The Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum’s (SSAAM) exhibit showcasing the story of African American women’s headwear kicked off its fall programming on Friday, September 20.
Celebrating the one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of the Mount Zion AME church, the program, followed by a reception for the attendees, featured “The Head that Wears the Crown,” part of a series made possible through the “Preserving Black Churches” grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Dr. Rosetta D. Treece, superintendent of the Hopewell Valley Regional School District and volunteer model for the exhibit, said she was excited to see all of the portraits on opening night, an event to which all the models were invited.
Dr. Treece says, “I [wanted] to see all the diversity in the ages and how they brought themselves to the hat they were wearing. That’s what I enjoyed most of all, and I enjoyed everyone coming together for the reception. Everybody was dressed up that night. I thought it was a powerful moment.”
The excitement of the evening was also evident in the impressive turnout. Dr. Isabela Morales., the Exhibition and Education Manager at SSAAM says, “Our opening drew 65 visitors on that Friday Night, and that is about as many people as we can pack into that tiny church. One more person and we might have burst through the walls.”
Dr. Morales continues, “There was so much excitement that we were sold out, and we had to unfortunately tell people ‘I’m sorry, come tomorrow, you can’t come to the [reception], we’re packed.’”
Dr. Treece and others described the power they felt the exhibit and reception embodied as coming from the formative history of church hats: a tradition that has its roots in the early days of American slavery.
Kyra March, guest curator for “The Head That Wears the Crown,” through studying first-hand accounts in journals, diaries, and art from the time period, made the connection of church hats to tignons, a style of headwrap legally mandated for enslaved Black women.
March says, “It doesn’t just begin with church hats, but headwear in general is a way for Black women to express not just style but also a spiritual commitment.”
The next morning, Saturday, September 21, Kyra March welcomed visitors into the museum sanctuary to tour the new exhibit. Along one and a half walls of the church, framed portraits of local models were flanked by the mounted church hats themselves.
The hats were a mix of colors including tan, black, and gray. Two in particular stood out in pastel pink and bright, satiny fuschia, and all were adorned with ribbons, fabric flowers, or other flourishes.
Some hats were woven, some shone in the light, some sported wide brims, and one particularly memorable black hat was dramatically upturned: resembling a more grand, woven tricorn.
Although all of the mounted hats were from the museum’s own collection, some of the models brought their own to the shoot. One hat was even donated from “Hats Galore and More” in Peddler’s Village, Lahaska Pennsylvania, when the owner heard about the exhibit from a model.
This collaboration not only highlighted the museum’s diverse collection but also enriched the exhibit with personal stories and community contributions. Evelyn Dunn Brooks, a local matriarch, as well as museum co-founders Beverly Mills and Elaine Buck, contributed oral histories that Kyra March compiled for the voiced-over slideshow of exhibit materials.
A reverence filled the space as visitors read the display panels and watched the video for the new exhibit. Many guests also took in the permanent exhibits that chronicle the story of the Black community in the Sourland Mountains from slavery to the present day.
Reflective, and with room for visitors to walk around at their leisure, these open hours welcomed not only New Jersians but a family from as far away as Virginia.
Dr. Morales says, “They had heard about [the exhibit] from family members and friends in New Jersey. The fact that they were willing to take that drive to come here to see what we in this little museum had done is really encouraging, and it shows a level of reach that the museum has that we haven’t necessarily had in the past.”
Anita Williams Galiano, interim executive director of SSAAM, volunteered as a model alongside Dr. Treece and other members of the community. Both women say they eagerly joined the project as a way to honor their mothers and grandmothers who had been at least partially involved in the church hat tradition.
In addition, they worked with SSAAM’s social media and marketing manager, Tokz Gabriel Jr, who served as photographer for the shoots.
Williams Galiano, who was photographed by Tokz, says “It was magical. It was like having dress-up time. You know it was fun to see the energy and also the ideas coming from Tokz [on] how to capture the moment.”
Williams Galiano adds, “There was a sense of shared joy and playfulness about it but also sobriety to it.”
Similarly, Dr. Treece connected this sentiment of sobriety and reverence for the church hat tradition to her grandmother’s and mother’s experiences living in the Jim Crow South.
Dr. Treece says, “[I’m] just thinking of the limited freedoms that they had. A lot of the women [my mother] descended from were domestics.”
Dr. Treece continues, “They cleaned other people’s houses, they put that [work] uniform on every day, but Sunday was your time to do you, and to shine, and you put on whatever you could scrape together, or create, to express yourself.”
SSAAM is located at 189 Hollow Rd. -Skillman, NJ 08558. Event and open-hour information can be found at: https://www.ssaamuseum.org
This article was produced as part of MCCC’s Community Reporting “J Lab” certificate program made possible by grant funding from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities and The New School: Journalism + Design. For more information about the J Lab contact Program Director Prof. Holly Johnson at johnsonh@mccc.edu.
