DC-2: National Museum of African American History and Culture

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) begins with its unique architecture! It looks like a hand-woven headdress or stack of baskets. It was actually inspired by the three-tiered crowns used in Yoruban art from West Africa. The entire structure is wrapped in an ornamental bronze-colored metal lattice that lets in daylight. It’s beautiful!

This is the only national museum devoted exclusively to the documentation of African American life, history, and culture. It was established by an Act of Congress in 2003, and opened to the public as the 19th Smithsonian Institution on Sept 24, 2016.

This Museum will tell the American story through the lens of African American history and culture. This is America’s Story and the museum is for all Americans.“
from the NMAAHC founding director, Lonnie G. Bunch, III

This blog has not been an easy one to do. How can I do justice to this incredible history and culture of the African American? This museum was very well done. You experience the history in a way that provides a personal connection to the African American perspective. While I cannot personally relate to such horrific conditions and treatment, I believe we all could be more kind tomorrow than we are today – to everyone. We must be a part of justice and equality for everyone in America! But there is more to this museum. There are celebrations of African American accomplishments, and things that make you smile. I hope to present both.

FOOD – African Americans have been involved with food in America for generations! They have been enslaved to work the fields as well as to work in the white person’s kitchens.

The filter that was used – Sad, but true:

AND is still true today for many!

ENTERTAINMENT & THE ARTS

Love to dance! Music is a reflection of our soul. Such wonderful rhythms brought people joy.

I love Herbie Hancock, and John Coltrane’s music.

This was really cool. A touch screen where you could scroll through genres then select an artist and specific song to play aloud in the area.

The following portrait quilt was stunning!

Police brutality toward African Americans:
Amy Sherald and her tribute to Breonna Taylor.

YEARS of SLAVERY for African Americans

Sugar Plantations:

**Life Expectancy for enslaved worker was 7 years!**

LOWCOUNTRY – Rice Plantation

Africans came with expert knowledge of rice plantations – how to build, manage hydration, cultivate and process the rice. THEY made the owners rich.

SURVIVAL SKILLS – building community with other enslaved workers from Africa was critical.

Important steps to everyone having rights:

Elizabeth Freeman (Mum Bett) SUES for her Freedom!

I don’t recall knowing this before today…

Benjamin Banneker was an extraordinary African American. He was born a free man in Maryland in 1731, but had little schooling. He borrowed books to teach himself mathematics, science and literature. He built wooden clocks, compiled almanacs and advocated for abolition. He participated in the land survey of the District of Columbia. Banneker was successful at a time when African Americans faced major social restrictions, limited economic opportunity, and increasing hostility from whites. He was the first African American to publish scientific work in the US.

CORRESPONDENCE with THOMAS JEFFERSON
Banneker challenged the existing assumption regarding the inferior intelligence of African Americans. He wrote to Thomas Jefferson pointing out a chilling contradiction: The same person who declared all men are created equal, enslaved people himself! Banneker asked Jefferson to correct his “narrow prejudices”. Jefferson answered, complimenting Banneker on his intellect-a quality Jefferson did not equate to those of African heritage. Banneker published his correspondence with Jefferson in one of his almanacs.

SLAVERY EXPANSION
The biggest single contributor to slavery expanding in the south was Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin!

The demand for cotton drove the Native Americans OFF THEIR lands, and the enslaved population expanded from 1.5 million in 1820 to 4 million in 1860!

KEY People Doing What Was RIGHT – No Matter the Danger
Sojourner Truth – I enjoyed the “live” statue with her that was in Central Park (NYC), but I didn’t realize “sojourn” meant “to travel”. I just never thought about it. (journey) I had simply accepted that as her name.

Know as a slight and delicate girl, Araminta Ross grew up and changed her name to Harriet Tubman. Tubman lived in slavery for about 25 years. As a young woman she escaped, and ran up the Maryland coast to freedom in Philadelphia, PA! Harriet returned NINE times to guide others to freedom. It was critical to keep these paths and resources secret. Each journey was a risk to her own life. Tubman carried a gun and threatened to use it on anyone betraying her route. Thus the “UNDERGROUND RAILROAD” was born.

The “Underground Railroad” was a secret network that used local knowledge and resources, both black and white, to guide enslaved people to freedom. Tubman was the most famous “conductor” and one of our nation’s most courageous antislavery activist. The fugitives stayed at “safe houses” along the way. Danger existed the entire way. They were hunted by dogs, and could be arrested by any white person. Even the U.S. Marshal Service tracked escapees.

Without a doubt it was the long, harsh, forced labor of millions of enslaved people that fed, clothed and financed America.

Frederick Douglass declared, “Right is of no sex; truth is of no color, God is the Father of us all-and all are brethren. “Oppression, he argued, was simply a process of soul murder.” Injustice did more than deny equal rights and dignity. As a former slave, Douglass refused to ignore the impact of inequality and its damage to the promise of America.

