“”Africa Speaks” Exhibit at the DuSable Museum of Africa American History: Usage and

Maneuverability”

Brittany Hutton

MAPS 31600 Assignment: Final

3 December 2012

Abstract:

When a patron enters an exhibit they choose how to maneuver through it and also how to

use the exhibit. Maneuverability refers to the process in which a person goes about looking at the

exhibit whereas usage refers to the way a person sees and utilizes the information in the exhibit.

Both maneuverability and usage can determine which exhibits are effective at increasing

patronage and which ones are not. In this paper, the “Africa Speaks” exhibit at the DuSable

Museum of African American History is examined through the lenses of maneuverability and

usage to determine if it is detrimental or beneficial to the overall museum.

I. Introduction

As I drive up South Cottage Grove Avenue from Hyde Park Boulevard, I see a small brown

sign that says “Dusable Museum Ahead”. However, all I see is Washington Park, an area of

green grass, trees and playgrounds. Nestled in the middle of the park is a large gymnasium

building off to the right of 56th

street. As I am told by many people, this building used to be an

old police station the museum bought, converted and expanded to create the space we see today.

In bold black letters the words, DuSable Museum of African American History, Harold

Washington Wing, declare the presence of the museum in the park. Off to the left side of 56th

street lies the beginning of expansion plans for the museum. They are planning to expand the

museum 8 fold in the next few years. I park on the side of the street and walk to the main

entrance, a Greco-Roman façade facing a plaza with benches, bushes and green grass. Two tall

flag poles proclaim the area with a US and a Chicago flag flying proudly over the top of the

museum. As you climb the marble looking stairs, you see two tiles that state “Chicago Art

History Makers”. This really makes you feel that you are entering a grandiose place that not only

displays but makes history.

I proceed through the spinning doors and enter into the lobby area of the museum. The

lobby has twelve mosaic murals of each founder or person who has helped the museum

monetarily. There is a pea green ceiling and antique clock in the lobby as well. Towards the back

of the room, there sits two wooden benches where people can stop, rest or get themselves

together before starting on their self-guided tour. Before you start, you approach one of the

greeters at the desk or the coat-check where they give you a brochure and explain how the

museum works. There are two options to start your tour: you either proceed down the founder’s

hall to the Ames auditorium or go directly into the main, permanent exhibit “Africa Speaks”.

Most proceed with the later route.

The first main exhibit, “Africa Speaks”, showcases art and culture from around the

African continent. Each area of Africa has a plaque that details what is found in the area, as well

as any important tribes or logistical information and is color coded with the artifacts. North

Africa is red, West Africa is blue, East Africa is green, South Africa is orange and Central Africa

is purple. The colors can be found on maps next to the artifacts behind glass. When you find a

map, the color of it corresponds to the area of Africa it derives from. (For a detailed inventory

and look into the exhibit please see Appendix II).

In the main area of the exhibit sits two interactive kiosks, one to explore Egypt, and the

other to explore Africa in general. Towards the rear right of the room lies a nook that talks about

the expansion and to the left is a smaller auditorium with sixteen maroon seats that shows a

movie called “The Will to Survive: The Story of the Gullah-Gechee Tribe”. Since most patrons

pass through this exhibit, it is a good place to understand people’s actions in the museum.

I see everything from people taking notes, using kiosks as babysitters, and conversing

over points made in a plaque to one another. This makes me realize that people use this exhibit in

different manners. My notes show a different aspect of the exhibit mainly, how the space affects

the movement of patrons. The maneuverability in the space is viewed differently and can affect a

patron’s overall experience at the museum. (Please see Methods for a definition of usage and

maneuverability.) My question for the space subsequently addressed both aspects, how do

patrons’ usage and the maneuverability of the space show the effectiveness of the “Africa

Speaks” exhibit?

The paper will be laid out as follows: First I will present the methodology used in the

project. Next, terms will be defined. Following this, data will be presented in summary form

through different perspectives of three people who work or interact with the exhibit. This data

will then be analyzed under the tutelage of my question and applied to how the question could be

answered. Finally, I will draw a conclusion from my analysis and reiterate my main points of the

argument.

