African American Museum Essay

Employing the examples of the Anacostia Neighborhood Museum, the African American Museum of Philadelphia, and in the end the National Museum of African American History and Culture as well as other museums, such as Chicago’s DuSable Museum and the International Afro-American Museum highlight changes that happened in museums beginning in the 60’s and beyond. From Storefront to Monument by Andrea A. Burns looks closely at these museums created in storefronts, in predominantly black neighborhoods, as well as the people involved and discusses the triumphs and hardships black museums went through from their creation, especially in regards to their attempts to compete with other, better funded, institutions. Primarily, Burns focuses on the fact that black community leaders and “the African American museums that emerged during the 1960s and 1970s challenged and re-created new national memories and identities that incorporated the ideas, events, and objects, and places tied to black history” (Burns 4).
Museums in the past were places …show more content…
These museums were ahead of the times and eventually were the cause of traditional museums to produce results of more inclusivity in larger museums. Eventually, The Anacostia Community Museum’s success paved the way for change in the other Smithsonian museums in D.C. And eventually because of this, “museums with significantly larger budgets sought to ‘mainstream’ African American history and culture in their programs” (Burns 138). The museums, like the Anacostia Community Museum, created community engagement and traveling museum exhibitions to reach the largest amount of people possible and inspired change in other more traditional museums across the United