After a journey spanning more than 100 years, on Saturday, Sept. 24, the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), our country’s first national museum celebrating the history, culture, and contributions of black Americans, will open on the mall in Washington D.C.
In the words of the immortal Sam Cooke, “...it’s been a long time coming.”
In “Making a Home for Black History,” Vinson Cunningham gives a brief synopsis of that journey from idea to realization:
The museum’s mouthful of a name—and its inelegant initialism, N.M.A.A.H.C.—testifies to a bureaucratic slog that began in 1915, when black veterans of the Union Army, together in Washington to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the war’s end, and fed up with the discrimination they found in the capital city, organized a “colored citizens’ committee” to build a monument to the civic contributions of their recently emancipated people. In 1929, Herbert Hoover appointed a commission, which included the civil-rights leader and educator Mary McLeod Bethune and the N.A.A.C.P. co-founder Mary Church Terrell, to come up with a plan. Unfunded and largely ignored, the commission languished, and was eventually dissolved by Franklin D. Roosevelt. The effort began again in the nineteen-seventies, with several abortive attempts at legislation and much controversy within the Smithsonian Institution, under whose aegis each national museum is administered. Finally, in 2003, George W. Bush signed the National Museum of African American History and Culture Act, which had been sponsored in the Senate by Sam Brownback and in the House by John Lewis, the project’s most consistent contemporary champion.
The NMAAHC is not the only museum dedicated to black history in the United States, of course. The oldest is located on the campus of Virginia’s historically black Hampton University:
Founded in 1868, the Hampton University Museum is the nation's oldest African American museum. With galleries dedicated to African American, African, American Indian and Asian and Pacific art and artifacts, the museum contains more than 9,000 objects representing cultures and people from around the world. Within its fine arts collection is the largest existing collection of works in any museum by the artists John Biggers, Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence and Samella Lewis.
Museums large and small are part of the fabric of our lives. In a world that is increasingly cyberspace and social media-oriented it is interesting to note some of the data on museums collected by The American Alliance of Museums. Their fact sheet points out not only their enormous popularity— “There are approximately 850 million visits each year to American museums, more than the attendance for all major league sporting events and theme parks combined”—it also includes the role museums play in serving the public as community anchors, in partnering with schools, and as economic engines.
With all this in mind, examining the specific history and development of museums focused on black American history and their contributions to the U.S. has been an absorbing and educational journey for me.
History of African American museums in the United States
Prior to 1950, there were about 30 museums devoted primarily to African-American culture and history in the United States. These were located primarily at historically black colleges and universities or at libraries that had significant African-American culture and history collections. Important collections were developed at Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina; Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee; Howard University in Washington, D.C.; Lincoln University in Chester County, Pennsylvania; Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland; Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama; and Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Alabama. Additionally, local historical societies, history clubs, and reading groups in African-American communities also collected and displayed African-American cultural artifacts
The first independent, nonprofit museums in the United States were the African American Museum in Cleveland, Ohio (founded in 1956), the DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago, Illinois (founded in 1960), and the International Afro American Museum in Detroit, Michigan (founded in 1965; now known as the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History). Throughout the 1960s, the energy of the American Civil Rights Movement led to numerous local African-American museums. being founded Between 1868 and 1991, there were about 150 African-American museums established in 37 states. As of 2010 the largest African-American museum in the United States was the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, Michigan. It will be exceeded in size by the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture when completed in 2016.
If you are wondering about the existence of black museums in your area, Black Past and Wikipedia both have lists. Black Past also has a list of National African American Historic Landmarks by State.
The history of African American art and its exclusion from “mainstream” (read Euro-Centric) museums and galleries should be understood in order to appreciate the need for, and development of, black museums.
There are quite a few books which examine this from varied perspectives. I
suggest you explore the work of art historian Dr. Bridget R. Cooks, who currently teaches at the University of California, Irvine. Cook’s work examines the politics of black art, the history of African American art and culture, and the racial politics of mainstream museums.
She discusses her work in a lecture she delivered at the National Gallery of Art in 2012 in which she explores the issues from her book Exhibiting Blackness: African Americans and the American Art Museum.
In 1927, the Chicago Art Institute presented the first major museum exhibition of art by African Americans. Designed to demonstrate the artists' abilities and to promote racial equality, the exhibition also revealed the art world's anxieties about the participation of African Americans in the exclusive venue of art museums―places where blacks had historically been barred from visiting let alone exhibiting. Since then, America's major art museums have served as crucial locations for African Americans to protest against their exclusion and attest to their contributions in the visual arts.
Museums go beyond just displaying “art.” They preserve, maintain and narrate “history”, the how and why of it—and what is excluded is as important as what is displayed. I’ve expressed my opinion on the need to maintain Black History Month and on black history as American history, with suggestions for texts you should read.
We don’t often think of the struggle to found and sustain black museums as a “movement,” yet it was. Historian Andrea Burns explores this in From Storefront to Monument: Tracing the Public History of the Black Museum Movement.
