When Elgin artist Freddrick D. Wimms was asked just after Christmas to curate an art exhibit for Black History Month, he didn’t have much time and didn’t know what he wanted the show to be. But he did have an idea for a name.
“Black Then, Black Now, Black in the Middle …”
“When I set the name, I had no idea what the show was gonna be,” Wimms said. “I knew it couldn’t be based just on Black history. It had to be about the essence of Black culture, and then that will reflect on Black art and that will reflect Black history.”
Wimms ended up with the idea to tell the story of how Black culture in America was born out of the darkness of slavery, how far it had come up to and since the Civil Rights movement, and how far it can still go.
“This all