II. Methods

This project used grounded theory to come up with the question and analysis of the paper. I

interviewed three different people at the site, Cara the gift shop manager, Chris a security guard,

and Dr. Good who is on the board of trustees for the museum. Cara’s interviewed was face to

face, unstructured and had open-ended questions. She would talk about something I said and

comment in more detail or provide vivid examples of what she meant. Chris’ interviews were

also face to face, unstructured and open-ended, but occurred in the middle of conversations

during my observing period. I never sat down with him and did an official interview, thus his

comments could be said to have stemmed from conversations and not interviews. However, to

simplify things, I will say they were from interviews. Dr. Good’s interview was over the phone

and open-ended. However, his answers proved to be “rehearsed” (he told me what I wanted to

hear). The interview was still used because his comments still shed a light on museum practices.

(Please see Appendix III for bias information) This paper also relies on participant observation

done throughout the museum during peak times through a ten week period.

The following is a list of terms and their definitions that are used in the paper:

I. Traffic Stop – an area that seems to prohibit people from moving onto to another exhibit either through architecture or layout.

II. Educator – this refers to the exhibit being set-up with educating students in mind (K-higher education). This will be shown through a person taking written notes on an exhibit.

III. Knowledge disseminator – this refers to the exhibit being set-up to educate people in general about the history of something. This will be shown through the majority of patrons who range from reading a

whole plaque and taking due diligence to see everything, to those who seem to only skim the material.

Any patron who does not take notes, but makes an effort to look at the exhibit can fit into this category.

IV. Baby sitter – this refers to an exhibit being used for entertainment purposes for children or bored adults. This will be shown through adults leaving children unsupervised in the exhibit or by observing adults

who exhibit “bored” behavior.

V. Visual aid- encompasses anything electronic that the user can control individually.

VI. African American History – encompasses any form of history that refers to the African ethnic group in the United States.

VII. Exhibit – refers to a space within the museum where artifacts and aids are grouped because they relate to one another.

VIII. Maneuverability – refers to the ease or difficulty in moving from one part of a space to another. In this paper it will refer to either moving from “Africa Speaks” to the rest of the museum or moving within

the exhibit itself.

IX. Usage – refers to what patrons do with the exhibit. They take notes, read and absorb the knowledge or use

it to placate themselves or children.

III. Data

The following three perspectives show the three ways to use and maneuver through the

exhibit.

a. The Ethnographer (Me)

During my tenure as a participant observer, I was able to see a variety of people and

families that came into the museum and the “Africa Speaks” exhibit. Patrons ranged from very

young (infants) to elderly adults from every ethnic group, with African Americans comprising

the majority of patrons. As I observed the patrons, I noticed that the exhibit is used as a

“babysitter”. What I mean by this term is that people use the space to keep someone occupied or

to relieve boredom while they wait for something. One example of this is when a father and his

two daughters walked into the exhibit. They quickly went to the right visual aid whose controls

are situated at the kids’ eye level. While the girls (about 7 and 9) played at the visual aid, the

father stepped out into the lobby to make a phone call. It would seem that he felt comfortable

enough that his children would be occupied long enough to not wonder off from the visual aid.

Another example of the “babysitter” usage comes from a young male (about 20) during

one of my observation trips. He was with a very large group (+/- 30 people) all cooped up in the

Gullah-Geechee theatre. During part of the movie, he decided to step out and wait for the others

to finish. He paced, had very tense body language (his shoulders were taught, hands in his

pockets) and he would go to read one thing and look away in a very short amount of time. For a

plaque that would take me at least a minute to read, he would look away after 10 seconds. He

kept pacing and looking around until his group came out. Once everyone was out, he relaxed and

went with his group, thus I would argue the room acted as a “babysitter” for him, though he is an

adult. It kept him entertained until it was socially acceptable to move on to another exhibit.

As well as usage, I observed the exhibit to be a “traffic stop”. What I mean by this term,

is that the room seemed to architecturally and spatially signal to people that this was the end of

the museum. From talking to Chris, a security guard, I found out that the exhibit space used to be

it. There was nothing more after it until the museum expanded a few years ago. This may explain

why it is hard to move on from the room. Once I was finished in the exhibit, I had to climb stairs,

or take the elevator to the next level of the museum. Though the Kings and Queen’s Hall (part of

the “Africa Speaks” exhibit) sits in the stairway, it was not until I was half-way up the stairs that

I saw the other exhibits. Nothing on the walls said please proceed upstairs to the next exhibit like

you will see in some museums. When I moved on to another exhibit, I heard and saw the offices

of employees that sit close to the exhibit. This made it seem that I was in an area I was not

supposed to be in, thus I had to learn how to navigate to the other exhibits by guesswork.

