Exhibit At Reginald F. Lewis Museum Focus Of Controversy
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- An exhibit at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum is the focus of a controversy involving a renown Baltimore Civil Rights leader.
Pat Warren explains why the the woman and the museum director are at odds.
The exhibit combines Civil Rights and Black Power in the history of America.
The exhibit is called "Struggle: Portraits of Civil Rights and Black Power." It includes a portrait of Dr. Helena Hicks, a leader in the first sit-in in the country to desegregate an eating establishment, Read's Drugstore, in Baltimore.
Another portrait in the same exhibit is Eddie Conway, a former Black Panther who spent 44 years in prison for killing a Baltimore policeman.
They were to appear together on a panel for the opening of the exhibit.
"You have to understand someone my age that's been through Civil Rights looks at Black Power as the fight for economic power, the right to go to school where you want to, live where you want to. That's Black Power to me," Dr. Hicks said.
Dr. Hicks believes the Black Panthers represented something else.
"I can't accept their concept of Black Power and especially not to kill the pigs who are the cops. I said, 'No, I can't be a part of that. I'm part of nonviolence, not violence.'"
In a news conference Thursday, the executive director of the museum explained that the tone of that telephone conversation forced him to dis-invite Dr. Hicks.
"She convinced me that I could not be assured that she would be respectful and courteous to other panel members," said Dr. Skipp Sanders, Reginald F. Lewis Museum.
Dr. Hicks says she was not told not to come and when she arrived she was not allowed in the building.
Dr. Hicks says she left peacefully, but she's not willing to leave this alone. She is asking for a review of museum policies.
The museum is subsidized by the state of Maryland.
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