▼ Culture 40 N La 407 NL marLamaLamar St 1 -47 407 N Lamar St Suite 18Suite 180BSi e180Be 180B Da as X 7 202 (903 4 6-4) 45 -47516-475 Dall s,,TX 7520 (90 (903) 456-4751 903)456-4751 DalDallaslas TX 5202X752 2 (903(90903) 4564 X 75202 6-47 1330 NMcDonald St 11 1330 N McDonald Stld St Suite 110 McKi 1330 N McDonald133 NMcDonald Suite 110Si e 11 MK McKinney (90 (903) 456-4751 (903 6-4 (90 ) 45 -4751 903) 456-476-4 51 McKinneyMcK nneKinney TX 75071 (903903 4564 ey,TX 750 1750775 71 6-47 thepotentcbd.com @potent_cbd facebook.com/thepotentcbd (903) 456-4751 Come say hi to your local Cannabis Experts WEEKLY EMAIL D Gaspar Yanga is the subject of an ongoing exhibition at the African American Museum at Fair Park. SIGN UP FOR OUR WEEKLY EMAIL LIST www.dallasobserver.com/signup for feature stories, movie reviews, calendar picks and more! go to courtesy Latino Arts Project Original Freedom Fighter Dallas’ African American Museum shines light on the story of Gaspar Yanga, hailed as one of America’s first liberators during the slave trade. BY ALEX GONZALEZ Freedom, a seven-month-long exhibition, beholders can learn the story of Gaspar Yanga, who is hailed as one of America’s first liberators during the slave trade. Yanga includes works by Black, Latino and Afro- Latino artists. Yanga was a prince from an African royal A ENTER TO WIN TICKETS TWO 8 DALLASOBSERVER.COM/FREE/WILDFLOWER family in Gabon. In 1570, he was taken en- slaved to Veracruz, Mexico, then part of New Spain. Yanga escaped and led a group of enslaved people to revolt. They created their own colony, called San Lorenzo de los Negros, which was later renamed Yanga. The former slaves defeated the Spaniards and negotiated with the king of Spain to build one of the first freed slave communi- ties in the Americas. The exhibition comes from Zameer Ji- wani and Jorge Baldor of Latino Arts Proj- ect. The two met through networking in the realm of art and decided to team up to tell the story of Yanga and the more than 5,000 enslaved people who escaped from Texas to Mexico in what is known as the Southern Underground Railroad. The Southern Un- derground Railroad evolved after Mexico banned slavery in 1829. “We have deep issues that we’re bring- ing into the exhibit,” Baldor says, “and that’s what we’re doing with Yanga. We’re n exhibit at the African American Museum at Fair Park aims to shine a light on the untold stories of Amer- ica. At Yanga: Journeys to talking about issues like redlining. We’ve got the American creed that sounds really good, you know, ‘We’re all created equal,’ but you have government institutions that are marginalizing their own citizens with redlining.” Yanga also wants to bring to light the un- comfortable truths about our founding fa- thers. The show will emphasize the fact that many of the figures America honors were slave owners. Jiwani says the exhibition contains documents verifying the purchase of slaves by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and others. “Thomas Jefferson, he wrote the Decla- ration of Independence,” Jiwani says. “He wrote the words, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,’ but during his lifetime, he owned over 600 slaves. … We have to look at the background behind where these words are coming from. We’re really trying to tell those stories, but also we’re trying to bring in the community to hear and tell the stories.” Yanga includes works from several local and global Black and Latino artists, includ- ing Mario Guzman Olivares, presenting a 9-foot-wide canvas commissioned by the Latino Arts Project to reflect a rarely seen nocturnal scene including Yanga; Baltazar Castellano Melo, whose work to seek visibil- ity for the Afro-Mexican experience was a key part in modernizing the Mexican census process to include Black heritage in the count; Kimathi Donkor, who uses symbol- ism and incorporates modern-day objects to expose the long-lasting effects of the African diaspora stories; and Jose Cruz Sanchez, a sixth-generation carver from Costa Chica, who carves predominantly in jicama. The exhibit spans 1,500 square feet and showcases 40 to 50 works at a time. The works will rotate several times over the course of the next seven months. Local arts organizations have partnered to bring additional experiences to the ex- hibit. On June 19, Cara Mía Theatre will stage a reading of a newly written play called Yanga. The Dallas Symphony Or- chestra will present a symphony with a choral group based on the namesake’s jour- ney on June 7. The exhibition is free to attend. As the artists rotate, Jiwani and Baldor will film “exit interviews” with the artists as they talk about the impact of the show and what they learned from their experience. “People can come back as many times as they want and still see something new, and get a fresh perspective and be able to have these powerful conversations,” Ji- wani says. “We like to use art and culture as a way to bring people together in a way for people to find a commonality,” Baldor adds. “Once you have that common point, you can have deeper conversations about some of the is- sues we really need to talk about as a com- munity.” Yanga: Journeys to Freedom is on exhibi- tion at the African American Museum, 3536 Grand Ave. (Fair Park), until Oct. 21. Hours are 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday. MAY 12–18, 2022 DALLAS OBSERVER CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS dallasobserver.com