There was also no clear sight to a door from the upper floors, and the following exhibits

did not flow with “Africa Speaks”. One contained art from African artists and the other held

regalia from African American military veterans. It was difficult to see the correlation until I

traversed the rest of the museum and saw the two new exhibits in the Harold Washington Wing

(towards the end of your self-guided tour) “"Word, Shout and Sing" and "Dust in Their Veins".

The “Africa Speaks” exhibit seemed to block or slow people down from traveling to the next

exhibit. Again, this may be architecturally related, but it does seem to have an effect of the

museum. Many people will only go into the “Africa Speaks” exhibit and turn around to leave

once they are done without going through the rest of the exhibits. When I interviewed Cara, a

young woman remarked that the museum was really small with only one exhibit. Thus, the

maneuverability of the exhibit came to a standstill at the back/end of the room for some people.

b. Cara

Cara, the gift shop manager, agreed to be interviewed during my observation periods. The

way she views usage and maneuverability will be shown through excerpts of her interview

interrupted by my commentary.

BH (me): Do you have students who come in? …/… How old are they?

Cara: Oh yeah, especially during the week. We have babies about 4-5 all the way to teenagers

like you.

BH: What do the students do in the museum?

Cara: Well the teachers come in beforehand and create an outline with questions on it for the

students to answer. Sometimes the museum will create booklets with questions on it as well. They

come here to learn about history.

BH: Do university students come in? If they do, what do they come for?

Cara: Oh yeah. We have a lot of students come in for research for projects. Black students most

of the time. We had a girl in here from, what was it.. U no, Cen, oh DePaul. She was in art

history. She said she wanted to know about Her history. People come in wanting to learn about

My history. Things they can’t learn about in other places.

She as well as my other interviewee Dr. Good both stress how much education is viewed

at the museum (she talked about primary school students and university students with only liitle

prodding from the interviewer). Young primary students and secondary school students are

brought to the museum for field trips to explore African American history. Though many may

not feel the importance of the museum, many university students do as seen in Cara’s quote, “.

People come in wanting to learn about My history. Things they can’t learn about in other places”.

I also saw this in another experience during a visit to the museum:

A young girl and her mother were in the expansion room off of the “Africa Speaks” main

room. The mother attempted to get her daughter to listen to the story of Dr. Burroughs (the

founder of the museum) through the mother’s experience. Apparently, the mother knew the

founder and wanted to teach her daughter the importance of black history. Like normal little kids,

the daughter was bored. The mother raised her voice to reiterate her point and to get the little one

to listen. She said that they had new rights, but that neither one of them should take them for

granted.

The public relations of the museum do stress education as an important aspect for the

museum (Dr. Good interview). They even have a mobile museum to go and teach things to

students who are unable to travel to the museum. During Dr. Martin Luther King Day in January,

the museum will charter busses for students to come in and view the museum. Between this

insight, Cara’s experience (as seen through her interview) and my observations, I feel the

education part of the exhibit becomes apparent. The curators lay out the exhibits to get students

engaged and put the plaques in terms that primary school students will understand. Thus this

space seems to work well as an educator to students of any age.

Cara and I go onto how people maneuver through the space in her interview. She sees the

exhibit as a liminal space (my wording) where people start to see how they want to go through

the rest of the museum (as seen below with her insistence that people know better once they are

in the museum). People start moving in the space and learn by others and the layout how to go

about seeing the exhibits (they move clockwise or counterclockwise to best see the exhibit, take

notes or just read, watch the videos and read wall plaques or simply find the order in which to do

these things). This space helps people prepare and learn how to go about moving through the

museum. A positive experience in this exhibit will encourage people to move on to the rest of the

museum.

Things do not always start out smoothly in the “Africa Speaks” exhibit however.

BH: What is the stupidest thing anyone has done in the museum?

Cara: You know, there is an emergency exit in that exhibit (“Africa Speaks”). People be trying to

leave through that door. It says on it that the alarm will sound and they do in anyway. I’m like,

how stupid are you? It’s in an alley with the garbage.

BH: Yeah, last time I was here there was a Caddy blocked in with two SUVs. It is not an area that

is inviting people to come in.