Frederick Douglass traveled to Washington, DC, in 1862, determined to meet President Lincoln. Douglass was well-known as an African American abolitionist. He had pressured Lincoln previously in speeches and in print. He was in DC to speak directly to President Lincoln. Douglass was surprisingly welcomed immediately into Lincoln’s private office. Both of them were born into poverty, believed that people and nations could transform themselves. By the end of the Civil War, Douglass has captured Lincoln’s eyes to African American equality.

Scott Joplin and his hit “Maple Leaf Rag”. I LOVE this song. (Also known as “The Entertainer” and made popular with the movie The Sting.)

SHARECROPPING – a system of economic coercion that maintained control of black labor!

In addition to segregated buses, trains, restaurants, bathrooms, etc, there were restrictive covenants.

Maintaining power and control over the African Americans continue and escalated with violent gang mentality. I can’t imagine living with such a fear that I may be attacked unmercifully or any or all of my family! I did not know so many blacks were lynched – not that even one would have been OK. It is scary what angry mobs can and will do – even today!

Thurgood Marshall

ROSA PARKS

I didn’t realize Rosa Parks was NOT the first black woman to be arrested for defying bus segregation. Claudette Colvin was arrested in March 1955, but she was only 15 years old, and lawyers did not think hers would be the best test case.

Interracial Marriage: Loving vs. Virgina

The Day the 16th Street Baptist Church Became a Tomb
Many of the civil rights marches in Birmingham began at the steps of 16th Street Baptist Church. It also was a neighborhood church for hundreds of people who attended services or gathered in the assembly room in the basement for Sunday school. On Sept. 15, 1963 a bomb exploded at the church. This was the third bombing in 11 days, after a court ordered desegregation of the city schools! The bomb went off transforming the church rubble to a tomb. Bodies of four young, innocent girls were discovered in the basement. Their deaths shocked the nation, and more than 8,000 mourners attended their funeral.

VOTING RIGHTS
President Lyndon Johnson introduced the Voting Rights Act to Congress in March 1965, the same month that voter registration protests began in Selma, Alabama. The violence there added pressure on Congress to act, and the bill passed in four months. The law outlawed literacy tests, poll taxes, and other obstacles to voting. It gave the federal government the authority to take over voter registration wherever voting rights were threatened. The act helped bring African Americans to the polls and their leaders elected to office. It’s a shame we are fighting for voting rights again today! No one has the right to silence the voice/vote of others! Whenever it becomes harder for a group of people to get to a polling place to cast their vote, the more obvious it is that intentional effort is keeping that group from voting!

There was a wait to quietly enter the Emmett Till Memorial room. It was definitely an emotional experience – as it should be. Here’s what happened as recorded via www.history.com:

August 28, 1955, while visiting family in Money, Mississippi, Emmett was with his cousins and some friends outside a country store. He bragged to them that his girlfriend back home in Chicago was white. He cousins and friends dared him to ask the white woman, Carolyn Bryant who was sitting behind the store counter for a date. After buying some candy he said “Bye, baby” to the woman on his way out. Carolyn later claimed that he grabbed her, made lewd advances and wolf-whistled at her as he sauntered out.

When Carolyn Bryant’s husband and brother returned 4 days later from a business trip, they were outraged with this “assault” by Emmett. They went after Emmett, threw him in their car. They made Emmett carry a 75-pound cotton gin fan to the bank of the Tallahatchie River and ordered him to take off his clothes. They beat him nearly to death, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head. They tied Emmett’s body to the cotton gin fan with barbed wire prior to throwing him in the river.

Three days later, Emmett’s body was recovered though it was so disfigured that his uncle could only identify it by an initialed ring. Authorities wanted to bury the body immediately, but Emmett’s mother, Mamie Bradley, requested it be sent back to Chicago. After she saw her son’s mutilated body, she decided to have an open-casket funeral of that the world could see what racist murderers had done to her only son.

Less than 2 weeks after Emmett’s body was buried, the two assailants were put on trial, only to be found “not guilty” within less than an hour by an all-white jury. They believed the state had failed to prove the identity of the body! They also decided not to indict them on the separate charge of kidnapping.

In 2017, Tim Tyson, author of The Blood of Emmett Till, revealed that Carolyn Bryant recanted her testimony, admitting that Till had never touched, threatened or harassed her! “Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him,” she said in 2022, but a grand jury in Mississippi declined to indict her for her role in the crime almost 70 years ago. Carolyn Bryant died in 2023.

In March of 2022, President Joe Biden signed the “Emmet Till Antilynching Act” into law, making lynching a federal hate crime. It is hard to believe it took till 2022 for such a law!

