Disappearing Act

Dear Leading Ladies,

I visited the National Museum of African American History and Culture, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, shortly after it opened in 2016. Barack Obama was president, but the new museum had been mandated by an act of Congress in 2003, when George W. Bush was president.

An hour into my visit, I realized the half-day I had allotted was not nearly enough to see all the exhibits, not just those about the slave trade and the Civil Rights Movement, but also those about the contributions of African Americans in the fields of music, food, literature, visual arts, drama, science, sports and more.

Now, I may never see these exhibits because the Trump administration has begun to dismantle and remove some of them.  

Why?

The museum is “a place where all Americans can learn about the richness and diversity of the African American experience, what it means to live their lives, and how it helped us shape this nation,” according to its website. Its mission “is to capture and share the unvarnished truth of African American history and culture,” using “scholarship, art, and artifacts from the past and present to illuminate the contributions, struggles, and triumphs that have shaped our nation.”

Yet Trump sees it differently. He believes the exhibits disparage the nation’s history with what he describes as a “divisive race-centered ideology.” One of the first to go is a portion of the actual lunch counter from the 1960 sit-in at Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina, where four Black students from North Carolina A&T State University, an HBCU, sat in the whites only section and refused to leave, marking an important non-violent action in the Civil Rights Movement.

Trump, in his attack on the National Museum of African American History and Culture and other parks and museums, recently said people should be able to visit these places “to learn, not to be subjected to ideological indoctrination or divisive narrative that distort our shared history.” VP Vance, too, is committed to removing “improper ideology” from the nation’s museums.

Greensboro lunch counter exhibit formerly at the National Museum of African American History and Culture

I can’t help but wonder how that park ranger we met recently in Alabama at the US Civil Rights Trail Interpretive Center is feeling about her job right now. It seems only a matter of days, maybe weeks, until the exhibits we saw in Montgomery, Selma, Birmingham, and Atlanta — at least those with federal funding — are shuttered.

There is one Smithsonian exhibit that may fly under the radar for a while, and we want to spread the word about it while it still exists. A Leading Lady in Colorado told us about Bias Inside Us, a community engagement project featuring a Smithsonian traveling exhibition. You can learn a great deal from the online site, but even more by visiting one of the sites around the country where an exhibit is set up for a week. The closest to New England this year is in Rye, New York, in Westchester County, this summer. If there is enough interest, we could organize a one-day trip to see it. Maybe hire a bus. The drive takes about 3 hours and 15 minutes.

The project, grounded in research, aims to teach people to recognize their implicit biases, to use that awareness to develop empathy, and to create inclusiveness. Bias, the site explains, is a “preference either for or against a person or group.” We all have biases. It is a human condition to like our own group, or team, or country. But, “when we recognize these automatic biases, we can disrupt them and change how we behave towards one another.”

There are multiple interactive, engaging, thought provoking, and yes, fun, “pages” to the online exhibit. Some routes can get a little confusing and lead down some rabbit holes, but stick with it. The information and introspection is worth it. But do it fast. When Trump discovers Bias Inside Us, that may be the end of it.

And be sure to let us know if you are interested in a field trip sometime between June 28 and July 27 to see the exhibit in person. Email ladies@leadingladiesvote.org.

All the best,

Therese (she/her/hers)
Judy (she/her/hers)
Didi (she/her/hers)
Leading Ladies Executive Team
Leadingladiesvote.org
ladies@leadingladiesvote.org