…/…

About 10 minutes later, we hear this banging noise. Cara stops the interview and Maria, the

security guard gets up to see what it is. Cara starts laughing.

Cara: See. Someone’s trying to come in the emergency exit. Didn’t I just tell you? Now you

believe me, ‘cause you are seeing it yourself.

BH: [Stunned] I cannot believe someone would try to go through it.

Maria in the background is yelling at the lady to get her to come around to come in the museum.

BH: I mean I could understand if it was an old lady…

Cara: Yeah, but it’s grown folk. People Who should Know better.

When someone starts off their experience badly, such as setting off the alarm to the

emergency exit door, the trip as can be expected, ends short and is usually not enjoyable. When

you leave the exhibit through the emergency exit, Cara stated that the people should have known

better. This is probably because she views the exhibit as the preparation area for your trip. The

signs teach the person not to use the door, thus you should not try to go through them. When you

learn this aspect and follow it, your trip goes smoothly and you want to come back. However, if

you do not learn how to use the preparation area correctly, your trip will not be enjoyable. The

movement throughout the museum is based on preparation in this exhibit, thus the movement in

the “Africa Speaks” exhibit can be classified as preparation.

c. Chris

I interviewed Chris throughout three visits to the museum. Since we were in the heart of

the museum (down stairs near the newer exhibits) I could not use recording equipment during the

interview. We were also interrupted a lot during the course of our talks, so I will paraphrase most

of what he had to say.

With respect to use, Chris saw the space as a “knowledge disseminator” (my term). He

saw people coming to the exhibits to learn about history and absorb what they want from it. Cara

pulled out students to focus on, I pulled out social uses and Chris pulled out everyone else that

does not fit in the other two categories. “People just want to see stuff about them. Stuff that

unites us to one another. We are all separated by teaching. If you put children from around the

world together, they will play with one another. It is the adults who teach hate and separation.”

He goes on to say that the exhibits allow people to see how we are all connected to one another.

They use the exhibit as a way to learn about their world, or any other matter, so it is a

“knowledge disseminator”.

Chris had an interesting perspective on maneuverability throughout the museum and the

exhibit. He worked everywhere from the lobby to the new exhibits, so he also saw how people

moved throughout the museum. As he told me, “It [“Africa Speaks”] is a connector to the rest of

the museum. When I work at the front, I direct people to start at the Ames Auditorium [a mural

that hangs in an auditorium off of the lobby area. People can start their experience there or at

“Africa Speaks”] and then it [“Africa Speaks”] connects everything else. You just have to skip

over the military stuff.” Thus for him, the exhibit was a connector, not a “traffic stop” or

preparation area.

IV. Analysis

Usage

People either use the museum as a “babysitter”, an “educator” or as a “knowledge

disseminator”. I chose these terms because I felt they encompassed the full range of activities in

the exhibit. There are no areas to sit and play on a phone because of the noise from the video (at

least for me). The artifacts are small and quickly summarized in the plaques. Though it is a time

consuming space, (I myself spent three hours in it), your time is spent actively watching or

looking at artifacts and the exhibit itself.

Patrons see it as a “babysitter” because it is the only area with visual aids that you control

privately. Another exhibit, the “A Slow Walk to Greatness: The Harold Washington Story” is

almost exclusively interactive, but many times you are at the mercy of whoever gets to the button

first. It is a communal visual aid whereas in “Africa Speaks” the visual aid is under your control

and it is difficult for two adults to use one aid at once. The exhibit also houses the largest amount

of artifacts, so it is easy to distract oneself by looking at things while you are waiting for your

group.

Others see it as an “educator” because it is color coded and the artifacts are separated out by

region. It is easy to document and catalog everything in the exhibit without having to talk to a

docent. Many people take notes in the exhibit and from my interviews, the museum brings in

many types of students from all over Chicago and the Midwest (Cara’s interview). Dr. Good

mentioned that teachers will create questionnaires for students to answer during their trip. The

exhibit seems to be laid out in an efficient way where it is conducive to learning for students of

any age.

Some will see the exhibit as a “knowledge disseminator”. This term is loaded and seems

convoluted; however, I chose the term because it is loaded. People go into the exhibit and can

learn about things through reading plaques, the brochure or even by simply looking at the

artifacts. Thus, people’s trips through the exhibit, whether short or long, detailed or rushed are

loaded. Most people will gain something from their experience no matter the particulars of their

trip. What distinguishes this from “educator” is that people who use it as a “knowledge

disseminator” are not taking notes and do not need to retain the information for a project. The

information retained does not have to be as detailed as it does for a school project or report.

