Exhibits at the Norwalk Historical Society Museum
Destination Norwalk: African-American Migration from the South, 1940-1970
Guest Curator: Kathleen Motes Bennewitz
This exhibition is an extension of the “Norwalk: Portrait of Diversity” exhibit. It highlights the migration of 5 million black Americans from southern states during the “The Second Migration,” from 1940 to 1970, to urban industrial centers of the North, Midwest and West.
This mass exodus was spurred on by civil, economic and educational injustices that made up everyday life in the South. As the racial composition of Norwalk changed, the City’s political priorities, labor relations, community and cultural expression evolved in these decades of major Civil Rights reforms.
Kathleen Motes Bennewitz is an independent curator, who, in Connecticut has served as Director of Exhibitions & Programs at the Greenwich Historical Society and Fairfield Museum and History Center, and exhibition curator at Norwalk’s Lockwood Mathews Mansion Museum, where the exhibit, The Stairs Below: The Mansion’s Domestic Servants, 1868-1938 , recently won a Leadership in History Award, AASLH’s highest distinction. She also served as Westport’s Town Curator and has organized exhibitions for museums across the country, including the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum at University of Minnesota and Amon Carter Museum, and worked in education at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. She received her A.B. in Art & Archaeology from Princeton University and M.A. in Art History from University of DE.
The Norwalk Historical Society Museum is located at 141 East Avenue, Norwalk, and is open Wednesday-Saturday, Noon-4pm, and during special events and by appointment for Self-Guided Tours. For more information on how to book a self-guided tour, please visit the NHS Event Calendar page.