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Bosque Redondo Memorial, Fort Sumner, NM, US
When settlers arrived in the territory of New Mexico in the mid-1800s, they met fierce resistance from the Navajo and Mescalero Apache people who fought to maintain control of their traditional lands and way of life. In an effort to subjugate them, the US Army waged war on the Indians. Over 9,000 Navajo and Mescalero Apache who survived were starved into submission and forced to march a desperate journey into captivity, where they were held from 1863 - 1868 at Fort Sumner and the surrounding million-acre Bosque Redondo Indian Reservation.
When this experiment in social engineering inevitably failed, the Treaty of 1868 was negotiated, allowing the Navajo to return to their original homes in the Four Corners Region and acknowledging Navajo sovereignty. Today, under the direction of the Museum of New Mexico Foundation, a museum and interpretive trail provide insight into the tragic history of Fort Sumner and the Bosque Redondo Indian Reservation. To learn more about the Bosque Redondo Memorial, visit http://www.museumofnewmexico.org/exhibits.cgi?_fn=Show+Exhibit&_recordnum=289
Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Chicago, IL, US
The Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, part of the College of Architecture and the Arts at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is a historic site and dynamic memorial to Jane Addams, her innovative settlement house programs and associates, and the neighborhood they served. Housed in two original Hull-House buildings, the Museum is an internationally recognized symbol of multicultural understanding, reflecting the long Hull-House tradition of solidarity and reform, educational innovation, and urban research.
Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr founded the Hull-House social settlement on Chicago's multiethnic immigrant Near West Side neighborhood in 1889. From Hull-House, where she lived and worked until her death in 1935, Jane Addams built her reputation as one of America's most prominent women through her writing, settlement work, and international efforts for peace. Jane Addams and the residents of Hull-House created opportunities for civic discourse and dialogue, advocated for public health, fair labor practices, full citizenship rights for immigrants, juvenile justice reform, public education, recreational and public space, public arts, and free speech. In 1931, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work opposing militarism worldwide and for her efforts in neighborhoods and communities to create the conditions for peace to flourish.
For more information on the Jane-Addams Hull-House Museum, visit http://www.hullhousemuseum.org
Sites of Conscience Regional Workshop Partners: Africa
Over the next few issues, Matters of Conscience will feature new Institutional Members that participated in Sites of Conscience regional workshops in Africa, Asia and South America.
Ghana Museums and Monuments Board, Accra, Ghana
The Ghana Museums and Monuments Board administers six Ghanaian museums, the largest of which is the National Museum in Accra. Opened in 1957 as part of Ghana's independence celebration, the Museum contains objects of archaeology, ethnography and fine art and goes as far back in Ghana's history as the Stone Age. Temporary exhibits are held regularly, by both the Museum and individuals and foreign embassies, and guided tours and films are also provided for guests. The Monuments Board oversees the Cape Coast and Elmina Castles.
Cape Coast Castle, Cape Coast, Ghana
One of at least 22 European forts built along the Ghanaian coast, Cape Coast Castle was not initially designed for slave trading. The first building constructed on the site was a Portuguese lodge, which was expanded by the Dutch into a military fort and eventually taken over by the British in 1664. In an highly institutionalized system with little human contact between the detainers and detainees, the Castle held thousands of slaves awaiting deportation in underground cells. A Dutch Reformed Church was constructed directly over the men's cells, while other upper floors were used for office space and the official residence of the British governor. The Castle ceased to serve as a slave trading post after Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807; it was converted into the headquarters for local government and housed a prison in one wing of the fort. Cape Coast Castle has served exclusively as a historical attraction since 1993.
Elmina Castle, Cape Coast, Ghana
Built by the Portuguese in 1482 on the shoreline of the Gold Coast, Elmina Castle was originally established as a trading post for goods bartered for local gold and valuable gems. However, as the demand for slaves increased in the Americas and Caribbean, the Castle gained strategic importance as a depot where hundreds of thousands of slaves were held captive before being transported across the Atlantic Ocean to the New World. The Castle storerooms were converted into dungeons, and the ownership of the castle changed hands several times until it was eventually seized by the British in 1872. During World War II, the British trained soldiers to fight in Burma and India, and in 1948 the castle housed a police training school. Today, Elmina Castle is a tourist attraction and World Heritage Monument that tells the difficult history of slavery to remind visitors to "never again perpetrate such injustice against humanity."
Gramophone Records Museum & Research Centre of Ghana, Cape Coast, Ghana
The Gramophone Records Museum and Research Centre of Ghana (GRMRC) was created in 1994 with the goal of facilitating public access to its extensive collection. The collection includes over 18,000 78 rpm records, 2,500 45 rpm records and several reel-to-reel oral history recordings all collected in Ghana. The core of the collection is the Ghanaian Highlife music records. As the most important form of modern Ghanaian dance music, Ghanaian Highlife is a mixture of Ghanaian folk music, Caribbean Calypso and American Jazz. With a grant from the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology of Montreal, the GRMRC is undertaking a project to create a digital archive of its collection. To learn more about the GRMRC visit http://www.fondation-langlois.org/html/e/page.php?NumPage=97, or contact sarpongkwame@yahoo.com
South End Museum, Port Elizabeth, South Africa
In 1950, the South End of Port Elizabeth was redistricted under the Group Areas Act of the country's apartheid government, and the non-white residents of the area were forcibly uprooted from the community. Today, the South End Museum stands as a memorial to those who were affected by apartheid, and works to educate visitors about the area's history.
