Selfies with the Ku Klux Klan outfit at a slavery museum sparks outrage
Curators have now moved the notorious uniform of white supremacists to a less prominent position.
Complaints about people posing for selfies with a Ku Klux Klan outfit on a mannequin has led a slavery museum to rethink its display.
The behaviour is one of the reasons curators at Liverpool’s International Slavery Museum have now moved the notorious uniform of white supremacists to a less prominent position, inside an open box.
Other visitors had said the race hate outfit is “scary and should be removed”, while another felt that displaying it is “insulting”.
Since the museum opened in 2007, the white robe with a pointed hood on a life-sized mannequin had loomed over visitors.
But it proved controversial, and now, as the attraction prepares for a major redevelopment next year, it is asking the public whether it should display objects linked to racism at all.
The uniform had been donated by a collector who received it from a family friend in Orange County, New York state. It was considered a rare example of KKK presence in the northern states of America, as the white supremacy group is more often associated with the Deep South.
A spokeswoman said: “In the case of the uniform, it was displayed on a life-sized mannequin previously, which gave it a prominence among stories of civil rights and activism – a position that has been questioned and commented on since the museum opened in 2007.
“It has now been redisplayed in a box, similar to how it was originally donated to the museum, so we can continue to address its history.”
She added that dealing with the complaints was an opportunity to “invite visitors to engage with curators about the outfit’s future role within the museum – whether it should be displayed at all and, if so, how best we do this”.
Miles Greenwood, lead curator of the Transatlantic Slavery and Legacies section of the museum which hosts the exhibit, added: “It has also been pointed out that the display shifts the focus of racism to one specific group in the USA, when white supremacy is a daily reality of people’s lives in the UK, and elsewhere.
“Yet it is the KKK uniform that dominated a whole section of the museum.”
Displaying it differently “attempts to address the power the uniform once had while not fully removing it from public sight, so that we can engage in dialogue about its future role within the museum”, he added.
