Arkansas Humanities Grant to Fund ‘Slavery and Freedom’ Exhibit at UA Little Rock
The University of Arkansas at Little Rock has received a $10,000 grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities to fund an exhibit exploring the history of two people who were enslaved but used the courts to sue for their emancipation during the 19th century.
The exhibition, “Slavery and Freedom: Journeys Across Time and Space,” will open on Friday, May 3, with a reception from 4:30-6 p.m. at UA Little Rock Downtown, 333 President Clinton Ave., Little Rock. Separated by decades and thousands of miles, the exhibition shows how Abby Guy and Furcy Madeleine used the legal system to escape slavery.
The exhibit will be on display at UA Little Rock Downtown through Oct. 31. People may walk in to see the exhibit from 1-4 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Visitors may also email downtown@ualr.edu to schedule an individual or group visit.
The grant’s recipients are Dr. Marta Cieslak, director of UA Little Rock Downtown, and Dr. Nathan Marvin, assistant professor of history and humanities scholar on “Slavery and Freedom.” Emily Housdan, programming and administrative assistant at UA Little Rock, is also on the grant team. Marvin taught a special topics history course during the fall 2023 semester, where 11 students conducted research and developed materials that will be presented as part of the exhibit.
The inspiration for this project is an existing traveling exhibit, “The Surprising Story of Furcy Madeleine,” created by the Musée de Villèle in Réunion Island, France. The exhibit explores the life of Furcy Madeleine, an enslaved man who in 1817 launched his freedom suit in the French colony of Isle Bourbon (today’s Réunion Island), a legal case that wasn’t resolved until 28 years later.
“The ‘Slavery and Freedom’ exhibit will build upon Madeleine’s story,” Cieslak said. “It will feature panels from the Furcy Madeleine original exhibit and new panels that will add a comparative context of slavery and freedom in Arkansas and the United States. This is the first time that Furcy Madeleine’s exhibit will be displayed in the United States. The Arkansas panels in the exhibit will focus on the story of Abby Guy.”
Guy, who by some accounts lived as a free person until a man named William Daniel enslaved her and her children, launched her freedom suit in Arkansas in 1855. Guy v. Daniel reached the Arkansas Supreme Court twice, first in 1857 and then again in 1861.
Students in Marvin’s class learned what it takes to create a public humanities exhibit. They practiced such skills as transcribing documents, creating maps, a timeline, family trees, and text for the exhibit. They also photographed locations in southeast Arkansas important to Guy’s story. Their research contributed to the project. The team that researched, designed, and created the exhibit are Cieslak, Marvin, Housdan, and also Dr. Jess Porter, executive director of the Center for Arkansas History and Culture.
“Abby Guy’s story makes this exhibit exciting from a local perspective,” Marvin said. “They are both very well documented cases, and you really see the legal construction of race and enslavement at work through these court cases. The students loved researching the case and were very engaged in the practice of putting together content for a historical exhibit. The students produced some great work along the way.”
As part of the class, students were able to examine some of the original files from the Guy v. Daniel case. The UA Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law Library houses some of those files, and Harry Lah, collections management librarian, and Melissa Serfass, professor of law librarianship, helped the students access the documents.
Another student who helped with the exhibition is Skylar Boone, a graphic design student from the School of Art and Design who was selected from multiple applicants to create watercolor paintings for the exhibition.
“Skylar created beautiful watercolors of the six figures central to the Guy v. Daniel case,” Cieslak said. “Her watercolors invite the audience to imagine what those six individuals looked like, and she did a terrific job.”
The exhibit explores the history and legacies of modern slavery from a comparative perspective.
“We have the story of a man from Réunion Island, and we might think that we have nothing in common with that part of the world,” Cieslak said. “When you bring these two stories together, you see how similar they are. They are very fascinating cases, and we hope to do them justice.”
