Through historical documentation and powerful storytelling, the exhibit highlights Agatha Babino’s experiences - from her early life in bondage to her resilience and contributions in freedom. Her story offers valuable insight into a complex past and is an opportunity for meaningful reflection and learning. The exhibit is designed to be for audiences of all ages.

About the Exhibition

Survival, in general, was hard in the 1800s and brutal if you were enslaved. This exhibit covers three critical periods of inhumanity and efforts toward humanity - slavery, emancipation, and reconstruction.

Visitors will discover what enslaved people endured based on the historical case of Agatha Babino's published Slave Narrative in the Library of Congress.

What is a Slave Narrative? During the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Writers' Project Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives, 1936-1938, collected over 2,300 interviews from formerly enslaved African Americans. Over 300 of these interviewees were taken from people living in Texas.  The WPA narratives evidence the intention of formerly enslaved people to reconstruct and reshape their lives despite the hardships and challenges surrounding them.

When our visitors look into one person's journey, we hope to inspire families to dig deep into their families' journeys, discover the hardships and lifestyles their ancestors endured, and find out what brought their families to Texas. Why? Individuals and families will appreciate the present by viewing how oppression was real and why equality for everyone matters.

See https://beaumontheritage.org/ for updates on programming and related events.

Exhibit viewing is open to the public during regular John Jay French Museum hours:

Tuesday–Friday from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Admission is included with the museum’s tour fee of $5 per person for ages 4 and older.

As part of the Museums for All initiative, admission is free for up to four visitors per group with a SNAP benefit card and a valid ID.

The Beaumont Heritage Society extends its deepest thanks to the Museum of Undertold Texas History for bringing this exhibit to Southeast Texas. We also gratefully acknowledge our grantors, the Foundation for Southeast Texas and the Southeast Texas Arts Council, for their support.

This program is also supported by Humanities Texas, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Rice University Humanities Research Center. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this exhibition and its programming do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Humanities Texas, or the Rice University Humanities Research Center.