A Boston museum has responded with an apology to claims by a teacher that her students experienced racist language and treatment during a school excursion.
Teacher Marvelyne Lamy wrote in a Facebook post that her 7th grade students were treated differently to white students during a school tour at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
"The worse part about all of this is seeing the hurt look on my children’s faces as this was their first time experiencing racism first hand," Ms Lamy wrote.
The allegations include that a museum tour guide referred to "watermelon", which has racist connotations dating back to the civil war when newly emancipated slaves took to growing watermelons to support their families.
Many defenders of slavery at the time featured watermelon in caricatures, songs and stories where black people were negatively portrayed.
"At the very beginning of the tour, one of the staff gave an overview on what to expect and told the kids no food, no drink, and no watermelon," Ms Lamy wrote.
Ms Lamy also said security guards instructed her group not to touch any of the artifacts in the museum, "yet the white students there touched the displays several times while security looked on without saying anything".
"The minute one of our students followed suit, the security guards would yell at them that they should not touch exhibits", she wrote in the post.
Some of the visitors also made offensive remarks and at some stage, "it got so bad that I started gathering our students so we could leave", said the teacher in the post.
The post was shared 1500 times, with some people commenting "I hate the fact that you and your students had to go through that", and another saying "I can’t believe there is so much ignorance and hatred out there".
The museum contains more than 450,000 works of art and is the fifth largest museum in the United States.
The museum has apologised for the incident and
The museum apologised over its treatment of a group of students. Source: Getty Images
"A number of students on an organised visit encountered a range of challenging and unacceptable experiences that made them feel unwelcome", the statement said.
"That is not who we are or want to be. Our intention is to set the highest of standards, and we are committed to doing the work that it will take to get there," it said.
"We want to apologise specifically to the students, faculty, and parents of the Davis Leadership Academy."
