ACACIA HISTORICAL ARTS INTERNATIONAL INC. sponsors, owns and holds title to two (2) dynamic and outstanding collections of African American material culture, sometimes referred to as objects of everyday-use or applied arts.

These collections have evolved from diverse perspectives of four persons spanning over seven decades making the combined collections unique in America. Despite differences in generations and ethnic heritage, these pioneering collector/educators shared one principle in common: each was attempting to restore a vital, but overlooked portion of American cultural and artifact heritage to the cultural landscape and further they sought to disseminate this knowledge to the public at large. Theirs was an uphill struggle since the accepted, commonly held belief was that African Americans had no past worth mentioning. A group of 20th century scholars would begin to change that point of view. Among the most prominent were the anthropologist Dr. Melville J. Herskovits (Myth of the Negro Past); historian Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, Dr. Carter G. Woodson, Dr. Benjamin Quarles (the negro in The Making of America), Dr. John Hope Franklin and others. These scholars hoped to lay the foundation for what has become at the beginning of the 21st century a virtual seachange in interests and attitudes. Significant other factors were the modern civil rights movement, the rise of African nations, African and African American studies and a greater recognition and appreciation of African art and aesthetic traditions.

THE JOURNEY'S GENESIS

Of the four collector/educators Miriam Belangee Wilson (1878-1959) represents the wellspring. By creating the original collection with high standards of authenticity including the building premises in Charleston, South Carolina, the former Ryan's Mart which is more commonly known as the Old Slave Mart, Miss Wilson created both a legacy and a unique challenge for what is now ACACIA HISTORICAL ARTS INTERNATIONAL, INC. or the Greater Acacia Collection. Notably, Miss Wilson understood what few, if any of her generation did: the necessity to preserve an essential part of the American experience. When she began collecting slave-made artifacts early in the 1930's she already realized that the hour was late and that she had best get busy and put her shoulder to the wheel. Miss Wilson did just that. She was living at a time when the last generation of ex-slaves and ex-slaveholders were passing weekly. She clearly saw her mission and attended to it, taking copious notes, photographs and collecting other documentary ephemera. She had rejected the conventional belief that African Americans were an ahistorical people lacking a worthwhile culture. She possessed an open mind and always challenged herself to learn more. She saw the necessity to collect, but just as importantly to share and preserve not only for contemporaries but for generations yet unborn. Miss Wilson set a high bar for those who would follow. She founded the Old Slave Mart Museum in Charleston, S. C. not to celebrate slavery, as some have mistakenly misconstrued, but rather to challenge Americans to remove the scales from their eyes and examine what enslaved Africans had created here and brought with them from their native lands, for example, the rice culture, the banjo, inoculation against certain diseases, excellent skill of hand etc.. She tried to make Americans aware that so much of the beauty and comfort they thoughtlessly enjoyed in their environments was provided by people living in their midst, but whom they never really knew or cared to understand. She saw that African Americans as persons from cultures however different from the Euro-American model had validity and had made significant contributions to the broader American culture. Hers was an ongoing mission. Even near the end of her life she was engaged in studying African languages and writing a novel about an African child who was kidnapped by slavers and brought to America.