Of all the exhibits, the “hate room” was my favorite. I learned more information about the artifacts in that room than the artifacts in any other room. I learned from the other rooms, but it wasn’t anything I didn’t have a general idea of. In the “hate room,” I saw how racial stereotyping influenced advertising. The first thing that caught my eye was the black cast iron banks. I always saw pictures of how we were depicted in the eyes of the media early on, but I never saw an actual prop. They made black people seem as if we were all extra dark people, with huge pink lips, that only ate watermelon and were only good for taking money. The Little Sambo books were great and all, but it’s one of the only books that show us as civilized in a manner.
