https://vimeo.com/18391707]
Joe Ragsdale, owner of the Least We Forget Museum, brushes off the odd fact that his facility focusing on America’s ugly history of slavery seems totally out of place in Port Richmond, a Philadelphia community with few black residents.
But, Ragsdale said bluntly, “It’s here because it needs to be here.”
The graphic exhibitions inside the Least We Forget Museum provides visitors with a tour of the degradations and violence of the slave era that still stains America’s legacy of liberty for all.
This museum’s content really makes its location unusual. Port Richmond is widely known as the home of Philadelpia’s Polish community — a people with little to no involvement with the institution of slavery in America. Blacks comprise just 15 percent of the population in Port Richmond,
However, this demographic disconnect doesn’t seem to matter much to Ragsdale, whose wife Gwen Ragsdale initially did not like Port Richmond as the location for the museum. Joe Ragsdale, also known as Joe Rags, selected Port Richmond as the site of his museum for the simple reason that he already owned a building in that neighborhood.
Located at 3650 Richmond St., many who pass by this place have no clue about what’s inside because the building’s tattered brown sign and the steel security gates outside give the impression of a retail store not a museum, particularly a museum about slavery.
Unlike most museums, Least We Forget, does not have regular operating hours. A previously scheduled appointment is required to view this facility’s interesting artifacts.
Entering the museum doors gives the aura of having stepped back in time into that era that some consider one of the darkest chapters in American history.
Ragsdale said his idea of starting a slavery museum grew out of childhood experiences. A key catalyst came when one of his uncles from the South told him about fighting in America’s Civil War. When that uncle died, Ragsadale found some of his uncle’s shackles and that discovery lit a fuse inside him to collect other slavery-era artifacts.
When asked why he did not choose to place the museum in a predominately black neighborhood, Ragsdale was candid in his response. “If I put this in a black neighborhood, I don’t think I would get the support.”
Ragsdale’s two-year-old museum has an array of artifacts from shackles dating all the way back to when Africans were captured before even arriving in America, to the shackles of the Civil War. Ragsdale even owns two different types of balls and chains varying in weight. These devices were used to keep slaves from fleeing by weighing them down, making flight nearly impossible. “This is a 110-pound ball the other one is a 60-pound ball, which is placed around the neck,” Ragsdale explained.
Some of the artifacts owned by Ragsdale are on a tour with talk show host and radio personality Tavis Smiley, who has launched a traveling exhibition called “America I Am.”
When taking visitors through is museum, Ragsdale’s tour is mostly lessons in history spreading from Africa to America and even some Latin countries. “Years ago I wanted to be a teacher, but I found out that the Lord wasn’t that hard up, so I am a teacher and that’s what it is.”
Artifacts include photographs, paintings and items that persons can actually hold.
During a recent visit to Least We Forget, Ragsdale never held back, providing a visitor with an engaging session uncluttered by his having to handle other visitors. Describing decapitations, the spitting of women’s stomachs after being hung from trees so animals could eat them and castrations, Ragsdale didn’t edit any gory detail when describing the realities of slavery. “I wanted to show the horrors of it.” Ragsdale even described how people would take body parts from slaves after hangings and hang those body parts around their necks as surveyors.
Ragdale’s learned that the life of hunting slave artifacts for his collection can be a dangerous. Ragsdale shows a lynch noose that he found deep in the woods outside Columbia, S.C. “My wife was having a fit because I had it. She said, ‘They’re going to get us and I ain’t going nowhere with you anymore.’”
The last of the exhibits in the museum is a homage to contemporary African Americans, with an entire wall full of faces of people who have been killed at the hands of other African Americans. “I tell the children to make a change like the Michael Jackson,” Ragsdale said, while standing over a faux coffin.
“I tried to apply for government grants and things of that nature and the city told me they are not going to give me anything because of what we have here. The world doesn’t not want reality, they want to be entertained. This is not an entertainment place.”
Ragsdale plans on expanding the exhibit even further. He plans to have an even more graphically themed exhibit. Future exhibits include a full walk through the tunnel just like the original slaves had to take departing from slave-holding cells in Africa, a boat ride simulating the trans-Atlantic passage and even an ending where museum tour-takers would have to buy back their freedom.
Currently, the museum receives a fair amount of visitor traffic. Ragsdale would like to replace the steel security door with a more accommodating entrance so people could come through in larger groups. Ragsdale also still needs some other sprucing-up to do before he can take his little-known museum to the level higher he would like.
Dear sir;
I am writing in great respect in the research that you are doing. I have in my possession a ball and chain that I hope does not involve slavery, but I cannot find information on this anywhere. It was found on an old plantation in Louisiana and I was hoping you could help me in my research. I would like to send you a picture of a ball and chain with a lock. Maybe you could help. Thank you in advance.
i have a book on the black buffalo solider i would love to give u.it id frome 1919.i found it at a fleearket my cell number is 267 259 48 20.peace.i