Wednesday, September 28, 2016
The opening last week- end of this nation’s $500 million museum devoted to African-American history and culture along the grand and stately row of Smithsonian Institution exhibition halls in Washington could not have arrived at a more propitious time.
If ever there were a time when poignant clarity and brutal accuracy were needed to help erase misunderstanding and misconceptions about the black American experience, it is now.
Conflict and tension have been simmering toward boiling points throughout the country in recent weeks and months over police shootings of African-American men, such as those last week in Tulsa, Okla., and Charlotte, N.C.
What’s more, heightened racist rhetoric has been exposed in its most crude and cruel forms alongside this country’s hyperemotional campaign for the presidency.
Just last week, for example, former Boardman Township Trustee Kathy Miller, who had served as leader of the Mahoning County Donald Trump campaign, uttered publicly these words: “I don’t think there was any racism until [Barack] Obama got elected.”
Of course, she’s hardly alone. In a broader political context, consider the remarks this summer by U.S. Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican: “This ‘old white people’ business does get a little tired. I’d ask you to go back through history and figure out, where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of [nonwhite] people that you’re talking about; where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?”
Or consider the comments of North Carolina Congressman Robert Pittenger who last week claimed blacks protesting the Charlotte shooting of Keith Lamont Scott “hate white people because white people are successful, and they’re not.”
Those and many other increasingly racist rants seemingly have gained newfound acceptance among a large proportion of Americans. Collectively, they demonstrate the need for an informed national dialogue and powerful educational initiative that put the injustices, struggles and achievements of black Americans over the past three centuries in proper perspective for a broad and diverse audience.
The African-American Museum of History and Culture in the heart of the national mall has potential to fill that critical niche.
ABOUT THE MUSEUM
Under the stalwart leadership of U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., himself a victim of racist-inspired police brutality in the 1965 “Bloody Sunday” March in Selma, Ala., the modern awe-inspiring crown-shaped museum moved from plan to reality over the past two decades. The eight-level structure (four of which are underground) spans 400,000 square feet and contains more than 36,000 artifacts from African-American history.
The 19th museum in the Smithsonian network also provides visitors with illuminating in-your-face examples of the shameful era of slavery, legalized segregation and violent battles toward victory in achieving equitable civil rights in this country. Among them:
Several items from the S £o Jos Paquete Africa, a sunken slave ship excavated off the coast of South Africa in 2015.
Items owned by famed abolitionist Harriet Tubman, including eating utensils, a hymnal, and a linen and silk shawl given to her by Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.
The glass-topped casket originally used to display and bury the body of 14-year-old Emmett Till, the victim of racially motivated torture and murder in Mississippi. Many mark Till’s death as the spark that ignited the 20th century civil-rights movement.
To be sure, the new museum also includes many exhibits on milestones and contributions of African Americans ranging from the original Emancipation Proclamation to the fighter planes of World War II’s heroic Tuskegee Airmen. It also salutes the artistic and athletic genius of African-Americans ranging from Pearl Bailey to Muhammad Ali.
In short, the museum is well worth a trip to D.C. for Americans from all ethnic and racial backgrounds. It serves as an inviting milieu for celebrating and understanding black history every day of the year as well as a promising conduit toward closing the nation’s lingering racial divide.