Education Program: The Clues to Freedom
Since 1619, African-Americans have endured systematic racism, slavery, inequality, stereotypes, and physical and mental brutality from the American Society. Several methods have been utilized to fix these issues in the Black community, but this history continuously occurs with no change.
The education program will take the form of an Escape Room. An education program, in this case, is a project designed to meet the public understanding of social and political issues in the Black community. An Escape Room is a game played among a group of people who collaboratively use clues and solve puzzles, to answer a big question that allows them to escape before time runs out. At the end of the exhibition, all interested visitors will proceed to a special interactive space, concluding their visit with this program outside the building. Ultimately, the room will review the visitors' knowledge of the civil rights era, learned from the photographs and the interviews from the interactive technology gallery. The experience will allow them to see the bigger picture of recurring history and evolving times in the Black community.
Three rooms will be available for the visitors’ choice: one for family, one for children only, and one for adults only. Before splitting anyone into groups a “placement test” will be given to assess everyone’s knowledge and understanding of this particular history. Following the test will be a list of rules and forms consenting to be locked in the room for one hour and thirty minutes. Within the room, clues will consist of cases from the civil rights and Black Lives Matter movements, letters from people in the 20th century and current times, weapons, events like the Montgomery bus boycott, the Vietnam War opposition, and historical newspapers and documents. All three rooms will have the same final goal of answering three major questions; “Why does history repeat itself? What is the main faced issue in the Black community? How can change be made to end inequality and fight for justice?” Since the visitors live in the twenty-first century, they will be restricted from using any technology to help solve clues and are to only ask group members for help. The goal is that they solve issues the same way people did in the twentieth century. Escaping is their chance to gain insight into that period and how similar it is to now.