THE PASSING OF THE COLLECTING CAUSE

With the passing of Miriam Wilson in 1959, Judith Wragg Chase and her sister Louise Alston Graves purchased the Old Slave Mart Museum (OSMM) building and contents in 1960. The old building in need of restoration housed a jumble of valuable artifacts, books, varied files, voluminous field notes, photographs, newspaper clippings and other ephemera collected over thirty years. 1960 was the year that the sit-in, a peaceful nonviolent protest against racial separation, started by African American students was spreading like wildfire across the segregated American South. Mrs. Chase and her husband LTC Richard Chase, a retired career military officer who had fought in the Allied D Day Invasion of Europe, now found time to peacefully work for justice at home. Such activities did not endear the couple to their peers in hidebound Charleston.

Aside from certain structural repairs to the building the most urgent need of the Old Slave Mart Museum and Library was for both of these rare specialized collections to be catalogued and properly housed. These collections could not be inventoried, evaluated and made available to the wider public until this occurred. Fortunately, in 1974 a grant of $45.000 was awarded by the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare with a follow up grant of $36,630 for a total of $81,630 used to create a two volume catalogue with over 22,000 entries.

Both Judith and, sister, Louise had studied at the Cooper Union Art School in New York. Judith had become a painter and was recognized as a professional. She, in fact, had taught painting. The sisters added their own dimension to OSMM by offering exhibits to contemporary African American artists. Mrs. Chase's interest in African art expanded and she collected some of their works. She like her predecessor was very interested in the roots of African American aesthetic, always on the lookout for similarities and connections, if any. She attended The First World Festival on Negro Arts which took place in Dakar, Senegal in 1966. While in Senegal, she traveled around observing and having dialogues with various artists about their techniques and methodologies.

In 1971, Mrs. Chase published her book AFRO-AMERICAN ART & CRAFT (Van Nostrand Press) in an ongoing effort to generate greater understanding and appreciation for the African American contribution to the visual arts and the African roots of their contribution. By 1987 Mrs. Chase, now eighty, and her elder sister were thinking about retiring and the doors to the OSMM were closed as they launched a low key effort to find a suitable and appropriate custodian.

The Old Charleston and Acacia paths cross when in 1968, a young African American, Carroll Greene, visited the OSMM. He was then on a fellowship in museum studies at the Smithsonian Institution. He was absolutely amazed at what he saw in the museum. It was a virtual treasure trove of African American material culture. There were items of furniture, exquisitely woven textiles including fine embroidery and quilts, tools- some crafted out of wood, others welded- toys, unglazed pottery, household utensils, candle molds, building materials such as roofing tiles, wrought ironwork and on and on.

He began to envision a Hall of Everyday Life in the African American Past. Carroll Greene's "Hall" had three sections. The first section would be an introduction with artifacts created by Africans in freedom in Africa, the second would be the slave era and the third would be for after emancipation. Conversations with Mrs. Chase concerning the future of the collection revealed that nothing had been definitely decided and that when that day came they would give preference to whom ever would agree to maintain the collection in situ, and fulfill the use of her life's work for furtherance of knowledge and understanding. Greene purchased quite a few items including a selection of Gullah baskets the first (except for a couple of ancient ones) to come to the Smithsonian Division of Cultural History where he then had an office. Carroll Greene agreed to keep in touch with Mrs. Chase which he did from time to time up until hurricane Hugo in 1989. Mrs. Louise Graves, her house plunged in darkness,fell down the stairs severely injuring herself. Her sister took care of her until her death in 1994. Mrs. Chase died in 1995. The city of Charleston acquired the Old Slave Mart building.

Thirty years after his first visit with Mrs. Judith Wragg Chase, Greene, who was a board member of Acacia Historical Arts International Inc., recommended to the board that AHAI acquire the OSMM collection and library. After several visits to the collection in Charleston the board approved and the collection was acquired in 2000 to create the Greater Acacia Collection.