African American History and Culture Museum and American History Museum

 

August 15, 2023

 

African American History and Culture Museum and American History Museum

My next stop on my visit to the National Mall was another old favorite, the National Museum of American History, which is located right next door to the Natural History Museum. Once again, it is a museum that I have visited numerous times of the course of my life, but not since it has undergone two massive restoration and expansion projects in the past fifteen years.

Again the museum is massive and there is no possible way to see everything, so I focused on a few areas that I wanted to make sure I was able to see.  The first was the massive and historic American Flag that was the inspiration for the Star-Spangled Banner. This was the original garrison flag that flew over Ft. McHenry in Baltimore during the Battle of Baltimore in 1814 and inspired what became our National Anthem.

For years the flag hung in the great hall upon entering the museum but now after being extensively cleaned and restored in 2008, the flag is displayed in its own massive, temperature controlled, dimly lit display chamber, which allows visitors to see it. As with many precious and delicate historical objects, no photos are allowed of the flag, but it is a remarkable and inspiring piece of American history.

Upstairs, I visited a couple of other galleries, one tracing the history of US soldiers through the ages, with artifacts from the various conflicts we have been engaged in since the nation was formed. It was a compact, but effective display but there are many more significant military history museums that feature more comprehensive collections.

But only the National History Museum features such a significant collection of what I really came to see, artifacts of Pop culture. From the Ruby slippers from the film “Gone with the Wind”, the original Kermit the Frog, the Lone Ranger’s mask, Archie Bunker’s chair, the Popular Culture section features a plethora of some of the most famous relics of American popular culture.

The list of cool artifacts just goes on and on and includes the original C3PO and R2D2 from Star Wars, Rocky Balboa’s robe, Prince’s guitar, Captain America’s shield and a sweater and shoes from Fred Rogers. The museum also features a fantastic and popular display on the First Ladies of US History and has dresses and White House china from first ladies from Mary Todd Lincoln to Melania Trump. 

I was in for more popular culture at my next stop, the at beautiful and relatively new National Museum of African American Culture and History. It wasn’t built the last time I spent significant time in Washington DC, having opened in 2016, and I was really interested to check it out. It is a beautiful and well-done building.

The museum is impressive and even though only about 3500 of their 40,000 artifacts are on display throughout the five floors of exhibits and displays it is an amazing array of historical items. The museum doesn’t shy away from the many negative experiences that black Americans have suffered, from slavery to modern-day racism, but it also highlights the many achievements of African Americans throughout our history and culture.

I was most drawn again, to the celebration of African Americans in our popular culture and sports, mostly because I am a pop culture nerd, who is excited to see artifacts from the TV series “Get Christie Love” and “Good Times” as well as the many larger than life sports figures who are celebrated from Tommie Smith, to Muhammad Ali and Althea Gibson to Kobe Bryant.

In the section on music, I was taken aback to see the “Mothership”, a set piece from George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic as I was going to see George in concert that very night. I loved the musical artifacts, instruments and even Chuck Berry’s red Cadillac that were on display yet while I enjoyed this aspect of the museum, it was the more historically significant pieces that resonated the most and that demonstrate the important and continued need to teach portions of our history that even today in my home state of Florida are trying to be restricted and even erased.

https://americanhistory.si.edu/

https://nmaahc.si.edu/