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Chicago Daily Defender - October 15-21, 1966
8 American Artists Make Cultural Tour of Russia
By Louise P. Dumetz
Negro Press International
She has a quietly confident air, this art teacher at Du Sable High School, Chicago. The natural hairdo she displays was adopted long before the style became a fad. And the jewelry she wears is so highly individual that when you mention it, she pauses to tell you a story. "Your necklace is lovely."
"My art group gave it to me as a remembrance of our tour. It's amber. It is indeed lovely. It's so lovely that I remember them every time I wear it."
She is Mrs. Margaret Burroughs, author, artist, teacher, historian, and director of the Negro Museum of History and Art 3806 S. Michigan.
Mr. Burroughs has achieved national renown for her varied cultural interests and endeavors.
Her most recent cultural endeavor was a trip to the Soviet Union with a group of representative Negro artists. But let Mrs. Burroughs tell you the story:
"It all started with a letter. As a member of the National Conference of Artists Cultural Exchange commission, it was my job to stimulate cultural artistic contact between American Negro artists and artists of other countries.
"Since I had visited the Soviet Union as a tourist, last summer, and had met a number of their artists I decided to write to their Society for Friendship with Foreign Countries, to ask that an invitation to visit their country be extended to a group of Negro American artists.
I sent off the letter stating that we, a group of several sections of our country, would like to visit their country to meet their artists and to see their artistic treasures, especially the world-famed Hermitage Art collection at Leningrad.
Further, I promised that we would bring with us a collection o prints and drawings by representative Negro artists -- to be shown in the Soviet Union.
"A few weeks later, a response to my letter came in the form of an invitation from the Soviet American Friendship Society of the Institute for Relations with Foreign Countries.
My next task was to solicit a country-wide delegation of eight Negro American artists who had the time free, (the month of August), and at least one-way fare to Moscow.
"After much writing back and forth across the country, the delegation was finalized and was composed of the following persons.
Sylvester Britton, Chicago, artist, and midwest regional director, National Conference of Artists; Geraldine McCullough, college art professor, and 1964 winner of the Widener Gold Medal for sculpture, Pennsylvania Academy of Art; Dudley Radall, Detroit poet, editor and Librarian; Gary Rickson, artist and president, Boston Negro Artist association; Ruth Waddy, painter and organizer, Art West Associates, Los Angeles; Wesley South, editor, Chicago Courier and radio and TV personality; Charles Burroughs lecturer-historian, curator Museum of Negro History and Art, Chicago; and myself.
"With more than 200 art pieces representing talent all over the country, we arrived in Moscow and were formally greeted by our hosts. Our tour included visits with young artists at an art camp on the outskirts of Moscow, a tour of Lenin's apartment, and a tour of the Kremlin Armory museum.
"We took a train to Leningrad and saw the world famous Hermitage Art museum, Peter's Summer Palace, and Aurora Ship museum. Our travels also took us to Baku, capital of the Republic of Azerbayan, the village of Oily Stones, and Alma-ata, the capital of the Republic of Kazahhstan. At each stop we met and visited with artists, toured the local museums, and enjoyed interesting and fruitful discussions.
"Back in Moscow, we visited Lumumba university, Lenin National Library, Tetrakov and Alexander Pushkin museums, Writers Union, Radio Moscow, and a sculptors' studio.
"We then traveled to Prague, Czechoslovakia, where we were particularly impressed by a visit to Lidice, the village that was flattened by the Nazis and whose entire male population was slaughtered.
Chicago Defender 10-15-66