Cross posting from the African American forum: Harlem's African American Wax Museum Creator: Raven Chanticleer

[mnhtnbb]

(I am cross posting about Raven Chanticleer here because he was gay and the fact that his family did not approve of his "lifestyle" was the reason they destroyed the museum he created and much of his life's work after his death.) https://www.democraticunderground.com/118771452


If you lived in NY in the '80's or 90's, you may have heard or been familiar with the name/persona of Raven Chanticleer.

My youngest son holds a doctorate from Yale Drama and has been writing/producing/narrating a podcast https://www.artofcrimepodcast.com/ for several years. In a roundabout way (after producing a series about Madame Tussaud) he stumbled upon Raven Chanticleer, who was motivated to create Harlem's African American Wax Museum after a visit to Madame Tussaud's in London where he noticed there was not one single wax figure of an African American in the collection at the time.

My son writes:

For about the last year-and-a-half, I've been working on a side project titled Raven. It's about an unforgettable man with an unforgettable name: Raven Chanticleer. In 1989, Raven fulfilled a long-held dream of opening a wax museum devoted to Black history in Harlem. It garnered widespread attention in New York and abroad. When Raven died in 2002, his family gutted the museum and sold the property, destroying his life's work. For years, Raven's prized wax statues were thought to have been lost or destroyed. Plot twist: some of them miraculously survived. Part character study and part detective story, this miniseries looks at who Raven was, why the African American Wax Museum mattered, and what happened to the collection after its closure.

If you like what you hear, please follow the show on your preferred podcasting platform (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc.) so you find out as soon as new episodes are out. Again, the podcast is called Raven, and it's linked to my name. (Gavin Whitehead)

Apple Podcasts has spotlighted the series on the homepage under New Shows

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Thanks for bringing this story to our attention, my dear mnhtnbb!

It deserves the spotlight.

[mnhtnbb]

2. Peggy, I have been listening to my son tell about this story for the last year as he has put pieces together

and gotten interviews with various people about Raven Chanticleer. It's fascinating. There are clips of some interviews in the first episode.

Just for fun this morning I searched the website of the National Museum of African American History & Culture in DC for the name Raven Chanticleer and it brought up zero results.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. How strange it is that there's no mention of him in that location. He should be there; why isn't he?

[mnhtnbb]

4. Gavin will devote six podcast episodes putting the entire story together about Raven Chanticleer.

Look at the revisionist history that's going on right now about minorities and women in the current administration. That's just one year. Raven died 20 some years ago. That's a lot of time to erase someone's work, especially if there's a group actively working to do so, rather than to preserve art.