African American History: A Film Analysis

As I walked into the building, I couldn’t help but feel that it was too small. To myself, I asked if that status of African Americans in the U.S., their status as sub-human had anything to do with the underwhelming physical space. Then, I looked at the exhibits, watched the twenty-minute film and realized that the atmosphere and formation centered on the monument and the small piece of ground. Still, it was underwhelming. Compared to places like the MoMA or the American Museum of Natural History, African American history entwined into American history seems as buried as the enslaved’s bodies.

As soon as I walked through the front doors, there was the exhibit of a group of mourners over two coffins. Ironically, I didn’t recognize them as coffins at all until the very purpose struck me; the plain pale boxes looked less like coffins and more like storage boxes about to be hauled on to a ship. Gradually, as I looked around, I had the sense I was supposed to be doing more reading and following than seeing. It …show more content…
The indifference towards the bodies of the enslaved Africans showed how reflexive racism is in America, as the GSA and the federal government showed when their representatives announced they were to build on top of the field and not reinter the bodies after they were found. I can’t help but think of whether that would have happened if it were white settlers or the lost colony of Roanoke (after evidence). Other than this, I was impressed with the support thrown into this monument from the children and older kids that wrote on post cards to the Ghanaian leader that flew in to formally apologize for the African chief and tribe’s involvement in the slave trade. Poets like Mary Angelou themselves especially spoke out for the existence of a true, permanent space inn memorial for those people that still endure the brunt of “progress” in the