box in an armoire, since 1968, when my grandfather died. I immediately looked it up and found out he was part of the Harlem Hellfighters. I went home, my mom pulled out the information, and I just sat there in tears. I looked at the Croix de Guerre, the Purple Heart and thought, ‘Oh my God, I had this all this time, and didn’t know anything about it.’ ”
Nat Turner’s Bible
Mark Person, Richmond, Va. Person’s ancestors had owned Nat Turner as a slave. Turner is thought to have been baptized with the Bible on the Person family’s land. He led a slave rebellion in 1831 in Southampton County, Va. (The gift is courtesy of Maurice A. Person, Noah and Brooke Porter and Wendy Creekmore Porter; Mark Person spoke on behalf of the family.) “It’s been in the family since 1912 and was kept on top of a piano, then a closet, then a safe-deposit box. I look at it as symbolic, as a way of reconciliation. We have a lot of turmoil in the country and the Bible is still significant. People have their beliefs and somehow that comes out on top even after all the struggles. I met with the Turner family two or three years ago and it was a very positive experience. They said ‘the Bible is in the right place’ (in regards to the donation) and that solidified it. We knew in the family that it was priceless.”