Today well over two hundred museums focusing on African American history and culture can be found throughout the United States and Canada. Many of these institutions trace their roots to the 1960s and 1970s, when the struggle for racial equality inspired a movement within the black community to make the history and culture of African America more "public."
This book tells the story of four of these groundbreaking museums: the DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago (founded in 1961); the International Afro-American Museum in Detroit (1965); the Anacostia Neighborhood Museum in Washington, D.C. (1967); and the African American Museum of Philadelphia (1976). Andrea A. Burns shows how the founders of these institutions, many of whom had ties to the Black Power movement, sought to provide African Americans with a meaningful alternative to the misrepresentation or utter neglect of black history found in standard textbooks and most public history sites. Through the recovery and interpretation of artifacts, documents, and stories drawn from African American experience, they encouraged the embrace of a distinctly black identity and promoted new methods of interaction between the museum and the local community.
Over time, the black museum movement induced mainstream institutions to integrate African American history and culture into their own exhibits and educational programs. This often controversial process has culminated in the creation of a National Museum of African American History and Culture, now scheduled to open in the nation's capital in 2015 (*my note — the opening was delayed till 2016)
Some of us don’t often think of the role of politicians and electoral politics in supporting, sustaining, and ultimately funding projects like NNMAHC. Sen. Sam Brownback was mentioned above, as of course was Congressman John Lewis (who I think of as a national treasure). Also key in the efforts was Rep. Mickey Leland from Texas, who died tragically in an airplane crash in 1989. Lewis and Leland co-sponsored legislation in 1988. Illinois Sens. Paul Simon and Carol Moseley Braun were also a key advocates. Though their legislative efforts failed, ostensibly due to “cost considerations,” it’s illuminating that the major opponent to the establishment of the museum was the powerful white racist senator from North Carolina, Jesse Helms. Helms was able to kill the bills several times.
Sections of the national museum website titled “The Building” and “The Architects” give the background on lead designer David Adjaye, lead architect Philip Freelon, and J. Max Bond Jr., who died in 2009. What fascinates me is the final result:
From one perspective, the building’s architecture follows classical Greco-Roman form in its use of a base and shaft, topped by a capital or corona. In this case, the corona is inspired by the three-tiered crowns used in Yoruban art from West Africa. Moreover, the building’s main entrance is a welcoming porch, which has architectural roots in Africa and throughout the African Diaspora, especially the American South and Caribbean. Finally, by wrapping the entire building in an ornamental bronze-colored metal lattice, Adjaye the architect pays homage to the intricate ironwork that was crafted by enslaved African Americans in Louisiana, South Carolina, and elsewhere.
In the Black Kos weekly series here at Daily Kos, we invite folks to join us on the Front Porch. The Museum does the same.
You can follow many of the events leading up to the opening and beyond on twitter, at #APeoplesJourney
Museum director Lonnie Bunch is profiled in this Christian Science Monitor story:
Even as a youth, Lonnie Bunch was captivated by history.
“The desire to learn, the desire to understand, was really sort of embedded in everything we did,” says Mr. Bunch, who is the son of educators.
When his family moved from Newark, N.J., to the nearby community of Belleville, they were one of only a few black families in town, and the only one in their neighborhood. Still today, Bunch remembers being treated “wonderfully” by some, yet “horribly” by others.
The inquisitive teen naturally turned to history for an answer. “History, for me, became a tool to help me understand my own life,” he says. “But I also realized that if a nation understands its history, it is a wonderful tool to help a nation figure out how they live their lives, how to understand the conditions they face.”
Bunch discusses the museum and acquisitions in this short White House video.
The groundbreaking ceremony
The Smithsonian broke ground for its 19th museum, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2012 in an invitation-only ceremony on the National Mall. President Barack Obama spoke at the ceremony. Other honored guests included First Lady Michelle Obama, former First Lady Laura Bush, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and Gov. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.). The ceremony took place on the museum’s five-acre site adjacent to the Washington Monument at 14th Street and Constitution Avenue N.W.
The day will soon be dawning when the museum’s long birthing journey comes to an end and a new one will begin, hopefully fulfilling its goal to educate all comers through its doors.
Here’s the schedule of opening festivities.
Entry to all Smithsonian museums in Washington, D.C. is free. The Freedom Sounds festival and public viewing areas for the outdoor Dedication Ceremony, are free and open to the public.
Washington Monument Grounds Friday, September 23, 2016, 12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. Saturday, September 24, 2016, 12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. Sunday, September 25, 2016, 12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Dedication Ceremony
National Museum of African American History and Culture Saturday, September 24, 2016 9:00 am Gathering and Musical Prelude 10:00 a.m. Dedication Ceremony Begins 1:00 p.m. Museum Opens to the Public
Museum Opens to the Public
National Museum of African American History and Culture Saturday, September 24, 2016, 1:00pm – 8:00 p.m. Sunday, September 25, 2016, 7:00 a.m. – Midnight
I can’t get to D.C. for the opening, and am planning to head there next spring. But I’ll watch the celebrations on live stream, and will be there in spirit.
Hope all of you will join in.