I first went to the Smithsonian back when I was in eighth grade and about to graduate from my elementary school. I loved going there, but the museum had very little about African Americans at all in it. That was almost a half-century ago and over the decades the Smithsonian Museum of American history added displays on the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the lunch counter at Woolworth’s. However, for more than a decade, there is now a museum dedicated to telling the story of African American history and culture that was officially begun under President George Bush and dedicated by Barak Obama. Both were there in 2016 for the opening of the museum.
During its first four years the demand to visit was so high that even trying to secure a timed ticket was nearly impossible. For my job, I visit the D.C. area frequently and until after pandemic hit you had to apply for a ticket months in advance. The National African American Museum of History and Culture still requires a free ticket to enter, but now you can reserve it with just a day or two advance notice. Here is where you can reserve tickets. The museum is located at 1400 Constitution Ave NW,, Washington, DCÂ 20560 next to The Mall.Â
The building is unique. It is visible from everywhere on The Mall. It is easy to get to using mass transit. You can take a moderate walk from Amtrak at Union Station as well. As with most museums in Washington, there are few parking spaces nearby, however.
The museum covers every aspect of African American history. It begins with the kidnapping of slaves in Africa, the dangerous journey on the Middle Passage to America, and enslavement for a quarter-of-a-millennium. Then things change with the coming of the Civil War, Emancipation, the XIII, XIV, and XV Amendments, Reconstruction, and the building of Black institutions. This is followed by the rise of the Klan, Jim Crow, and the renewed subjugation of Black people in the United States. Civil Rights, a rising middle class, and outstanding achievements by Black artists in literature, music, dance, and theater offer hope. This is an extremely realistic approach to Black history in the United States.
Unfortunately, I will not be able to cover all of that in this article. I will only cover the 1860s and 1870s, the Civil War and Reconstruction periods. However, I do encourage you to take in the whole museum which you should devote four hours to. The Civil War and Reconstruction Eras take about an hour total.
The Civil War begins with a memory from 1937 of Charlie Crump, and enslaved African American. He said that Blacks were not “allowed to go nowhere at night. That is, if they knowed it.” Nearby are several examples of Black slaves seeking to undermine slavery by helping fugitives escape, keeping slaves informed through word of mouth, and undermining the economic system of slavery.
One of the biggest Resistors was Harriet Tubman. She gets a lot of attention here as an escaped slave who was a conductor on the Underground Railroad, a spy for the Union during the Civil War, and a spokesperson for Black freedom after Appomattox. Here she is is brought to us with the most mundane artifact, a linen tissue that she used.
The interpretation is that both Black and white persons risked their lives by helping escaping slaves,
Next we are shown Harriet Tubman’s hymnal. Tubman desired freedom and she was also loyal to her God. Her religion sustained her through near-deadly trials for years.
Tubman was not “freed.” She seized Freedom and she helped other Blacks achieve the same status.
Next is the Point of Pines cabin from South Carolina. It was on Edisto Island and put up by enslaved people in 1853.
The cabin was a home, but also a gathering place for Black people barred from free association. The island was one of the first places in the South that took in Black refugees during the war.
Next we encounter two elected officials. Abraham Lincoln and his call for reforming the slave system, and Vice President of the Confederacy Alexander Stevens who said that slavery was the cornerstone of the Confederacy.
…And here is the Confederate side.
The Civil War forms a focal point in the first floor of the museum. Things come together there and after it there is a great dispersal of currents as four million African Americans try to build a reformed society.
A big part of the Civil War exhibit is on the United States Colored Troops. The museum includes statements from the common soldier on what they fought for.
Recruiting posters show the ideas that were spread to build up Black units.
A panel called “Self-Emancipation” looks at the experience of the hundreds of thousands of Black refugees escaping from slavery during the war and setting up refugee camps and enlisting in the Union Army.
The signage talks about the interplay between the Union Army and slaves escaping into freedom.
The United States Colored Troops have their stories told through personal photographs.
Courage was recognized by the awarding of the Butler Medal.
Private Gordon, the abused slave in the photo overhead, escaped from slavery and became a United States Colored Corps private.
Death was one result of many enlistments.
Sojourner Truth’s poetry explained why Blacks fought.
Photography became an important way for white Americans to encounter African Americans. Many Blacks could not write, teaching reading to Blacks had been banned in the South since the 1830s. Even Harriet Tubman could not write. Photographs told white Americans that these were fellow human beings.
Similarly, a group of Black refugees were photographed.
Frederick Douglass was one of the most photographed men in 19th Century America. Here he is in one of his most iconic photographs with his cane next to him.
At the end of the Civil War, Blacks began building institutions like the church. Below is a religious symbol from that time.
The exhibit displays former slaves as Freedpeople.
Under slavery, a Black persons dress was chosen by the master. After freedom, many Blacks developed their own styles.
The museum also displays a number of important documents connected to Freedom, from the Emancipation Proclamation to the 13th Amendment.
The 14th Amendment was passed by Congress and ratified by the states recognizing that Blacks were citizens of the United States and entitled to due process and the same civil rights as whites.
In the 1870s there was a brief period of Black power and prosperity.
Robert Small, who commandeered a Confederate ship and turned it over to Union forces, became a hero in both the North and South and was elected to Congress.
As Reconstruction was destroyed in the mid-1870s, Segregation replaced it. Blacks who had enjoyed some freedom now wanted to leave the South and become Exodusters living on the Great Plains.
The museum does a good jobs of presenting the Black Codes. Wherever whites excluded African Americans from voting, the legislature put in Black Codes to keep Blacks as near to slavery as was possible.
With white electorates controlling most of the legal and economic power in the South, stereotypes of Blacks enjoyed renewed promulgation. These soon spread to the North.
The museum has a scary collection of Black stereotype artifacts.
But it does show those who fought back. Ida B. Wells was a Black journalist who exposed the stereotypes and documented the lynching of Blacks throughout the South and the North.
But, the money was on depicting the Blacks as Beasts.
And, the Ku Klux Klan rose again fifty years after the Civil War in both the North and South.
The museum is an excellent place to begin your study of African Americans during the Civil War and Reconstruction. It is right across from the Washington Monument and should become an icon of American freedom and perseverance.
Please make sure to reserve the free timed tickets before you go!
Note: All color photos in this post were taken by Patrick Young except as noted.
You need to read the article before you level your criticism. The article says it is reviewing how the museum treats the Civil War and Reconstruction. Now Gustav, Justice Thomas is quite old, but he was not alive between 1860 and 1877.