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Oct 21, 2020 · When the Smithsonian Museum of African American History & Culture opened in 2016, Black museum professionals engaged anew in debates about the meanings and scope of African American history. At last, the establishment of an African American history museum on the national mall fulfilled a century of demands left unsatisfied by Public Law 96-430.
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In these ‘first-voice’ museums, curators and leaders are part of the community the museum interprets.
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, features 800 steel slabs, inscribed with the names of more than 4,400 people lynched in the state from 1877 to 1950. It is one of dozens of United States cultural sites and museums sharing Black history from the African American perspective.
Through the 18th and 19th centuries, the predominant opinion in the United States was that Black Americans had no history, says Joy Bivins, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, New York.
“Black history museums began to exist in the mid-20th century as a response to Black Americans not being in existing museums,” says Bivins.
Founded in 1925, the center was one of the first public spaces in the U.S. to delve into a history largely ignored or whitewashed by mainstream museums. It curated exhibits, protected artifacts, and shared first-hand perspectives from the Black community. It was a pioneer in what has become known as “first-voice” museums, says Malika Pryor, chief learning and engagement officer at the recently opened International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina.
She describes these museums as being born from community history rather than “stolen” artifacts—an initiative that sprouted with Indigenous communities. “We tell the stories of people who have either been completely left out of [mainstream] institutions or whose objects—as extensions of their lives—have been interpreted in a way that is not an [accurate] reflection,” she says.
As more Black culture and history museums open across the country, each presents more nuanced stories unique to their communities. For example, Virginia Beach plans to open The Virginia African American Cultural Center in 2028, highlighting Black Americans’ local contributions.
“That’s the role of public history, to guide people through learning and understanding about what happened in the past, what’s happening in the present,” says Lauren Cross, executive museum strategist for the National Juneteenth Museum, scheduled to open on Juneteenth 2025, in Fort Worth, Texas.
Travelers looking for first-voice museums that comprehensively examine the Black community’s history and culture should start at Washington, D.C.’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. The newest Smithsonian Institution museum takes an unflinching look at the travails and triumphs of African Americans, illuminating more than 400 years of artifacts and historical information.
Other noteworthy museums include the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit. Established in 1965, this museum holds the world’s largest permanent collection of African American culture. Among the more than 35,000 artifacts, find displays on trailblazers in science and engineering and stained-glass windows by Samuel A. Hodge that depict stories of notable African Americans, from dancers to civil rights activists.
Left: Harlem’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture protects and displays rare Afrocentric artifacts, including a signed first edition of Phillis Wheatley’s poems, unpublished manuscripts of Langston Hughes, and tens of thousands of pieces of art.
From The New York Public Library
Right: Writers Amiri Baraka and Maya Angelou dance on the 89th birthday of the poet Langston Hughes on February 1, 1991. The photo is part of the new exhibition “The Ways of Langston Hughes,” which opened at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture on February 1.
Photograph By Chester Higgins, Jr./The New York Times/Redux
- Sheeka Sanahori
Feb 22, 2021 · Across the country, hundreds of African American museums and collections at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) document African American life, history, and culture. They help restore public memory by chronicling social and political movements, including Reconstruction and the labor, women’s rights, civil rights, Black Power, and Black Lives Matter movements.
Woodson was the second black American to receive a PhD in history from Harvard—following W.E.B. Du Bois by a few years. To Woodson, the black experience was too important simply to be left to a small group of academics. Woodson believed that his role was to use black history and culture as a weapon in the struggle for racial uplift.
Nov 4, 2021 · Instead, the cause was, very simply, white racism. “White Society is deeply implicated in the ghetto,” the report declared. “White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it ...
- Alice George
Mar 18, 2024 · The museum and monument park are among a growing number of sites across the country opening in the past decade to preserve and celebrate Black History and the Black experience in America.
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Feb 8, 2020 · The museum, which is located at the former Lorraine Motel in Memphis where civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, said it pays special attention to Black History ...
