An art exhibit inviting viewers to reflect on the humanity of enslaved Africans being sold and transported as goods recently opened in Chapel Hill. The exhibit is called Cash Crop! and was created by Durham based artist Stephen Hayes. He says part of the inspiration for Cash Crop! came from not learning the whole story behind the transportation of Africans as goods and commodities in school.

Cash Crop! exhibit. Photo via Town of Chapel Hill.

“We just went into the history of slavery and all the other histories, not the important history of how these people were shipped here,” says Hayes. “It was estimated that 15 million people were transported, so finding that information out that it was estimated that 15 million people were transported, I wanted to think about how that still happens today, how do we still benefit from the transporting of goods and commodities.”

Hayes debuted Cash Crop! in 2010, and since then it has been traveling to galleries all over the East Coast. The installation consists of 15 life-sized statues, all modeled after people the artist knows, chained to pallets to represent how goods are shipped.

Cash Crop! is one of several events taking place locally to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the first ship of enslaved Africans arriving in America. The Chapel Hill Public Library will also host the Hampton History Museum’s traveling exhibit 1619: Arrival of the First Africans. This exhibit details the journey of the first African slaves from their home in Angola to Virginia by way of Spanish slave ships.

Director of Chapel Hill Public Library Susan Brown says Hayes’ Cash Crop! installation fits perfectly with the installation at the library.

“To see these people at the same scale as you, and then in the very front of it he’s got two children,” says Brown. “It’s really, really powerful.”

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP and the Carolina Black Caucus will also be hosting a series of discussions at Epilogue Books to help contextualize the exhibits.

Cash Crop! will be featured at 109 East Franklin St through November 17, and 1619: Arrival of the First Africans runs through November 18. More information is available on the town’s website.

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