Wednesday, September 13 I produced readings from a revised version of my first full-length play Iola’s Letter with an extended title: Iola’s Letter: The Memphis Crusade of Ida B. Wells. The reading was presented with the Hill Center on Capitol Hill – close to the power and the people who connect with the themes of this play. The timing couldn’t be better.
The undressed reading at the Hill Center by the cast under the direction of Michi Jones gave new life to the words for the audience to connect the dots and once again sadly resonate with the saying, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
Ida B. Wells challenges all who embrace a passion for justice in ways that can make you uncomfortable. She was an unapologetic moralist, and asserted her rights as written in the Bill of Rights and that included the 1st and 2nd amendments. Ida was relentless, and the word often attributed to can- and will-do women like her – difficult. In 1892, her outspoken writings on lynching cost the journalist her Memphis newspaper, Free Speech, and forced her into exile…in Chicago.
Public and published efforts to silence Ida B. Wells made her one of the most famous newspaper women and activists of her time. Frederick Douglass would become a mentor; and she co-founded the NAACP with W.E.B. DuBois. Ida B. Wells-Barnett (after her marriage to attorney and newspaper owner Ferdinand Barnett of Chicago) was a founder and activist in women’s clubs serving persons in need, advanced the campaign for civil rights, and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with suffragists for women’s rights.
I love historical drama. Many fans enjoy the beautiful “period” costumes, settings, and a chance to be swept away to another time. In the case of Iola’s Letter based on those real-life events in Memphis, Tennessee in 1892, there’s no need for the period dress up. The story, set in the post-Reconstruction South, is sadly familiar, even contemporary. In my introduction I describe the play as a series of conversations around unresolved issues around racial injustice, class, and the hopes and dreams of communities who are striving to build futures under hostile circumstances.
My play has its history too. Between Anita Hill’s testimony during Clarence Thomas’s SCOTUS confirmation hearings (1991) and the dragging death of James Byrd, Jr. by white supremacists in Jasper Texas (1998), I was contemplating, writing, and preparing Iola’s Letter for its first staged reading at Howard University directed by [professor emeritus] Vera J. Katz. Neither events were the impetus for this play, but the conversations certainly informed key themes: an African American woman whose words were disputed and characterized as doing more harm than good; an African American man tortured and killed because of the color of his skin.
How would Ida have responded to then Supreme Court nominee Thomas’ claim of a “high tech lynching”?. Would Ida, if there was “social media” in her toolkit, direct Justice Thomas to view the multiple videos of Black men and women being shot, assaulted, by persons known or unknown, including persons authorized to “uphold the law.” Would Ida just repost the video or investigate?
….I did not come to bring peace, but a sword ~ Matthew 10:34 I New Testament
The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them. ~ Ida B. Wells-Barnett
Despite threats from her enemies, or censures from her peers, Ida B. Wells never relented. Yet she could be dispirited by rebuffs from the “Negro leadership” whose organizations depended on the philanthropies of white supporters. Frances Willard, the crowned leader of the Temperance movement, publicly condemned lynching overall yet disputed Ida B. Wells’ reports especially when it concerned white women having consensual relationships with Black men.
The role of the press cannot be understated in this scenario. I wish there was more time after the reading to talk with the guest speakers. Jonetta Rose Barras, a community organizer turned journalist who embodies the Ida B. Wells spirit; and Dan Moldea, an investigative reporter who like Ida is willing to put his hands into the corruption therewith of a story. I wish there was more time to talk with the audience. The play triggered something in the room and for the persons who had the opportunity to speak, they gave testimony, shared information and concerns. Perhaps all the questions on this topic have been exhausted, except one — What are our next steps?
Passing the North Korea ball to Dennis Rodman. Regardless of how North Korea feels about US politics, policy, and the military, their leadership seems to adore the celebrities.
I started writing this post in January as an overview of the Obama White House. Time hasn’t been on my side to keep this blog active. But today is the 100th day in office for a new U.S. President; the re-emergence of the previous President in the public eye since leaving the White House. I thought this would be a good time to finish and post. I also think it’s no accident the former President and First Lady are making their first public appearances close to the first 100 days of the Trump presidency.
