Detroit native's traveling Black history museum stops Friday at WSU

Among the most seminal moments in the life of Khalid el-Hakim was when he was on spring break during college and bought something that turned into a collection.

El-Hakim grew up in northwest Detroit but left after graduating in 1988 from Mumford High School to enroll at Ferris State University. The lyrics and Black consciousness of hip-hop performers such as Public Enemy and KRS One began shaping his world view, inspiring him to learn about the Black history he didn't learn in school. He read the autobiography of Malcolm X, finding out things he never knew about the Black Panther Party, Martin Luther King Jr. and ancient African civilizations.

A pivotal moment came during el-Hakim's sophomore year he went on a road trip to Florida with friends for spring break, stopping at a gas station in Tennessee. Inside, there were Confederate flags everywhere and shelves of figures that were being sold as souvenirs representing Southern culture. El-Hakim bought one, even though he regarded it as vulgar: A Black boy sitting on a pot, going to the bathroom eating a piece of watermelon.

That figurine was the first of el-Hakim's collection that now numbers more than 10,000 and became the Black History 101 Mobile Museum. The figurine and other items have been on display at over 1,000 institutions in 43 states. On Friday, a portion of the collection will be exhibited from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. on the second floor of the  David Adamany Undergraduate Library at Wayne State University in Detroit. El-Hakim will deliver a lecture at noon.

"We are a diverse nation," said el-Hakim, 53. "In a diverse nation, we say that we value what makes us dynamic as Americans. If we say we value diversity in a democracy but people don't know the stories of diverse America, we are always going to have issues when it comes to race."

The collection includes original letters written by civil rights leaders Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, King and Marcus Garvey; clothing worn by entertainers Aretha Franklin, James Brown and others; books by local poets such as Jessica Care Moore and the Electrifying Mojo; original lynching photographs; rare albums including one of the 500 with cover art designed by Jean-Michel Basquiat and a wooden cane the Zaire president gave to the wife of boxer Muhammad Ali during the 1974 World Heavyweight Championship.

A documentary has been made about the Black history mobile museum and will be shown next month in Rome.

Jay Smith, a Ph.D. sociology student at Wayne State, helped to get the exhibit at WSU after seeing it on display two years ago at his daughter's school, Chippewa Valley High School in Clinton Township. He called it a "very culturally relevant artifacts and displays including historical newspapers, children’s books containing racist language.

"A lot people read about it in books, but to see up close and personal, it's a very powerful experience," said Smith. "A lot of the artifacts show the atrocities that were committed against Black folks in America and the turbulent journey they have had from slavery until now."

Smith worked with David Merolla, the sociology department chair at Wayne State, who worked with other leaders to bring the free event campus.

"It helps bring history to life," Smith said. "It can really help imbue on the student and the community this kind of thinking and behavior was simply routine. It wasn’t considered strange or abhorrent. It was how people thought, routine day to day activities that we would look back on now and be horrified by ... and this wasn’t ancient history."

El-Hakim's inspiration came when he saw the connection between racism and physical objects during a college sociology class taught by Ferris State professor David Pilgrim, who brought into class objects from the Jim Crow era. Pilgrim created the  Jim Crow Museum of Racist Imagery, which is currently on display through mid-August at Wayne County Community College.

After graduating from Ferris State University with a degree in social studies and business education, el-Hakim began graduate school at Western Michigan University and then moved to University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, where he earned his Ph.D. in curriculum instruction.

Early in his career, el-Hakim worked as a booking agent for musicians and poets Last Poets and then went on to teach middle school in the Detroit Public Schools for 13 years.

A turning point came in October 1995 when el-Hakim joined 60,000 Black men from Detroit who went to Washington, D.C., to participate in the Million Man March, a gathering called by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

"We went there under themes of atonement, reconciliation and responsibility," el-Hakim said. "The Black men who showed up took a pledge to go back to our communities to take responsibility and become more active in the community."

El-Hakim decided he would bring the artifacts he had been collecting privately in antique shops, used book stores and garage sales and put them into public spaces.

"I understood that the community needed to be educated and have an understanding of the contributions Black people have made in society," el-Hakim said.

He began attending weekly meetings with Detroit activist and minister Malik Shabazz in 1996 and met other activists and Black scholars. He shared his idea for the museum during the meetings. He started setting up a few tables, got invitations to display at other venues in the community and the museum began to grow.

The first major exhibit was a weeklong show in 1997 when he displayed 500 artifacts at the Detroit Job Corps, a trade school.

"To see the way people responded and interacted and the conversations people had walking through this exhibit was really phenomenal," el-Hakim said.

Growth and demand for the exhibit has led el-Hakim to work full time on the museum since 2011.

"People need to have a knowledge of themselves and their roots in order to have self respect and see  themselves making a contribution in society," said el-Hakim.

"And people need to understand that the history of the sacrifices that our ancestors have made" and how some "objects reflect those contributions. And also have objects that reflect the obstacles we have had to overcome."

kkozlowski@detroitnews.com