'TESTIFY: Americana from Slavery to Today' exhibition returns to Minneapolis Central Library

When Georgi Page-Smith, daughter of retired Minnesota Supreme Court justice and former Minnesota Vikings star Alan Page, first encountered the 65-plus artifacts and artwork in her parents' collection, she didn't want to think about them.

Chain collars used on enslaved men and women. From the 1960s, "For Colored/For White" bus station signs from Dallas, painted on wood. A mesmerizing photograph of a domestic worker staring back at the photographer, while another sits nearby on steps.

"I did not want to be surrounded by these artifacts," she said. "I just wanted to have a clean slate and be my own person, but when I thought more deeply about it, I was like, well, in order to grow … I felt like I had to acknowledge that this was part of the story and my journey, whether I want to admit it or not."

The African American artifacts and artworks, from the collection of Alan Page and his late wife, Diane Sims Page, make up the exhibition "TESTIFY: Americana From Slavery to Today."

The show originally debuted in January 2018. Almost exactly five years later, on Feb. 1, it returns to the Minneapolis Central Library's Cargill Gallery.

Page-Smith directed the exhibition and also organized a new element, "Testify Tuesdays," workshops and programming each Tuesday from 5:30-7:30 p.m. through March 30, covering various social, racial and environmental justice topics.

She also designed the "Testify" traveling exhibition, a pop-up version of high-resolution graphics that will travel in upcoming weeks to various locations, such as the Great River Regional Library in St. Cloud.

"I do think it's important to find something to do with the emotions that it arouses," she said. "Or how it makes you feel. So that's what we've done."

'Testify' returns

The exhibition was the brainchild of Page-Smith's stepmother, Diane Sims Page, but it returns without her presence.

"This time around, redoing the exhibition with the hope of bringing about change, but at least in my mind, it's honoring her and carrying on her legacy," Alan Page said. "Her strength of will and respect for racial justice, social justice, gender justice was pretty powerful."

Page-Smith continues the work that her stepmother was so passionate about.

"It is about 99.5% the same as it was when it first debuted, plus a few adjustments," she said. "It's like a refresh."

Alan and Diane Page were dedicated to philanthropy, education and the arts. Diane was a market research consultant and executive director of the Page Education Foundation, founded in 1988.

"From the inception of our collection, she's the one that did the collecting," Alan Page said. "She came up with the idea, and given what was going on back then — one of the things was football quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeling [during the national anthem] in protest, and everything that arose out of that. It seemed like a good time to draw attention to how we got to that point."

Then in 2020, the pandemic struck — and then Minneapolis police killed George Floyd.

Returning to "TESTIFY: Americana From Slavery to Today" five years later brings that recent history with it. Even though some things change, history stays the same.

Alan Page felt particularly moved by a quote in the show from the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the landmark 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson case, also known as the "separate but equal" doctrine.

"It essentially says that the segregation of races does not violate the 14th Amendment, neither the due process nor the equal protection clauses," he said. "When you think about that and the United States Supreme Court saying [in 1896] that racial segregation is just fine, that for me is pretty powerful in the sense of this is what we as a country were grounded in."

With everything that's happened in the past five years, although most of the objects in the show will be the same, with the passage of time some may affect people on a deeper level.

"Our hope is that this will cause people to act, to reflect, to think about where we've come, where we were, where we've come from, where we are today," he said. "And how we got here."

TESTIFY: Americana From Slavery to Today

When: Feb. 1-March 29.

Where: Minneapolis Central Library, Cargill Gallery, 300 Nicollet Mall.

Hours: 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Mon.-Thu., 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Fri. & Sat., noon-5 p.m. Sun.

Info: hclib.org or 612-543-8000.