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With Liberty and Justice for All is an exhibit at The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan. It’s located at the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation. It covers four key rights movements in American history.
American Revolution
The first movement is the American Revolution. On display is George Washington’s camp bed used during the Revolutionary War from 1775 to 1780, as well as a Speaker’s chair or Supreme Court chair (1790-1795) from Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. You can also find an original copy of Common Sense by Thomas Paine, printed in February 1776, and one of 200 engraved copies of the Declaration of Independence commissioned by John Quincy Adams and printed in 1823.
Antislavery
Next is a section on the antislavery movement and the Civil War era. Shackles worn by slaves, Civil War uniforms and artifacts, photos, and articles are all on display, as well as an original copy of the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery in 1865.
Two of the most important items in this section are a life mask of Abraham Lincoln and a life cast of his hand. They were made by Leonard Volk, a sculptor from Chicago, Illinois.
Another is the actual chair used by Lincoln when he was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC., on April 14, 1865, by John Wilkes Booth, during a production of Our American Cousin. Henry Ford purchased the chair for his museum in 1929.
Women’s Suffrage
The third section focuses on the Women’s Suffrage Movement. It includes posters, photos, pamphlets, and other items related to the movement, as well as a replica prison cell in which women would be imprisoned for supporting their right to vote.
Civil Rights
Finally, the most moving section is about the Civil Rights Movement. As an ongoing struggle, the origins of the movement are still quite fresh in the minds of many Americans.
The segregation laws in Southern states called for “separate but equal” facilities in schools, bus stations, trains, restrooms, and other aspects of public life. A replica bus station waiting room has two entrances – one labeled “White Waiting Room” and another “Colored Waiting Room”. When you step inside each room, you can clearly see the differences in the quality of the facilities. Facilities such as this were always separate but never equal.
Outside the waiting room are two drinking fountains. One is labeled “Whites Only” and another labeled “Colored”. Both date back to 1954. A Ku Klux Klan uniform stands nearby in front of an original rally poster from 1950.
Rosa Parks Bus
The most interesting artifact in the Civil Rights section is a bus from Montgomery, Alabama. Inside this bus on December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man and was arrested soon after. The bus was made in 1948 and refurbished to what it would have looked like in 1955.
Visitors can actually climb into the bus and take a seat. Every so often, docents lead short lectures about that day and how the bus came to be a part of the museum’s collection.