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“Barack and I have been in public service our whole lives. Public service will always be in our blood.” ~ Michelle Obama, Institute of Architects Annual Conference, April 27, 2017
My expectations were met in the Obama presidency. A level-headed, no drama President Obama completed two terms without major scandals and with key and historical national and foreign policy accomplishments mixed in with the regular messes, missteps, misspeaks, and coulda-woulda-shouldas for the file.
Expectations of the symbolic Obama and the presidency seemed to be higher. And November 8, 2016 brought much of that crashing back to earth, or should I say reality.
For those of us who are over 20 years of age, Obama’s election was a watershed event in the hearts and minds of those who embrace King’s “I have a dream” as a roadmap to a promised land or the visions of a Stevie Wonder medley.
The Obamas flipped the cultural optics of a first family with the sensibilities of a contemporary traditional professional class African American family. They were the real-life Huxtables another symbolic family of 80s TV fame whose existence in the Reagan and HW Bush years was often critiqued by the “realists” as an African American fairy tale.
But on that November night in 2008 the symbolic Obama gave the nation a moment to exhale on the American conversation [obsession] on race. A vote for Obama and the resulting victory made us believe — in the heat of the moment — the nation was moving away from its ugly racist past. Some white voters who didn’t march with King or memorized the “dream” speech could believe he/she was absolved from the sin and burden of racism in the voting booth.
There was a speed bump involving Obama’s Chicago pastor during the campaign but the candidate swerved into a teaching moment. And the pastor appears to be in good shape now well into his retirement as a senior minister. I’ve seen him. He looks grounded and at peace.
The symbolic Obamas gave African Americans a cultural [fist] bump. White House [house] parties, elegance at the right time at the right moment, the essence of cool without resentment. There was no need to paint the White House Black with the Obamas in residence.
You could say there was an Asian American [fist] bump. Persons paying close attention recognized it. The president’s maternal sister was in DC from time-to-time while her husband was director of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. The President lived in Indonesia with his mother, sister, and stepfather. This President had a familiarity with the region and culture that couldn’t be had with a Peace Corp assignment. Indonesia, Hawaii especially were for a time home.
Progressives wanted to party and fist bump too before reading Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope. I constantly reminded them to read the book before their good vibes began to twist and shout.
Obama’s politics were pragmatic. He was greatly influenced and raised by Depression-era grandparents from the American heartland That gives you a certain perspective on things.
Though some of the symbolic gestures and speeches of the Obama presidency didn’t yield the desired results, an unexpected presidential cultural shift, with fist bumps and high fives came from the LGBTQ community.
A major US Supreme Court victory on marriage equality was supported by a president who initially expressed his own personal reservations about marriage equality during his campaign. This was not the symbolic Obama. This was the candidate who told everyone up front that he had the right to “change my mind.”
Hiring practices and benefits for government contractors and agencies were required to be inclusive. Military health benefits were extended to transgender servicepersons and their families.
Washington, DC became a destination for 20 and 30 somethings eager to change the world. Real estate got so hot in DC developers could be seen as the new blaze engulfing city blocks previously damaged by the 1968 riots and left to decay to bargain basement property values – as planned (more about that below). Restaurants were popping up everywhere. DC was in Bon Appetit and Michelin decided to add the city to their guidebook series. Bartenders became mixologists.
People boastfully posted photos of any kind of White House invitation on their Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter pages. When Michelle Obama called the executive mansion “The Peoples House” the people took it to heart waiting for that magic moment to be invited over.
The Obamas gave the city a symbolic pop culture fist bump that fueled the city’s grand revitalization plan. The plan made DC more attractive to the first family of foodies, patrons of live performances, bookstores, and volunteers with local organizations like Miriam’s Kitchen and Martha’s Table.
But the good vibes party didn’t overwhelm the nation’s capital. The Hill was determined to stand apart from DC proper and the White House. On day one of the “Yes We Can” Obama presidency, an obstinate Republican strategy of “No You Won’t” went into effect. The new President came in with an extended hand of bipartisan goodwill to push important policy.
