By Barbara Smith
WASHINGTON, DC – A middle aged man stands, transfixed, before a photo of Muhammed Ali, staring defiantly into the camera. The image is displayed prominently in the National Museum for African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, with a headline exclaiming in huge, bold letters: “I shook up the world!” That day in 1964 when Ali bellowed those prophetic words after defeating Sonny Liston is etched in history, comments the man. “I saw it, I remember it. And he did shake up the world.” In much the same way, a visit to this first-of-its-kind museum, the only US museum devoted exclusively to black American life, history and culture, may very well shake up your consciousness. With its history galleries that cover slavery through the present day, including the #BlackLivesMatter movement, a theater named for donor Oprah Winfrey, culture galleries featuring African-American icons of music, theatre, film and television, and a Contemplative Court where visitors can reflect on what they have seen, the museum is a living testament to its stated goal, which is to be “a place where all Americans can learn about the richness and diversity of the African American experience, what it means to their lives and how it helped us shape this nation.”
On a recent weekend in April, a tour group from southern California, many of them charter members of the museum, immersed themselves in the exhibits and displays that span 400 years of the African American experience.
“I was enthralled by the entire experience,” said Donald Brown of Pomona. “From a historic perspective, the exhibits and artifacts, dating back from the 1400’s, were extremely informative,” he said, noting displays depicting the movement and selling of slaves from their homeland as well as the uplifting exhibits showcasing African American contributions to the arts. Photographs of the historic sit-in in Greensboro, North Carolina at the Woolworth counter that eventually led to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, as well as the segregated Southern Railway car that defined the Jim Crow South had a powerful visual impact on the retired district director of Dept. of Public Social Service in Los Angeles County, but he was affected most viscerally by the Emmett Till exhibition, which displays the original coffin of young Till, the 14-year-old youth who was savagely killed in Mississippi in 1955. “I reeled back at the sight. I was an adult at that time, going from the North to the South to school,” said the Morehouse College graduate. “The ugly photographs, the picture of his body and his mother standing there–it’s something that’s been seared in my brain forever.”
Brown and his wife Evelyn Diaz Brown eagerly anticipated the opening of this newest Smithsonian museum, which sits on DC’s National Mall, having followed its progress since the 2003 signing into legislation by President George W. Bush. Frequent visitors to the DC area, Evelyn says, “I worked for the federal government and we have been to probably every major museum there is in Washington DC. This is the finest of them all. I am a Latina and this is our American history. The detail used in depicting the diaspora of Africans to this new world was astonishing,” she said, adding that the displays devoted to the civil rights struggle resonated most with her. As a college student during the 60’s, she participated in many of the marches and demonstrations. “Those were big years,” she said. “It felt good to get detailed information about these groups and to see the leaders, who placed their lives in danger, get their due.”
Among the 37,000 diverse objects spread across the 400,000 square foot museum are fragments of an 18th century slave ship, Nat Turner’s Bible, Chuck Berry’s red Cadillac convertible, a life-size sculpture of Olympians Tommie Smith and John Carlos, fists raised in the Black Power salute, an auction block where slaves stood to be sold, a statue of Thomas Jefferson standing in front of a stack of bricks marked with the names of people he owned, Harriet Tubman’s shawl and hymnal, the bucket used by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in which he soaked his feet after the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March, sneakers with hand-painted images of President Barack Obama, a dress worn by civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks, the Tuskegee Airman Congressional Gold Medal, and a protest sign pleading for justice for Trayvon Martin. A monitor projects vintage footage of actor/scholar/activist Paul Robeson, and a life-size poster of iconic playwright August Wilson proclaims “The message of America is, ‘Leave your Africanness outside the door.’ My message is, ‘Claim what is yours.’”
One can traverse the vast space in any order, but many choose to begin by descending 70 feet below ground in a close, twilight-themed atmosphere where galleries display artifacts depicting the origins of slavery. Above the ground, the 3rd and 4th floor themed Culture and Community galleries are well lit and African American achievements in music, arts, sports, military and more are showcased. The architecture is stunning and fraught with meaning. A gallery devoted to African American military service affords a panoramic view of Arlington National Cemetery as well as the Washington Monument towering outside.
Ava duVernay’s new documentary “August 28, A Day in the Life of a People” was one of the museum’s inaugural installations. The 22-minute short, which can only be seen at the museum, chronicles significant events in African American history that occurred on that one date in August: the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till, Dr. King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, the 2005 day that Hurricane Katrina hit land, and the day in 2008 when Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination for President. With an impressive cast including Don Cheadle, Regina King, Angela Bassett, Lupita Nyong’o and David Oyelowo, the film, which is a must-see part of your itinerary while there, is dense with poetry, absorbing cinematography and arresting emotion.
“When I walk through, I feel the weight of my ancestors, says founding museum director Lonnie G. Bunch III. “I feel an amazing sense of joy that we are close to giving to America, giving to the world a gift. A gift of understanding who we are as a people in ways that we haven’t before.”
One visit to the museum is enough only to whet your appetite. “Insatiable” is how Maryland resident Carol Ambush described her feeling after a full afternoon of touring the museum. With so much to take in physically and emotionally, upon leaving you will feel drained, but charged to return and soak in more. It is a place that, in the words of the founders, “transcends the boundaries of race and culture that divide us, and becomes a lens into a story that unites us all.” And during these times when unity and understanding across borders and boundaries is more needed than ever, this monument to African American history, told with truth and authenticity, can inspire us all.
