The Press Gallery

The Acacia Collection in Country Home Magazine!

Seared by the savage desert sun, the African acacia tree thrives where little else survives. "It is a metaphor for the African-American people," says Carroll Greene, a curator and historian in Savannah, Georgia. He and a cluster of friends have gathered a treasury they call the Acacia Collection of African Americana. "It celebrates a triumph of spirit, of self-reliance, and the will to survive," he says.

Artifacts range from the sinister to the sublime. A cold metal slave tag lists a tax number and the bearer's job. A variety of meager, rough-hewn gifts--made with match- sticks, cigar boxes, and care--honor the strength of the heart. Unglazed pottery from the 1600s shows African traditions evolving with exposure to European and Native American influences. This hybrid of styles, in its frail and crumbling form, embodies the beginning of the African American union.

The private preservation of such tokens is invaluable to scholars and ultimately to public understanding. "The museum world has not paid much attention to African American material culture," says John Michael Vlach, a professor of American Studies at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. "Carroll Greene has been one of the pioneers in this ongoing effort."

Even as a child, growing up in the shadow of museums in Washington, D.C., and New York City, Greene recognized those institutions' colorless image of history. "I was aware, from my teachers and family, that African Americans had contributed," he recalls, "but I didn't see this around me in the museums."