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The U.S. National Slavery Museum plans to open Spirit of Freedom Exhibit Garden on its grounds June 21.
FILE/REZA MARVASHTI/THE FREE LANCE-STAR
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Information on slavery museum hard to get
Would you like to know how plans are progressing for the U.S. National Slavery Museum--so would we
Date published: 2/20/2008
AS LOCAL stories go, it's potentially one of the biggest.
A national museum for the study of slavery, spearheaded by the first elected black governor in the United States, is proposed for Fredericksburg.
So how are the plans progressing? What's the latest construction schedule? What's the financial plan for building and operating the museum? Has fundraising picked up? Is $200 million the goal? Or is that $300 million? How much money did that major fundraising event in D.C. raise in 2006?
Haven't seen answers in The Free Lance-Star? There's a reason for that. We can't get the answers from museum officials or their representatives.
I asked three of our reporters who have worked on this story in recent years to describe museum leaders' attitudes toward releasing news about the project.
Every one of them documented a pattern of resistance to almost every request. One described the museum and its staff as "an impenetrable fortress."
The result has been that the public, and in some cases the public's representatives, have been left in the dark. Even Jud Honaker of the Silver Cos., the developer of the Celebrate Virginia project that would include the museum, has said he doesn't know where things stand.
That makes it hard to draw positive conclusions. Some city officials already refer to the museum in the past tense.
When we have written about this lack of information, the museum's side of the story generally hasn't been told--because the museum is unwilling to tell it.
Despite unfailing politeness on the part of our reporters, they have had to endure frustrations such as these:
A museum staff member literally shut the door in the face of one of our reporters when she arrived at museum offices with a written request to see a financial report the museum is required to make public.
Reporters calling museum offices to speak to the executive director, Vonita Foster, have been told that, "Dr. Foster does not take calls." They are referred to a Washington PR firm, which, in some cases, has taken days to return our calls. And then there are few answers.
Date published: 2/20/2008
Most recent reader comments:
Scam 101
(posted by
dmine45
, Feb. 20, 2008 9:04 pm)
Sounds like a scam from the beginning. They get the money all in the name of a "museum" when there is no intention on building one EVER. Doesn't surprise me in the least. What do you expect from people who can't understand we're now in 2008, not 1865?
I'm glad this article was written
(posted by
travelin_bone
, Feb. 20, 2008 4:38 pm)
Maybe it's jumpstart things. It's unfortunate that the "organizers" of the museum efforts are pointing at racism and not assessing where they went wrong (not doing anything, for starters). They aren't doing any work or making any fundraising efforts known. Do they expect to cook up this big plan and have money thrown at them with no questions asked and no effort? Non-profits must make a financial report available to the public, as to be accountable for their expenditures.
"Race Card" is a boring and outdated insult to the associates of The Free Lance Star and to public. Fredericksburg officials and this community have in interest in the project. Events and actions by the project managers are considered an embarrassment to the thousands of supporters of the museum. The arrogance reflected Governor Wilder’s team is not the best way to have continued taxpayer support. I am a white German American and Native American and wait patiently for the whole story of slavery in this nation to be told.
The citys been had
(posted by
dcsubburb
, Feb. 20, 2008 8:09 am)
seem like if there required by law to release the financial report then someone needs to sue them for it. And the city should bail as fast as possible so they aren't dragged down with the crooks running the project.
scam
(posted by
juvenal
, Feb. 20, 2008 6:56 am)
I have said all along that this is a scam to generate administrative salaries and "consultant's fees" for a project that is never actually going to come off.
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