Join Jeffrey Fletcher from The Ruby & Calvin Fletcher African American Museum, Connecticut’s first African American museum, for a discussion on the vast collection of artifacts dating from the Atlantic slave trade to the Jim Crow South. Founded in 2021, the museum’s name is in honor of Jeffrey Fletcher’s parents Ruby and Calvin Fletcher, who grew up in Camden, South Carolina and Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina respectively during the 1940s. As Ruby Fletcher relocated from the south to Colchester, Connecticut, she collected artifacts from auctions and tag sales; these items serve as the foundation for the museum’s archive. The exhibit is a collection of artifacts which reflect decades of turbulent times for African Americans in the United States during the period of slavery and the Civil Rights movement. It brings visitors up close and personal which is an experience that many have only read about in history books or seen in movies. The exhibit embraces the teachings of tolerance, diversity, unity and educating people that there was a time when imagery played a significant role in how African Americans were perceived.