Symbols are allowed to exist within their own niche, but their power has to be contained to prevent a nationwide infection. And the strategy of “No” produced the desired results for the Republican party at the ballot box in 2010, 2012 and 2016.
These “No” strategists willfully admit their goal to neutralize the Obama presidency and say as much in a recent Frontline documentary “Divided States of America.”
Despite the challenges, the Obama administration pressed on using the tools at hand – executive orders — and their allies to maneuver. But without the “we” this administration could only do so much especially on national issues.
This blog was launched in the wake of that glorious 2008 election and the financial meltdown. And I’ve been told we may be at that meltdown moment again in the next 18 months. I can’t find the first post, but I do want to repost an excerpt from a post dated September 20, 2008 – a quote by the late Congresswoman Barbara Jordan (D-TX) from the 1992 DNC convention – a reminder:
Public policy makers are held in low regard. Mistrust abounds. In this kind of environment, it is understandable that change would become the watchword of this time.
Rep. Barbara Jordan (D-TX), 1992 DNC Keynote Speech
People expressed their pains and problems openly, and the final destination was often the front door of the White House for the President to solve or at the least find a teaching moment. That’s too much for two people. [I count Michelle Obama as the concert master.]
One thing the smartest and brightest seem to get blind sided by are people’s feelings. Perhaps we shouldn’t be asking “How are we doing?” but “How are we feeling?” I refuse to call this acknowledgement of feelings “post-truth”. If the adopters and adapters of this term have not yet been convinced that feelings trump reason in politics, then don’t expect any real change anytime soon. There’s a people component to change making too– face-to-face people; not just Facebook. As Vivian Sanders, a community organizer in rural Bertie, NC said in a forum, “the initiatives (My Brother’s Keeper) with all good intentions never got to us. We didn’t see the people here.”
Some of Obama’s most passionate critics were African American men and the Left. These are the voices of the impending wilderness. It’s a sorrowful echo chamber that speaks certain truths, pains, rage, resentments, and unrealized expectations. In some cases these attacks were turning inward like checking into a hospital with the expectation to be well and leaving with a staph infection. [Right now there are social media debates about the source of funding for the Obamas’ paid speeches post White House.]
This is not to say President Obama and his policies were above a critique. But what was the transformative idea. How quickly we forget what it takes to do the job which, unless you want a dictatorship, can’t be accomplished by a single individual. Call it democracy, gamesmanship, bureaucracy. Bottom line is people.
What didn’t WE do over the last 8 years? Good vibes doesn’t seem to be a great motivator to action. Anger still works and since November there’s been a lot of action lately. We’re now into “March madness” here in DC– not with a ball but with feet, wheels, whatever it takes to be counted on the mall for [insert] cause. Today is the People’s Climate March. We all want to breathe no?
Depression-era elders explained the POTUS to me this way: “Don’t look at the man (or the woman someday). Look at the office.” That’s difficult in the first 100 days of this administration than ever. But even with the Trump presidency it’s a way forward for me at least. The Congress and how it interacts with the Executive Branch deserves more attention than Tweet storms, theatrical press conferences, and SNL sketches.
I am acknowledging feelings in the search for solutions. Perhaps there’s more feeling in common than we are permitted to recognize. To quote from one of my favorite and most memorable first sentences from a book, Toni Cade Bambara’s The Salt Eaters – “Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?”
Keep in mind, there is money to be made from illness and death.
We have witnessed it in the strategy of “No”. I now see how anger has its place for action, and love can be a journey with an uncertain destination.
The sudden and unexpected death of Carrie Fisher “our Princess” as her “Star Wars” co-star Mark Hamill managed to tweet out in a haze of grief, followed by the death the day after of her mother Debbie Reynolds (Hollywood’s princess from the Golden age) seemed to be 2016’s way of topping itself by purging the 20th century once and for all of its primary cultural icons.
