[MSN] Museum is accused of letting pages of history fade.

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

Museum is accused of letting pages of history fade
BY DAVID ASHENFELTER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

November 11, 2006

Malcolm X, left, was the subject of a book bearing his name by Alex Haley,
right. Fifteen unpublished pages were on display in Detroit. (PATRICIA
BECK/Detroit Free Press)
Photo:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061111/NEWS05/611110343
 
They are priceless pages of American history, 15 sheets of unpublished
portions of Alex Haley's original manuscript for "The Autobiography of
Malcolm X."

And they are at the center of a messy legal dispute that spilled into public
view when the owner of the papers sued Detroit's Charles H. Wright Museum of
African American History last week for damaging the pages during the years
they were displayed there.

"There is no rational explanation for what happened here," Belleville
attorney Francois Nabwangu said Friday on behalf of his client, the Keeper
of the Word Foundation, a Michigan nonprofit owner of the pages that sued in
Wayne County Circuit Court.

Nabwangu said museum officials have refused to file an insurance claim to
reimburse the foundation for $168,000 worth of damage to the documents,
which were appraised for $280,000 shortly before they went on display in
large glass cases at the museum's grand opening in 1997.

Today, the pages -- which include Malcolm X's unpublished 13-point plan for
African Americans to achieve true integration through economic, social and
political empowerment -- have turned from white to brownish-yellow.

Though still readable, the pages also bear a white stripe from being held
down by bands while on display until about 2002.

Nabwangu said museum officials have offered only to try to have the
manuscript pages restored, which could further damage them or shorten their
lifespan.

Museum officials wouldn't discuss the controversy.

"The museum has no comment," spokesman Raymond Tate said Friday after
repeated calls to museum officials went unanswered.

Officials at other museums nationwide refrained Friday from talking publicly
about the incident but expressed amazement that a museum would jeopardize
its reputation by allowing valuable documents to be damaged. They said the
dispute might make it harder for the Wright museum to borrow other
African-American historical treasures in the future.

"The rule of thumb in the museum world is that, when you borrow someone
else's property, you return it in the same condition as you got it," one
library archivist said Friday.

Chai Lee, spokesman for the Art Institute of Chicago, wouldn't comment on
the Detroit controversy specifically but said paper is extremely sensitive
to light.

That's why his museum, which owns one of the nation's largest and finest
collections of Japanese woodblock prints, displays pieces only three months
a year -- and then only in extremely dim light.

"Paper is very sensitive to light, and that is why many of our print and
drawing collections aren't on view on a regular basis," Lee said.

Detroit entertainment lawyer Gregory Reed, who created the Keeper of the
Word Foundation in 1996 to preserve African-American historical artifacts,
said he acquired Haley's manuscript at auction in 1992 for $100,000. He also
purchased three chapters of Haley's work for $35,000, not realizing until
five months later that they were to have been part of the Malcolm X book.

At that time, the acquisition marked the highest price paid for an
African-American manuscript in the 20th Century. Reed said he went to the
auction to buy other Haley artifacts to preserve that history, not thinking
he would acquire the original manuscript.

Reed eventually gave the manuscript to the foundation, which loaned 15 pages
of the unpublished chapters to the Detroit museum.

"Nobody else in the world has read the complete book but me," Reed said,
adding that he is amazed by his acquisition.

Reed, a music collector who says he owns one of the largest collections of
Motown artifacts, recently finished a one-year exhibit in Chicago at the
DuSable Museum of African American History, "100 Plus One: Celebrating
America's Music Before Motown and Beyond."

Reed said he originally planned to publish the three chapters but got
sidetracked handling legal affairs of Detroit civil rights icon Rosa Parks,
who died last year.

Even if the 15 damaged pages survive restoration, he said, they would be
less valuable.

"It's like trying to restore a cracked diamond," he said. "They can seal the
crack, but it's still a damaged diamond."

Contact DAVID ASHENFELTER at 313-223-4490 or ashenf at freepress.com.