Maneuverability

I view the space as a “traffic stop”. The architecture and feel of the space does not allow for

people to move on to the next exhibit easily with their first visit. It was not until I had been back

and knew the routine that I felt comfortable with the space layout. Others felt this as well, but it

did not stop most people from moving on in the museum. It impedes traffic, but does not

necessarily stops it. If the space was reconstructed, this aspect could be lifted and improve the

flow of people in the museum.

It is important to note that others do not share my feelings. Cara for instance, views the space

as a “preparation area” that allows people to figure out how they plan to move around the rest of

the museum. Their interactions with this first exhibit will determine the rest of the visit. This

explains why people who start off badly, such as those who try to enter through the emergency

exit, do not enjoy the museum as much as those who take time and plan their tour in the exhibit

by testing methods out.

Others still see the area not as a connector to the rest of the museum. Without the “Africa

Speaks” exhibit, the rest of the museum would not make sense. It helps people realize we are all

related and that history of African Americans started somewhere. This is reminiscent of the

“Back to Africa” movement in the 1990s where African Americans start adopting Africanized

names, traditions, foods and other cultural items to their identity. Though this may not be as

strong today, it may explain why the museum it set up with the African exhibit as the display

piece when you enter into the front doors. The museum wants the legitimacy that Africa gives

them. However, without further information, at this point, it is only a conjecture that my data has

led me to for this project.

Please see Appendix III for biases in this project.

V. Conclusion

The usage and maneuverability can affect a person’s opinions about the museum and their

decision to return. My reasoning behind using these terms is that people usually move in

accordance to how they want to use a space. Also, moving through the space can affect how you

use it. While these terms go together, these two aspects could be seen without too much

interference from the ethnographer.

The usage categories and maneuverability concepts are paired in the paper because I saw

them paired in real life. People who use the exhibit as a “babysitter” are usually the ones who

feel it is a “trafficstop”. Those who see it as an educator also see it as a preparation area. Lastly,

those who see it as a connecting area also see it as a “knowledge disseminator”. I saw this

through behavior of patrons. Those who were trying to relive boredom usually left the museum

after going through the exhibit. Others who used it as an educator planned their trip out

according to what data they gathered in the first exhibit. Finally, those who saw it as a connector

were more concerned with generalized topics to relate to everything, thus they saw it as a

“knowledge disseminator”. These terms are mine and insights are mine. No one actually said

these words to me, but I felt the connections were there all the same through actions and

statements. The way patrons used the exhibit reflected how they moved through it. This in a

sense had an effect on the rest of the museum as well. If you enjoyed your time in “Africa

Speaks”, you enjoyed it in the rest of the museum. This can show insights into the effectiveness

of keeping patrons coming back to the museum because the first exhibit either keeps you moving

through the museum or stops your visit and you leave.

For now, I will say that the “Africa Speaks” exhibit is overall effective at keeping patrons in

the museum because the usage aligns with patrons and it also keeps people moving to other areas

within the museum, though the patron may have to overcome some difficulties. When

maneuverability and usage collide in an effective manner, patrons are more willing to revisit the

museum and recommend it to others. Since this is the overall goal of any museum (to increase

patronage and thus funding), usage and maneuverability may be important measures to test if

exhibits work or fail with the overall museum.

VI. Appendix I

The DuSable museum is a diverse place that could accommodate many types of research.

Pertaining to this project in particular, a few questions did arise that if answered, could lead to a

fuller understanding of the workings of the museum. They include: Why is it the first exhibit?

How often are things changed? How will it be accompanied in the new building? Why did Dr.

Burroughs set it up this way?

If I were to continue on the path of observing the “Africa Speaks” exhibit, I would need to

talk to the curators of the exhibit as well as the director of the museum, Dr. Adams. The

solidarity that my informants felt with other African American people would be an interesting

avenue to explore. Comparison to the Mexican Fine Arts Center would provide insight into

whether or not the usage and maneuverability of an exhibit could really show connectivenss as I

saw during my short tenure. If Hispanics felt the same towards an exhibit at the Mexican Fine

Arts Center, then it may prove my point.

