“TESTIFY: AMERICANA FROM SLAVERY TO TODAY” EXHIBIT TO VISIT EAST CENTRAL REGIONAL LIBRARY (ECRL)  

The photo gallery exhibit features images of art and artifacts from the Diane and Alan Page Collection and includes audio narration. The photo exhibit will be at the Sandstone Public Library from Friday, May 17 to Wednesday, May 29. 

At a time of increasing racial tensions in our country, former Minnesota Supreme Court Justice and NFL Hall of Famer Justice Alan Page and his family have created an exhibit titled “TESTIFY: Americana from Slavery to Today”. In an effort to make this exhibit accessible to Minnesotans across the state, local libraries worked with Page’s daughter, Georgi Page-Smith, to bring a smaller traveling version of the TESTIFY Exhibit to life with funding from Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. 

Libraries throughout the state will host gallery displays of selections from the exhibit featuring audio narration and a series of high-resolution photographs by notable Minnesota photographer Josh Grubbs. These images, the accompanying audio files, and additional information on the exhibit are also available online at dapcollection.com.  

The photo exhibit will be open to the public at the Sandstone Public Library. The exhibit will be hosted in the Meeting Room from Friday, May 17 to Wednesday, May 29 during open hours. It will then be moving on to tour around the other branches of East Central Regional Library. 

 “The objects in the collection are facts,” said Page-Smith. “And while they are facts that might make people uncomfortable, that discomfort is not the end goal of the exhibit; we need to become conscious of ‘unconscious bias,’ and we need to learn to recognize racism. Similar to a disease, we can then focus on curing it, healing what’s broken and doing the growth we need to do as a country.”