335: Christy S. Coleman on the role museums play in shaping public understanding of history

Today on the Tales of a Red Clay Rambler Podcast I have an interview with public historian and museum executive Christy S. Coleman. Her museum career started at seventeen portraying enslaved women at Colonial Williamsburg in their living history educational program. She went on to be the Director of Historic Programs before becoming the CEO of multiple institutions including the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, MI, and the American Civil War Museum in Richmond, VA. In our interview we talk about the empathetic value of living history programs, how museums create context in the way they display objects, and Christy’s work as a historical consultant for TV and film. We discuss her work on the recent biopic Harriet (2019) about the life of Harriet Tubman. In January of this year, Christy was named Executive Director of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, which administers the Jamestown Settlement and the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown. To find out more about Christy visit www.christyscoleman.com or follow her on Twitter at @historygonwrong.