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<\/a>Hadley Drodge, a graduate public history student at Wright State, is assembling an exhibit about the Randolph slaves that will open at the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center in Wilberforce on May 20. (Video by Kris Sproles\/Photos by Will Jones)<\/p><\/div>\n
Drodge was exposed to history at a young age. When she was a child, she would accompany her mother about once a week to what is now the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery in Dayton.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was always very fascinated by museum exhibits and natural history,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I would read books on mythology, so cultural elements were always part of my interest. It kind of transformed into a love of history.\u201d<\/p>\n
Drodge graduated from the University of Dayton with a bachelor\u2019s degree in history and in 2009 moved to Brooklyn\u2019s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in hopes of studying cultural anthropology at the New School for Social Research.<\/p>\n
However, she soon realized that cultural anthropology would take her away from working with the community, while a career in public history would enable her to combine academia with community.<\/p>\n
So in 2015, she enrolled in the master\u2019s degree program in public history<\/a>\u00a0offered by the College of Liberal Arts<\/a> to pursue a career in archiving and museum studies.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I started this program, it was the first time in many years that things really felt like they had fallen back into place. I felt so motivated and so driven,\u201d she said. \u201cThe people that keep this program alive are really incredible. And I feel very honored to have learned from them.\u201d<\/p>\n After Drodge began an internship last summer at the museum, the John Randolph materials fell into her lap and she began working on the exhibit.<\/p>\n Randolph was a Virginia tobacco farmer, congressman, senator and served as a minister to Russia. In his will, he freed his slaves and provided for their resettlement, but a legal dispute kept them on the plantation for 13 years.<\/p>\n The executor of Randolph\u2019s will had purchased 47 tracts of land in Mercer County, Ohio, and the freed slaves older than 40 were to each get at least 10 acres. In 1846, the group set out for Ohio in a caravan of 16 wagons, with most of them walking.<\/p>\n A month later they arrived in Cincinnati, boarded boats and traveled up the Miami-Erie Canal to Mercer County. When they arrived, a group of armed white settlers told them the land was no longer theirs and they must leave.<\/p>\n The freed slaves were aided by a group of Quakers, who helped them find employment and put down roots in surrounding communities. That included Rossville, where many of the freed slaves are interred in Jackson Cemetery. They were never able to reclaim their inheritance.<\/p>\n Drodge said the history of the Randolph slaves is based largely on newspaper accounts. However, Helen Gilmore, a Randolph slave descendant, had maintained a collection of photographs, drawings and a family Bible with personal notations. There was also a list of the names and freed numbers of the former slaves as well as a map of Jackson Cemetery that identifies the plots of those buried there even though many of the headstones are gone.<\/p>\n Drodge picked up the collection on that fateful day last summer after it was bequeathed to the museum.<\/p>\n Hadley Drodge wants to use her master\u2019s degree program in public history to pursue a career in archiving and museum studies.<\/p><\/div>\n The Bible, with an ornate, bas relief-type cover, is six inches thick and weighs about 25 pounds. There is also an artistically crafted charcoal sketch of two hat-wearing descendants. And then there are the photos \u2014 nearly 400, most of them of descendants during the 1910\u201320 period.<\/p>\n One shows three boys in a car. Another shows a group of \u201cdashing gentlemen\u201d in a tavern at what appears to be a political gathering. But most of the photos are portraits.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s got a story to tell,\u201d Drodge said of a man in one photo. \u201cThis isn\u2019t just some kind of posed, cookie-cutter shot. This is a guy who lived a life. And he\u2019s cool.\u201d<\/p>\n While she was going through the collection, Drodge found a lock of hair.<\/p>\n \u201cI had to take a moment when I found that,\u201d she said. \u201cHere you have some tangible piece of a person who owned this. … I\u2019ll never know who it belonged to.\u201d<\/p>\n Drodge said the most emotionally difficult part of poring through the photos is not knowing who the people are.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of them have names and some of them don\u2019t,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd some of the most fascinating pictures don\u2019t have names.\u201d<\/p>\n The next stage of Drodge\u2019s research is to connect with living descendants to collect oral histories and try to identify people in the photos.<\/p>\n \u201cI love the detective work. It\u2019s so exciting,\u201d she said. \u201cHistory is not just a collection of facts. We all piece this story together to understand something about our identity.\u201d<\/p>\n Drodge plans to continue working on the project following her graduation. She has completed her internship at the museum but would like to work there as a volunteer or in some other capacity.<\/p>\n Rosa Rojas, curator of the museum, said the journey of the Randolph slaves makes them a unique story, one that should be shared with the community. She said Drodge\u2019s passion for the project has pushed it to a higher level.<\/p>\n \u201cThis exhibit is really special because it really captures everything we are trying to do here,\u201d said Rojas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Graduate public history student Hadley Drodge is going through photos, drawings, Bibles and other materials to assemble the exhibit at the National Afro-American Museum. Continue reading ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/files\/2017\/04\/hadley-drodge-18773_061-508x332.jpg\")
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