Unfortunately due to time constraints I was unable to really find research that others had

done about the museum either in thesis, dissertation or book form. If I had more time, this

information may have lead to further insights into my measure methods of effectiveness. How

others measure effectiveness of exhibits does vary museum to museum, but if I could see how

others measure it, my methods could be adjusted to get a clearer picture of the “Africa Speaks”

exhibit.

I would also like to go back and observe another exhibit at the museum for a similar period

of time to see if the usage and maneuverability changes at all throughout the museum. My

effectiveness measures stemmed from my interviews and observations of people in general, but

once patrons move so far in the museum, I was unable to see how they finished their tour. It

would have been nice to follow a few groups of people throughout the museum to see if their

usage and movement patterns changed drastically when they changed spaces (such as moving

from one floor to another [where I lost site of most people].

VII. Appendix II

The following are diagrams of the space and a categorization of the artifacts in the exhibit:

Main Exhibit:

Stairway:

Location Number

of

Objects

Country/Countries of Origin Types of Objects

N 1 2 1 – Egypt, 1 – Qustul, Nubia Statue, Pottery Vase

W1 3 2 – Dogon, Mali ; 1 Bamona – Mali Plaque, 2 statues

W2 3 3 – Asante, Ghana Picture of Asante King,

headdresses

W3 10 10 – Igbo, Ghana Pot, Statue, 8

Figurines

W4 5 4 - Yoruba, Nigeria; 1- Ogoni, Nigeria Figurines

W5 3 3 - West Coast 3 slave chains

W6 1 1 – Senufu, Ivory Coast Seated Figure

C1 4 4 – Akon, Ghana/ Ivory Coast Instrument, 2 face

masks, 1 figurine

C2 1 1 – Edo Benin, Nigeria Statue

C3 5 1 – Pende, Democratic Republic of Congo [DRC]; 1 –

Lwalwa, DRC; 1-Yombe, DRC; 1 – Hongwe, Gabon; 1 –

Mangbetu, DRC

statue

C4 1 1 – Camerron Stool

C5 1 Asante, Ghana Chair

S1 5 2 – Zulu, South Africa; 3 San, South Africa Bow and arrow, club,

eggshell, 2 necklasces

S2 1 1 - Shona, Zimbabwe Statue

S3 1 1 – Luval/ Angolat, Northwest Zambia Headdress

E1 5 1 – Marari/Chewa, Malawi; 1- Giryana, Kenya; 1-

Gurage, Kenya; 1 – Ethiopia ; 1 – Massai,

Kenya/Tanzania

Water jug, scroll, cane,

milk jug, mask

E2 13 2 – Somalia ; 2 Massai, Kenya ; 1 – Gurage, Ethiopia ; 1

UI, Ethiopia; 6 – Ethiopia

6 – Crosses, 1

headdress, 2

necklaces, 2 bracelets,

1 horn, 1 writing

board

E3 1 1 - Makonde, Tanzania/Mozambique Statue

K/Q 1 1 Osei Tutu Poster

K/Q 2 1 Makeda Poster

K/Q 3 1 Hatsepsut Poster

K/Q 4 1 Askia Muhammad Toure Poster

K/Q 5 1 Tutankhamen Poster

K/Q 6 1 Amanishakhete Poster

K/Q 7 1 Ana Nzinga Poster

K/Q 8 1 Mansa Kankanmuse Poster

VIII. Appendix III

As is everyone’s favorite sections, I wish to discuss biases at this point. During my

observations, I only went Tuesdays and Sundays. Sundays are free days at the museum and

are very busy at times. This probably skewed my data since I did not get a full picture of

everyone who comes to the museum. I also only had long, complete interviews with the

security guard and the gift shop manager. The board member’s interview was cut short due to

his “rehearsed” answers he gave. I could not get anyone else to interview in our short time,

so I only talked to people who observe and not to anyone who had power in constructing the

exhibits. Another bias I have is I am from Memphis, Tennessee, where the Civil Rights

Museum is an international powerhouse. Dignitaries from around the world (and funding)

help to make the museum a mainstream museum. Since DuSable is small and focuses on one

aspect of African American history (the linkage to Africa), I may have been biased in my

interpretations. Most of my informants knew I was Caucasian, female and a student at U of

C, which may have led to skewered answers or rehearsed answers, such as those I received

from Dr. Good. I was told what they thought I wanted to hear. Any other bias I acknowledge

as my own.