Exhibit on Black history coming to Minneota library

Alan Page will always be remembered for his Hall of Fame football career with the Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears.
Following his 15 years as a defensive tackle, he was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1988 before becoming a Supreme Couty Justice from 1993-2015.
He also wrote a compelling book about his journey from the gridiron to the judge's bench called "All Rise."
Now the 76-year-old Page is offering an exhibit titled "Testify: Americana from Slavery to Today", which is a collection from Alan and his late wife, Diane Sims Page, that is being offered to libraries across the state that shows the many facets of Black history, featuring over 100 pieces of Americana from eras of slavery and Jim Crow. It includes the hard-fought victories of the Civil Rights era to the agonies of slavery.
The exhibit will be featured at the Minneota Public Library for three weeks, from March 13 to April 1.
"At our January meeting of all the library directors, Plum Creek Director Elizabeth Hoffman mentioned that the Alan Page Testify exhibit would be going out to libraries in the state and mentioned that we could sign up for hosting it," said Minneota Library Director Gail Perrizo. "I immediately thought that our library would have room for that.
"The very next week, I heard an interview with Alan Page on the radio and he was talking about the exhibit. I thought 'Wow, this is really important and we have to get it in Minneota.'"
The Pages collected the items for decades. There will be large-format photo display of pieces of the show. Each of the banners feature a high-quality photograph of one or more items in the collection and gives its historical background. Each display will also include an audio recording. The exhibit will be featured in 26 libraries in nine counties, including Lyon.
“I’m just thrilled that we got to exhibit parts of the exhibit that way,” Elizabeth Hoffman, executive director of the Plum Creek Library System, told the Worthington Daily Globe,
The “Testify” exhibit was first created in 2018, and the Page family decided to bring it back after a positive response.
Some of the banners show the difficulties Blacks have had to endure, including slave auctions that even included infants.
The exhibit also features compelling artwork depicting the brutality and oppression of slavery, as well as artifacts from the White House.
Some pieces may make you turn away such as an iron collar used to lock slaves in bondage, as well as a branding iron to mark the slave as someone's property like cattle.
There is also a display with a banner showing support for Abraham Lincoln during his campaign to end slavery that reads “Our country, shall be one country!"
There are also inspirational pieces to the collection that feature paintings and photos of Blacks in the arts, athletics and politics.
“It is almost overwhelming to look at,” said Rebecca Hudson, office administrator/program coordinator for the Plum Creek Library System.