I wish I could include the 2016 list here. But I know I’d forget somebody. Plus we have less than 2 days left. Even the annual “New York Times” magazine special, “The Lives They Lived” was far from complete. The award shows will have to do a separate in memoriam special to cover the 2016 list. So, so many.
People have said 2016 has been a sh*tty year bringing a collective anguish over the deaths of cultural icons, larger than life figures, and 20th century game changers. With social media, the 21st century can make you believe you’re a member of anyone’s immediate family in shared grief. And this doesn’t include regular people in Chicago — 750 shooting deaths in 2016, 4,300 shootings, 11 killed and 50 wounded on Christmas Day.
Then there was the presidential election. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s electoral loss (popular vote win, but the math doesn’t work that way) to a celebrity business icon Donald Trump was for the majority of voters another 9/11 moment. I heard some people literally threw up election night. Another sudden and unexpected death when for weeks the polls were saying a Clinton win was at least in “stable condition”. The irony here is this blog began with Clinton’s 2008 bid to be the Democratic nominee over Barack Obama. This blogger just happened to be in the room when she released her delegates in Denver.
While 2016 wanted to pull us out from the cultural grip of the 20th century, politically it’s trying to drag us back to the mindset the cultural icons, larger than lifers, and game changers of that century pulled and broke away from. Some would argue that’s what the results of the presidential election was about as well. But add the word “again” to your slogan and there is no forward. There is no “now”. There is only grief for what was perceived as “better days.”
Politically, the 2016 death of Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro was an official end of the 20th century as many knew it through the lens of the Cold War. Though today’s Russia feud has some of those same sensibilities, the larger then life figures just aren’t there as they were. The 21st century will have its own style of barking, shoe throwing and shoe pounding.
How sh*tty was it really? Or is it time to up the game on substance vs. hype and fakery? To have a vision and get busy creating in the haze of grief and hopelessness.
Carrie Fisher was an example of this. I always admired her honesty and openness about her demons and even embracing the iconic Princess Leia whom she couldn’t shake even after appearances in iconic films like “When Harry Met Sally.” I was one of the grieving fans who bought her recent memoir “The Princess Diarist” Kindle version (the hardback is sold out on Amazon). Though the big news was her on-set affair with “Star Wars” co-star Harrison Ford/Han Solo (Tell me something I don’t know), she opens her story with “it was 1976…” an overview of what was happening in the world the year she became Princess Leia on the soundstage. I’ve copied a portion of the chapter here.
And this was the upbeat stuff of 1976. Throw in the U.S. Bicentennial for good measure.
2016 can be summed up like most years: the bitter with the sweet.
Charter members line up for the open house (preview) of the NMAAHCSaturday, September 24, the Smithsonian Institution dedicates and officially throw open the doors to its newest museum on the National Mall – the National Museum of African American History and Culture. There will be a ribbon cutting with museum founding director Lonnie Bunch and President Barack Obama among other dignitaries and celebrity contributors. Music performances, an official ceremony. festival on the National Mall, and all the fanfare the anticipated moment requires and deserves. People are coming from around the world to experience the NMAAHC in its inaugural weekend. The key word here is “experience”
The NMAAHC wisely began the experience before there was a building, a site, a blue print. A museum without a building, without a collection, unveiled exhibits in other Smithsonian buildings, reaching out in an “Antiques Roadshow” fashion to communities and people with storied stuff, as well as aggressively raised its mission monies through private philanthropies, charter memberships, public funding etc. Lay down the tracks and the train will come.
When my email invitation arrived for charter members to get timed passes to preview the NMAAHC I signed up immediately. For those who weren’t as quick on the draw, the museum issued more passes to meet the immediate demand. As a resident of DC, I’ll have more than one opportunity to visit the museum. I’ve even seen it in its shell form during a hard-hat tour. Nevertheless, I framed this experience in the question “Where is the narrative taking us?” An experience usually involves some sort of physical, emotional , spiritual, and/or intellectual journey. It’s only fair to the efforts of the NMAAHC’s builders to make this post part 1 of a 2 part reflection. I’ll return to the museum (perhaps twice) to see what I may have missed in this post and where things finally settle.
