African American Studies Commons^™

Rose’S Gift: Slavery, Kinship, And The Fabric Of Memory, Mark J. Auslander

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

One of the most evocative objects in the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture is an embroidered cloth bag that has come to be known as “Ashley’s Sack”. Stitch-work on the bag, signed “Ruth Middleton”, recounts the bag’s painful history, as a gift presented by an enslaved woman, Rose, to her daughter Ashley, when Ashley was sold at age nine in South Carolina. This paper explores ‘Ashley’s sack’ as an object of history, memory, ritual action, and aesthetic creativity.

"Return To Sender": Confronting Lynching And Our Haunted Landscapes, Mark J. Auslander

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

This article considers a set of controversial images, primarily taken between 1880 and 1920, depicting lynchings and racial violence. Emory University has made these images publicly available, prompting some to worry that the collection will re-inflict trauma on those who suffered under racism in the United States. The articles asks, in part: if new initiatives in museums or other public spaces could help Americans to collectively confront their inner demons and move beyond the timeless repetition of trauma.

The article is available from Southern Changes: The Journal of the Southern Regional Council, 1978-2003.