The Thorny Path to a National Black Museum - NYTimes.com
The Thorny Path to a National Black Museum
By KATE TAYLOR
Published: January 22, 2011
In the late 1970s, when Lonnie G. Bunch III had his first job at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, veterans of the Tuskegee Airmen, the all-black squadron, accused the museum of playing down their contributions during World War II. In response, the museum asked some of the African-Americans on staff to allow their faces to be used on mannequins, increasing the “black presence” in its exhibits.
“I didn’t do it,” Mr. Bunch said recently, who was among those asked. “That’s not the way I wanted to be part of a museum.”
Thirty years later Mr. Bunch, and African-American history itself, are part of a Smithsonian museum, but in a very different way. As the director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Mr. Bunch, 58, is charged with creating an institution that embodies the story of black life in America.
Do proceed to the nytimes link above for the full article. It's interesting, exciting, and a little disconcerting at the same time. My personal opinion is that the purpose of history is not to be reconciliatory, but informative. Too often African Americans have to speak to our experience with bowed heads in reconciliatory tones to appease others. If our history and contributions to this nation are to be told, let them be addressed in courageous and unabashed fashion.
The only way people of African American descent will ever achieve justice in this nation, is when the abridged historical narrative (to fit the tastes of those who have plundered and benefited from the plundering) of this nation's development and societal progress is edited in truth.
JuJuan Buford
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The Thorny Path to a National Black Museum - NYTimes.com
The Thorny Path to a National Black Museum
By KATE TAYLOR
Published: January 22, 2011
In the late 1970s, when Lonnie G. Bunch III had his first job at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, veterans of the Tuskegee Airmen, the all-black squadron, accused the museum of playing down their contributions during World War II. In response, the museum asked some of the African-Americans on staff to allow their faces to be used on mannequins, increasing the “black presence” in its exhibits.
“I didn’t do it,” Mr. Bunch said recently, who was among those asked. “That’s not the way I wanted to be part of a museum.”
Thirty years later Mr. Bunch, and African-American history itself, are part of a Smithsonian museum, but in a very different way. As the director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Mr. Bunch, 58, is charged with creating an institution that embodies the story of black life in America.
Do proceed to the nytimes link above for the full article. It's interesting, exciting, and a little disconcerting at the same time. My personal opinion is that the purpose of history is not to be reconciliatory, but informative. Too often African Americans have to speak to our experience with bowed heads in reconciliatory tones to appease others. If our history and contributions to this nation are to be told, let them be addressed in courageous and unabashed fashion.
The only way people of African American descent will ever achieve justice in this nation, is when the abridged historical narrative (to fit the tastes of those who have plundered and benefited from the plundering) of this nation's development and societal progress is edited in truth.
The Thorny Path to a National Black Museum - NYTimes.com
via www.nytimes.com
Do proceed to the nytimes link above for the full article. It's interesting, exciting, and a little disconcerting at the same time. My personal opinion is that the purpose of history is not to be reconciliatory, but informative. Too often African Americans have to speak to our experience with bowed heads in reconciliatory tones to appease others. If our history and contributions to this nation are to be told, let them be addressed in courageous and unabashed fashion.
The only way people of African American descent will ever achieve justice in this nation, is when the abridged historical narrative (to fit the tastes of those who have plundered and benefited from the plundering) of this nation's development and societal progress is edited in truth.
JuJuan Buford
Posted at 12:48 PM in Social, Political, Cultural Commentary | Permalink