From the beginning I knew I couldn’t take in everything at the NMAAHC in a single visit. I spent over 3 hours in the building looking at objects, reading texts (lots of text), watching 5 minute video projections. If I’d been on my lunch break from work I would only have time to see one, maybe two galleries. If I was visiting from out of town, I’d have to devote at least a single day to a first-time visit. For this visit, I decided to pay attention to what instantly caught my eye or popped out, triggered a memory, and the featured choices the museum made to lift up a pivotal historical moment or person.
The narrative begins on C3–down below ground level with the History galleries. To get to that level I had to take the escalators and an elevator. There are no windows, no natural light. The story unfolds with the transatlantic slave trade. Like being in the belly of a ship during Middle Passage the galleries for this part of the exhibit are dark, narrow especially when so many people are trying to see the related objects and read the texts. The air is still. Granted, there is still work to be done in all parts of the museum for the opening. I would say this part of the exhibit is practically finished. A lot of ground work was already done. C-3 highlights the principal European players in the slave trade – Great Britain, Portugal, The Netherlands, France etc. Once the transatlantic slave trade is abolished, Africans were bought and sold on the domestic market. Then comes the American Revolution; the fight for freedom and independence from Great Britain.
The fight for Independence occurred on many fronts. It brought freedom for some, not others. Though at least one sentence of text mentions that enslaved Africans fought on the side of the British in exchange for their freedom, the emphasis is placed on the persons who fought with the “patriots” for independence from the crown (not necessarily their own freedom unless they were already “free” with walking papers – also part of the collection). Here’s where I felt the need for a larger freedom narrative that showed where African Americans cast their lots even if it meant wearing a red coat. In either case, the fight for freedom proved to be a bloody mess.
The museum’s narrative for the African American experience fits comfortably into the dominant narrative of American history. African Americans want freedom and the bill of goods or rights promised in those founding documents. This is not a story about the struggle for diversity but inclusion.
From C3 a series of ramps takes you to the Domestic Slave trade, and the lives of enslaved Africans including a an actual slave cabin. The abolitionists and Harriet Tubman’s shawl (one of the director’s prized acquisitions). The Civil War and the fight for Emancipation from slavery. A brief but poignant moment for Reconstruction and the election of the first Black members of Congress. Jim Crow, and the domestic terrorism of lynch law. The KKK is represented with just the hood, not the cloak. That’s more than enough for me. The journalist and anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells enjoys 3 displays in this section including her most famous publication “The Red Record.” She even shares a display with publications by Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois. – a debate you’ll have to look up on your own to fully comprehend this display.
The Niagara Movement
New Negro Movement
World War I
People on the move during the Great Migration from the South to the industrial North.
I look for Langston Hughes’ “Black Magic” and Marcus Garvey’s plumes. It seems no one has a desire to go back to Africa here (the movement). Zora Neale Hurston and many writers’ words are etched on the walls. I quickly rush by the video projections inside the gallery in an attempt not to disrupt the experience for the people watching. There are no ramps in the galleries but I know I am coming closer to the light. At best “Up from Slavery.”
Quote by writer James Baldwin
The Great Depression.
World War II
In this experience, some of the best moments will come from the people you encounter in the museum. Near the Southern Railway passenger car which didn’t have any of its seats for whites or coloreds installed yet, someone asked an elder, “Would you like to see inside the train car.” He responds, “I’ve already been in the back of that train car.”
I’m moving on up the ramp to …The Civil Rights Movement. Poor Peoples Campaignwith a section of the wall from Resurrection City. The men and women of the movement are there.
And then movement seems to pause at Black Panther Party of the 1960s and 70s. I turn around to see Anita Hill in her blue suit during the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court Confirmation hearing (the 80s). Ferguson. Then my eyes witness history in a media mosaic of celebrity faces from syndicated and network television. Did I take a wrong turn somewhere? What was the struggle for? At that point I feel the need to lie down on Oprah’s couch – still covered in its storage wrapping.
