Split but not Separated press release.

New exhibit opening on Sunday, April 27, at Concord Neighborhood Center highlights the recaptured memories of the former multi-ethnic community on Indianapolis’ Near Southside.

Indianapolis’ Near Southside was home to a diverse community whose memories are both touching and enlightening, their tale one of family and community interacting at levels often unknown in today’s times. A new pop-up exhibit opens at the Concord Neighborhood Center on April 27, 2014  highlights the ties between African-Americans and Jews who lived together in that community prior to the construction of I-70. The opening reception for the exhibit, entitled Split But Not Separated: Recapturing the Legacy of the Near Southside, takes place on Sunday, April 27, 2014 from 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. at the Concord Neighborhood Center, located at 1310 South Meridian. The exhibit was developed by undergraduate students enrolled in the Spring 2014 Museum Methods class who curated photographs and other materials associated the history of this community and who conducted additional research. The program will begin at 2:30 p.m.

This pop-up exhibition was inspired by an earlier student research project. In 2010, Anthropology students from IUPUI began collecting oral histories, photographs and other memorabilia from Africa American and Jewish elders, who had grown up together on the Near Southside. That research is captured in an oral history book, The Neighborhood of Saturdays, which was published in 2013 by Dog Ear Press. The exhibit presents another view of the history of the community and moves the story into the future by involving the views of children who are currently participating in programs at the Concord Neighborhood Center.

During this past Spring Break, IUPUI Anthropology major Andrea McLaughlin, who was one of the student researchers who worked on the project in 2010, ran a series of workshops for middle school children, who read and discussed the book and who used it as a starting point for them to think about their own ideas of “community” and about the history of the area where the Concord is located. One of the highlights of the program was a session where the young people met with elders from the neighborhood who answered questions about growing up on the streets adjacent to the Concord Center. The students’ work will be highlighted in the exhibition.

The program will include a discussion, moderated by IUPUI History and Museum Studies professor Modupe Labode, in which members of the class will discuss their relation and interpretation of the project. Throughout, guests will have the opportunity to examine the exhibition and speak with community members. The exhibit will remain at the Concord Center for three weeks, after which time will be shown at South Calvary Missionary Baptist Church, still located on the Near South. It will then move to Etz Chaim Sephardic Congregation, located on Hoover Road, where many members of the Jewish community settled after they left the south side in the 1950s and ‘60s.

For more information about The Neighborhood of Saturdays project, including images contributed by community members, go to the IUPUI University Library Website: http://www.ulib.iupui.edu/digitalscholarship/collections/NoS

For more information about the exhibit, contact:

Modupe Labode, Assistant Professor, History and Museum Studies

IUPUI

317-274-3829

mlabode@iupui.edu