Abstract
The National Afro American Museum and Cultural Center (NAAMCC), the first national museum and training center for Black museum professionals, was located in Wilberforce, Ohio. Introduced by a congressional bill on April 8, 1968, four days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., NAAMCC’s early proponents in the legislature proposed the museum as a site for racial reconciliation in the aftermath of urban uprisings. While museum studies scholars have defined America’s national museums as beacons of civic identity due to their federal support and the absorption of ethnic minorities into the mythos of American democracy, this presentation will situate NAAMCC in the context of the Black communities from which it drew legitimacy and support. The Black community at Wilberforce, historically a hotbed of the anti-slavery movement and site of two historically Black universities, promoted NAAMCC as an extension of a Black museum tradition that emphasized a broader vision for the Black museum than Black inclusion in American civic life. Two decades later, when NAAMCC opened in 1987, its staff articulated its mission: to train Black museum professionals to interpret African American life within the context of the broader African world by curating African material culture. This paper utilizes oral interviews, scholarly monographs, and organizational minutes to trace the institutional, intellectual, and cultural influences that established NAAMCC and the collaborative efforts of museum professionals, academic and public historians to represent African diaspora histories at the museum to a diverse community of patrons.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Museums, Knowledge, Culture, Research, Ethnicity, Diaspora