The guard watch tower from Angola prison looks down on us. Louisiana’s Angola prison was “slavery by another name in more recent times.”
The Sports exhibit at the NMAAHC. Jackie Robinson’s jersey, Althea Gibson’s tennis racketThere are no more ramps. It’s time to find the escalators that take you to the upper galleries. Education, Military, Sports share one floor. Sports takes up an impressive section of the floor. More Olympiads to add to the distinguished roster from the 2016 games.
Arts, Media, and Culture take the top floor. I go to the top floor first. My head is swirling and so are the video images of famous faces (btw without names no one will know) on the final gallery floor as you sit in a donut shaped rest area. It’s great that there are plenty places to sit and rest your feet or contemplate. You’ll need it and it’s helpful for elders and persons with mobility limitations.
A moment between two floors: Education and Fashion:
On the arts and culture floor, Oberlin alumna Dr. Johnetta B. Cole is being celebrated for fashion and educational leadership as the first woman president of HBCU Spelman College (as well as being the director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art). I didn’t see Mary Jane Patterson’s face, another Oberlin alumna, who was the first African American woman in the world to earn a Bachelors (A.B.) degree (1862) from the first institution of higher learning to admit students regardless of race, as well as the first Black and woman principal of a prominent high school in Washington, DC. (Disclosure: I’m an Oberlin alum so this naturally pops out for me.) Cole and Patterson are on the same page and can be on the same floor.
I did find an exhibit on Place very interesting. It was tucked inside the Education displays. When I think of African Americans and place, I think of family reunions, holidays, neighborhoods. I hadn’t factored in prisons as part of that narrative. That’s represented here. In this experience, how many African Americans can say they haven’t been visited by or in the prison system. This is a space I will return to comprehend the museum’s intentions.
I go back to the top floor to take a second look at the small display of food culture. Like a guest at Thanksgiving who gets turkey with no gravy, I only see what I’m missing. September 3, 2016 Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor, NPR culture correspondent and to my knowledge the first African American to host her own cooking show on national television (PBS), passed away in New York. She was the Gullah GeeChee girl in Paris. She was always up in somebody’s kitchen. She was missing. I felt her loss more intensely at that moment.
The Music room is light and bright with costumes, instruments from classical, blues, folk, hip hop, rock, funk, a little jazz, and Chuck Berry’s red Cadillac. Coming up close on Parliament Funkadelic’s mother ship, the Beyonce generation may wonder what all the screaming was about. This goes back to the “experience.” Jimi Hendrix can’t be experienced by his vest alone. But I digress.
Visual Arts is almost a world unto itself. It is in the traditional display format and comforting from some of the over stimulation of the media-based exhibitions. The art speaks for itself. It’s a beautiful room with works by traditional and contemporary artists — Romare Bearden, Betye Saar, Renee Stout. I hope the art collection continues to grow.
For theater, August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson” piano is there. I’ve seen that in production, and costumes from Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls…”Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” of course. And there’s Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee’s image on the wall. A lot is missing here for me from regional theater, or even “The Blacks: A Clown Show” by a French playwright and a pivotal moment for African Americans in theater (Cicely Tyson, James Earl Jones, Maya Angelou, Roscoe Lee Browne, Louis Gossett, Jr.). But there’s little space and I’m sure this will be a rotating display. For now it appears only a Broadway production qualifies for the display. London counts too. 19th century thespian Ira Aldridgeis here.
Dance comes in all forms from film, the streets, the stage. I see a poster from Dance Theatre of Harlem’s Giselle, (those were silk screened by hand back in the day), ballet shoes, bodies in motion. Dance definitely should be experienced feet first.
Television and film and all the moving parts are part of this ongoing “Taking the Stage” exhibition. Hollywood, Independent filmmakers are represented, as well as comedians. Now we come to the Bill Cosby question. Earlier this year director Lonnie Bunch issued a statement about how the museum will acknowledge Mr. Cosby in light of “recent revelations.”