Welcome to the Lunch Counter – an interactive exhibit

The Greensboro Lunch Counter protest/sit-ins began in 1960 when four freshmen college students walked into the local Woolworth store in Greensboro, NC, and sat down at the lunch counter. They were refused service, but they stayed until closing time. The next morning they came with twenty-five more students. The sit-ins spread to other southern college towns.

THE GREEN BOOK INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCE.
This is when I stumbled upon THE GREEN BOOK display! OMG. Darlene Buss told me about this exhibit when her son-in-law completed it and that it was going to be featured at this Smithsonian. I forgot all about it until I saw a young couple “sitting in the car”, and “traveling” with the help of the Green Book! I almost missed it!

Check out a couple samples of the car ride. The first one is when I sat down to start from the beginning. The second video starts where I left off. It is the couple that was initially engaged with the activity.

Having been to Martha’s Vineyard earlier on our trip, this section caught my attention!

The cottages that everyone goes to see and photograph.

Incarceration Statistics Speak Volumes

Being Creative to Make a Living

Oprah became so popular, she probably could have been elected President! She is an amazing human being with a huge focus on helping others less fortunate. She was a philanthropist who never did it to put herself on a pedestal.

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or…some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

Barack Obama

President Obama was an incredibly intelligent and eloquent speaking President. He spoke with sincerity. Michelle was extremely poised and exuded grace for others. I thought it was exceptional how well they got along with former President Bush and his wife Laura.

SPORTS

My dad loved basketball, and he loved the Harlem Globetrotters. I can remember watching them whenever we could. I didn’t realize how the image transformed. In 1929, they were seen as hardworking, determined, skilled, and fair African Americans, but then in the mid 1930’s they began incorporating a minstrel antics and routines which disparaged the African American. This occurred when the original set of players retired, and the booking agent, Abe Saperstein took control. However, they received international fame and were noted for extreme ball handling skills and athleticism. I always enjoyed when they used NBA teams as their pawns in exhibition games.

The Globetrotters won the World Professional Basketball Tournament in 1940. In 1948 the Globetrotters beat one of the best white basketball teams in the country – the Minneapolis Lakers (now the LA Lakers). They did it again in 1949!

The Globetrotters were socially influential and quickly became recognized as the world’s best basketball team, showing that African-Americans could excel on a professional level which initiated the integration of the NBA. In 1950, Globetrotter Chuck Cooper was the first black player drafter in the NBA by Boston! Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton was the first to sign a contract when the New York Niks purchased his contract from the Globetrotters.

Off the court, the organization remains steadfast in its commitment to the “Ambassadors of Goodwill” and goes beyond its vibrant live events. They proactively foster alliances with global partners, curate a diverse line of licensed products, implement a dynamic multimedia strategy to gain global prominence, and uphold the brand’s enduring legacy of deep social engagement in local communities.

Unfortunately, I had to cover the athlete section quickly. I just snapped pictures as I walked through the area.

Integration of Baseball

So many amazing athletes, but this is only a sample.

A CONTEMPLATIVE COURT Featuring a Waterfall Fountain
This was a pleasant surprise. It could easily be missed. The entrance is on the lower level, but the top of the waterfall fountain extends up to ground level where daylight and filtered sunlight adds to the effect. Each wall has a quote. One is from Nelson Mandela, one from Martin Luther King, Jr, one from Sam Cooke, and one from Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. This area is much more impressive in person!

This is what can be seen of the waterfall fountain area from the outside near the museum entrance. I didn’t notice it before we went in. I certainly had no need to go over to sit on a circular bench in the rain. I bet on dry, sunny days people enjoy sitting around the perimeter of it.

Thankfully, there wasn’t near as much reading necessary from start to finish. You could fairly easily skip around to different sections and levels here.

We spent about 4 hours here, but we were glad we made the time to fully experience this entire museum as our main one today.

But BEFORE we went to the NMAAHC, we stopped at the National Archives Building. A friend/neighbor from Ohio, Scott Anderson, highly recommended it. It had NOT been on my list. Who wants to go see where they keep a bazillion government documents?? But when we realized the protected original documents of the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are all on display in the Rotunda, we decided that those would be cool to see – and it wouldn’t take but a few minutes.

Archives of the United States of America – EXTERIOR

Oh, my! The architecture inside the building was awesome, but no pictures were permitted. The Rotunda was dimly lit to help preserve these old documents, so of course no photography because too many would even accidentally have an auto flash go off.

There was actually much more to the National Archives. We enjoyed it, as we ventured into another room. We stopped each other before what was now almost an hour here turned into two. After all, this was to be a “fast”, cursory visit since we were slipping it in prior to NMAAHC . 🙂

On our way back to the subway station, we checked out the US Navy Memorial. The fountain and relief sculptures had been catching my eye as we walked passed it yesterday and today as we went to and from the subway station. It was pretty cool. I appreciated that they included the Navy Family on the last one! (I was part of one for 16 years.)