Elizabeth Hays, a white woman from central North Carolina, had never been to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. But earlier this month, after she read about Donald Trump’s executive order targeting the museum and others throughout the Smithsonian system, she made the nearly five-hour drive up to Washington, D.C., to visit. She was worried that if she waited any longer, she might encounter a sanitized version of the museum, or no museum at all.
She told me this in front of a display focused on contemporary manifestations of Black protest. Elisa Hill, a Black woman from Maryland, was visiting that day too. “I’m very worried about what’s going to happen here,” Hill told me, shaking her head. “Because it represents the history that we all need to know and understand. I’m just afraid that it’s going to be censored.”
I, too, had carried this concern since hearing about the executive order. I tried to contact museum officials—including Lonnie Bunch, the head of the Smithsonian and the founding director of NMAAHC—but each person I reached out to was unavailable. I was not surprised by this response. Smithsonian officials no doubt fear that if they speak publicly about the executive order, then they, and the institution, might be further targeted. So instead, I made a trip to NMAAHC, hoping to talk directly with people there and take stock of what might be lost.
Every time I visit NMAAHC, the first person I think of is Ruth Odom Bonner. On September 24, 2016, President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama stood alongside the 99-year-old Bonner—and three other generations of her family—to ring the bell signaling the opening of the museum to the public. Bonner’s presence that day was significant because she was the daughter of a man who was born into slavery. Not the granddaughter. Not the great-granddaughter. The woman who opened NMAAHC was the child of a man born in bondage. His name was Elijah Odo...
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