By Marian Wright Edelman
A few months before the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s official opening in September 2016, Dr. Rex M. Ellis, the museum’s founding Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs, spoke to college-aged servant-leaders who were preparing to teach in Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) Freedom Schools® summer programs. The museum was the realization of a dream that had been a very long time coming, beginning more than a century earlier with Black Civil War veterans seeking a place to memorialize their contributions to our nation, and the ultimate work of constructing and completing the final vision seemed to mirror some of the stories shared inside its walls, requiring faith, determination, and persistence. Dr. Ellis described some of the joy and triumph his colleagues felt as they neared the finish line:
“When we began back in 2005, we had nothing. We had no building. We had no collections. We had no land to put a building on and very little money. We had a very small staff of about three people . . . Many said it could not be done. ‘How are you going to raise over $540 million and a building that you say will have over 300,000 square feet and seven stories? It’s too much,’ they said. ‘It can’t be done,’ they said. ‘It will certainly take more time to build, and what about collections? How are you going to find a world-class collection? Most of the stuff worth having museums have already collected. You’re not going to get the good stuff.” The audience began cheering as he kept speaking. “We’ve got Chuck Berry’s Cadillac, but that’s not all. We’ve got Maybelline, his guitar. But that’s not all. We got hip-hop artist Chuck D’s jacket. The original funkmaster George Clinton, we got his Mothership. We got Prince’s tambourine. We got Nat Turner’s Bible. We got Harriet Tubman’s shawl. We got Radio Raheem’s boombox from Do the Right Thing. We got a training plane flown by Tuskegee Airmen. We got the Olympic torch that Muhammad Ali signed in the 1999 games in Atlanta, his head gear, his training robe, and on and on and on . . . We never stopped believing that we could do it. We could build this museum. We could make it happen. We didn’t give up, didn’t turn back, didn’t listen to those who said that we would fail, and the more people saw and experienced our belief, they caught the fever too.”
He then explained how this alone should inspire this group of young teachers: “Believe me, if we can build a museum . . . there’s nothing that you can’t do. There’s nothing you can’t reach. There’s nothing you can’t teach. But it begins with the vision, and it begins with a vision that maybe nobody else can see.” That vision was made real in a transformational collection that has inspired and educated over 11 million visitors and helped light the way for the next generation of Americans since the day its doors opened.
Now, just this week, the National Museum of African American History and Culture was named as one of the first eight Smithsonian museums targeted for a “comprehensive internal review” by the current administration in order to “ensure alignment” with the vision laid out in President Trump’s executive order on “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” The National Museum of American History, the National Museum of the American Indian, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the National Portrait Gallery are among the other institutions named on the initial list. Will Americans stand—or fall—for any ongoing attempts to edit, reframe, hide, or delete pieces of our shared cultural history? Or will the true stories of the vision, determination, exceptionalism, and contributions of all Americans remain firmly out in the light?