Program for "Dear Mr. Mandela, Dear Mrs. Parks...Children's Letters, Global Lessons" museum exhibit.

Local children in Qunu, South Africa, enjoy the new exhibit at the Nelson Mandela Museum. Photo by Marit Dewhurst.

Local students visit the "Dear Mr. Mandela, Dear Mrs. Parks: Children’s Letters, Global Lessons" exhibit at the Nelson Mandela Museum in Qunu, South Africa. Photo by Lora Helou.

Kurt Dewhurt, director of the MSU Museum, visits the exhibition his staff helped create along with the Nelson Mandela Museum staff. A new fellowship that was announced at the opening will send an MSU graduate student to South Africa to work on research, exhibits, development, collections and stewardship. Photo by Lora Helou.

Local children learn about Nelson Mandela and Rosa Parks at the exhibit opening. The exhibit uses letters from children to Mandela and Parks to raise awareness of the racial injustice South Africans and Americans have faced. Photo by Lora Helou.

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MSU helped celebrate the 90th birthday of former South African President Nelson Mandela on July 19 with a specially designed exhibit opening and an announcement of a curatorial fellowship at the Nelson Mandela Museum in Qunu, South Africa.

Created by MSU Museum staff and project partners along with other MSU faculty, staff and students and community members in South Africa and Michigan, “Dear Mr. Mandela, Dear Mrs. Parks: Children’s Letters, Global Lessons” is an exhibit of letters written by children from all over the world to human rights leaders Mandela and the late Rosa Parks.

“The exhibit is bringing together two remarkable icons that have dedicated their lives to human rights and did so with great sacrifice,” said Kurt Dewhurst, MSU Museum director and one of the exhibit’s organizers. “And they did so in two different ways – Mr. Mandela, a public figure, was able to rise to be president and a worldwide figure after years of imprisonment; and Mrs. Parks, through her quiet strength, was able to leave a remarkable legacy. They show how individuals can make a real difference in the world.”

In 2007, Gregory Reed, personal lawyer to Parks, announced a planned gift to the MSU Museum of a collection of letters children wrote to Parks. Reed, founder of the Detroit-based Keeper of the Word Foundation, collaborated with Dewhurst and folk art curator Marsha MacDowell at the MSU Museum and individuals at the museum in South Africa, to create this one-of-a-kind exhibit displaying the children’s letters to raise awareness of the racial justice challenges South Africans and Americans have faced.

Notable dignitaries and individuals who worked on the exhibit attended the opening ceremony at the museum located in the Eastern Cape Province, Mandela’s birthplace in South Africa just one day after Mandela’s 90th birthday. A video greeting from President Lou Anna K. Simon was shown.

“Recognizing Mr. Mandela at this time is especially nice because it’s the kickoff of the yearlong celebration of his 90th birthday,” Dewhurst said. “This exhibit really demonstrates the sustained relationship we hope to have with the Nelson Mandela Museum in the coming decade. We anticipate we will be developing other related exchange programs and joint projects that will involve museum staff, and MSU staff, faculty and students.”

The Nelson Mandela Museum-Michigan State University Museum Curatorial Fellowship also was announced at the exhibit’s opening ceremony in South Africa.

“This fellowship marks another important step in the collaboration between our two institutions,” said Khwezi kaMpumlwana, director of the Nelson Mandela Museum. “We look forward to working together in the coming years as our own museum continues to share a national legacy and become a national destination. Our work with Michigan State University will enable us to strengthen our museum as a center for research and education.”

The $125,000 (or nearly 1 million South African rand) fellowship will help fund an MSU graduate student each year for five years. The student will travel to South Africa to work on research, exhibits, development, collections and stewardship at the Nelson Mandela Museum.

“The Nelson Mandela Museum-Michigan State University Museum Curatorial Fellowship is another example of MSU’s continued involvement and investment in the people and the culture of South Africa,” Simon said. “The fellowship will provide MSU graduate students the opportunity to expand their knowledge of the social and cultural values exemplified by the life and work of Nelson Mandela.”

Rachel Laws, a third-year doctoral student at MSU, spent two weeks researching and editing the panels for the exhibit at the museum after her five-week study abroad program in South Africa, which also was taught and led by Dewhurst and MacDowell.
“The exhibit will be a good way to connect the cultures and the people,” Laws said. “Even though we are an ocean apart there have been so many similar experiences in past history.”

Laws read letters from children saying Mandela is their hero and asking for more information about him.

Mandela received an honorary degree from MSU in May 2008 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.

“While it’s about the lives of Mr. Mandela and Mrs. Parks, the exhibit is really focused on trying to create an interactive experience for youth from around the world, and provide an opportunity to write letters built on the shared values that they see in the two,” Dewhurst said. “And we hope it will encourage youth to recognize those values in people in their lives and enable children to self-examine themselves during their lifetime.”

The exhibit is funded by a grant awarded by the American Association of Museums, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

“This exhibit demonstrates that the university embraces diversity in a worldwide context,” MacDowell said. “By engaging in this activity we signify we are a welcoming institution.”