As one of the oldest suburbs in Port Elizabeth, the South End was known for its vibrant and diverse culture. However, this culture was nearly decimated by the practice of forced removals, the Group Areas Act and apartheid legislation. The South End Museum attempts to depict the tragedy and sorrow that resulted from these practices, while recreating the once dynamic atmosphere that characterized the South End. The Museum notes that such severe damage cannot be undone but believes that the act of remembering is essential to the healing process. Museum exhibits extend outside the building, with the Heritage Trail, initiated by the Museum's trustees, that leads visitors on a tour of the buildings and other sites within the Museum's vicinity. To learn more about South End Museum, contact admin@semuseum.co.za
University of Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa
The University of the Western Cape (UWC) is an autonomous, public, general university in Cape Town, South Africa, established by Acts of Parliament in 1960. Throughout the 20th Century, the University played a significant role in the struggle for peace and democracy in South Africa and has produced some of South Africa's most important political figures, including much of Nelson Mandela's cabinet.
Led by its Chancellor, the Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Mpilo Tutu, UWC is a leader in many fields of research and education, including Museum and Heritage Studies, Visual History and Public History. It is also home to the foremost archive of apartheid resistance, the UWC Robben Island Mayibuye Archive, which it manages in partnership with the Robben Island Museum. For more information on UWC, visit http://www.uwc.ac.za/portal/index.htm
Workers' Library Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa
The Workers' Library and Museum is situated in a former migrant labor compound in Newtown, the cultural centre of Johannesburg, South Africa. The single-sex hostel is estimated to have been built between 1905 and 1910 by the Johannesburg municipality for the purpose of housing over 300 black male migrants who worked at the city's power station and other municipal facilities. In 1993, the Workers' Education Initiative Workers' Library turned the compound into a museum which was declared a national monument in 1996. Khanya College, a non-governmental organization that provides political and labor education for workers and social movements, incorporated the Workers' Library and Museum in 2004.
Today the site is a living symbol of the oppression of the migrant-labor system and the racially segregated South African working class in the 20th century. Khanya College is currently re-conceptualizing the museum as a heritage site to commemorate past and present labor and migration struggles in an increasingly globalized world. The museum is part of Khanya College's Working Class History Program, which promotes awareness of and activism related to labor issues. To learn more about the Worker's Library and Museum, contact wlm_newtown@gmx.net
Department of Arts, Culture & Heritage Services, Johannesburg, South Africa
The Department of Arts, Culture and Heritage for the City of Johannesburg manages five museums, the Johannesburg Art Gallery and two community arts centers in Soweto (Uncle Tom's Hall and the Mofolo Arts Centre at Diepkloof). The Department is engaging in an urban regeneration plan centered around the preservation of its unique heritage and the renewal of its dynamic culture, and specifically pursuing strategies to maximize community participation and involvement in cultural activities, especially among more disadvantaged communities. To learn more about the Department's efforts, visit http://www.joburg.org.za/arts/index.stm
The Department of Arts, Culture, and Heritage Services also oversees and manages the Sophiatown Memorial Museum and the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum.
Sophiatown Memorial Museum, Sophiatown, South Africa
In 1955, South Africa's apartheid government demolished the city of Sophiatown, with the exception of a single church. The city, which was previously racially integrated, was redistricted as a whites-only suburb of Johannesburg and renamed Triomf (Triumph). Centered around the one building in Sophiatown that remained intact during the resettlement - the Anglican Church of Christ the King - a memorial constructed on the site aims to capture the suburb's past memories, as well as celebrate those who played a part in resistance to apartheid.
Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa
Two blocks from the corner where Hector Pieterson was killed by police gunfire, a memorial museum now stands dedicated to all the children killed in the infamous Soweto Riots of June 16, 1976. Twelve-year-old Hector, part of a group of students marching to protest the government's new policy to enforce education in Afrikaans rather than English, was one of the first casualties of a day which would eventually claim over 500 lives. The Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum, which opened in 2002, chronicles the events leading up to the riots.
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In 1995, the Constitutional Court judges of South Africa selected the Old Fort prison in Johannesburg as the site for the new Constitutional Court building. The prison complex, which once symbolized the worst of the old apartheid regime and held Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi, would now be viewed worldwide as a beacon of hope. Constitution Hill now includes a museum interpreting the history of the prison and issues of justice past and present, public spaces for dialogue, and the Court building itself. The Court building allows visitors to experience South Africa's transition to democracy, observe the process by which freedom is now protected and learn how South Africa is building the future on its past. To learn more about Constitution Hill, visit 
Between September 29 and October 5, 1944, more than 800 people in the small village of Monte Sole in Marzabotto, Italy were massacred by Nazi SS troops with the help of Italian Fascist elements. Today, the land is preserved as a natural and historical park, scattered with ruins of the former village. Founded in 2002, 
In the gulag camps, the pilorama (power saw bench) was the center of the prison zone and the center of camp life - a hub of activity where prisoners would congregate to cut wood. This summer, the