“Like all of history, our interpretation of Bill Cosby is a work in progress, something that will continue to evolve as new evidence and insights come to the fore. Visitors will leave the exhibition knowing more about Mr. Cosby’s impact on American entertainment, while recognizing that his legacy has been severely damaged by the recent accusations.”
I saw one of Bill Cosby’s comedy records on display; another friend reported seeing him on a magazine cover – Jet maybe? “The Cosby Show,” a landmark television series on many levels didn’t get a prominent treatment in this preview’s media space.
BTW did I miss the Million Man March downstairs and Nation of Islam (NOI) Minister Louis Farrakhan? Were they there? The NOI is represented in the museum by its founder, Elijah Muhammad including his chair — far from Oprah’s couch.
The gaps may be intentional for the NMAAHC. Small and regional African American and community museums had expressed concern that NMAAHC will be the mother ship for housing all the significant artifacts and stories of the African American experience. But I believe the builders didn’t have that in mind. There’s also the school of thought that a museum created by an act of Congress to build and open its doors has to avoid controversy by not speaking too many truths to power before the first shipment of gift shop t-shirts are unpacked.
There will be space. There will be changes. There will be commentary and places in the museum where you can record impressions – a 21st survey to measure impact. The smaller and regional museums are more important than ever to fill in the spaces of this evolving narrative, and bring depth to the context of the mosaic that is the reality of being Black in America especially in the last 50 years. NMAAHC is challenged in that respect. One museum can’t do it all. There are also many opportunities for collaborations within the Smithsonian institution, if they can and will play well together.
The museum docents are going to be essential in connecting the dots and bringing additional context to the experience. Programming plays an important role too, the kind of programming that will make you leave your sick bed.
Hopefully, as the museum begins to fine tune its narrative and displays, it will pull itself away from resembling an Ebony and Jet magazine archives. BTW Ebony and Jet are part of at least 3 displays.
As my eyes were greeted by the light of the top floors, I could see the bottom line in play and it was disorienting. “Disorienting” may be the operative word for the first 25 years of this century. Who are the monetary donors who need to see the fruit of their gifts opening day? I know there were many proud donors of objects in the building during the preview weekend. They are feeling good as they should. It was great seeing the work of friends and even my small effort in getting an object into one of the displays.
As is the American experience, the NMAAHC is a great work in progress; a fantastic second draft as is. It is not finished. This museum put itself on an ambitious schedule to open its doors while the first African American POTUS is still in the White House to create the great media moment that will be included with other media moments in the museum’s collection.
But where is this narrative taking us? To pose for a selfie with Harriet Tubman’s shawl? Or with Chuck Berry’s red Cadillac. This has become the challenge for museums and our times.
You’ll find me sitting in the NMAAHC’s John Hope Franklin contemplative court after my next experience.
To be continued.
This post has been modestly updated to add Ira Aldridge. He caught my eye.
Carrie Fisher was an example of this. I always admired her honesty and openness about her demons and even embracing the iconic Princess Leia whom she couldn’t shake even after appearances in iconic films like “When Harry Met Sally.” I was one of the grieving fans who bought her recent memoir “
From C3 a series of ramps takes you to the Domestic Slave trade, and the lives of enslaved Africans including a an actual slave cabin. The abolitionists and Harriet Tubman’s shawl (one of the director’s prized acquisitions). The Civil War and the fight for Emancipation from slavery. A brief but poignant moment for Reconstruction and the election of the first Black members of Congress. Jim Crow, and the domestic terrorism of lynch law. The KKK is represented with just the hood, not the cloak. That’s more than enough for me. The journalist and anti-lynching crusader 
Visual Arts is almost a world unto itself. It is in the traditional display format and comforting from some of the over stimulation of the media-based exhibitions. The art speaks for itself. It’s a beautiful room with works by traditional and contemporary artists — Romare Bearden, Betye Saar, Renee Stout. I hope the art collection continues to grow.
Hopefully, as the museum begins to fine tune its narrative and displays, it will pull itself away from resembling an Ebony and Jet magazine archives. BTW Ebony and Jet are part of at least 3 displays.