Walter Pantovic slavery collection

Walter Pantovic was born in Yugoslavia in 1965. At the age of two he immigrated to the United States with his family and settled in Detroit, Michigan. He spent his formative years in and graduated from Hamtramck High School. An important influence on him in Detroit was that he had the opportunity to study black history in elementary school. Despite this important introduction to black history, courses in black history were not available to him in middle and high school. Nevertheless, he continued to study black history on his own.

In 1985 he moved to the New York/New Jersey area and opened an environmental contracting firm, called All City Environmental . His firm removes asbestos and lead paint, and does environmental testing, demolition, insulation and fireproofing.

Having an interest in black history since his formative years, he began collecting artifacts and antiques related to the subject. He was especially interested in artifacts and antiques related to slavery and the Civil War and has acquired an important and valuable collection of items from those periods. He has assembled an impressive collection of shackles, slave tags, photographs, period newspapers, manillas, bills of sale and authentic items that tell the true story of American slavery. The items in his collection alone belie the alleged "kindness" and "mildness" said to have characterized American slavery.

His motivation for collecting such items that many attempt to disassociate from the "American" experience is described best in his own words:

"I believe that it is a part of history that has been long enough ignored, we cannot continue to sweep atrocities like this into the past. It is better to educate our young people about our past mistakes so that they will not be repeated."