Beacons of Change

The increasing development and importance of American Indian tribal museums and African American museums and cultural institutions over the last 40 years is a trend that has been articulated as being one of the most significant legacies of the civil rights movement (Smithsonian Institution, 2003: 74). This final chapter represents a coming full circle of my argument, and I build on my previous analysis of American Indian cultural centre development to consider connections between the development of the Anacostia Neighborhood Museum in 1967, the Smithsonian Institution’s involvement in the Poor People’s Campaign in 1968, and the parallel efforts to establish a National African American Museum (which occurred with legislation of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2003). ¹ In some respects, this trajectory, with its focus on African American cultural recognition, parallels the development of community-based tribal museums, the culmination of which was considered by many to be the subsequent opening in 2004 of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall. My emphasis in this chapter is an exploration of the links between museological activism and the African American civil rights movement at national and local levels, where activists and advocates sought to make an impact at national level (for instance, by demonstrating on the Mall against inequity) in order to gain the resources, knowledge and confidence to effect change – social change, urban renewal, economic justice – at the local level. ² The chapter’s main focus will be a case study of the cooperation that occurred between the Smithsonian Institution and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in relation to a series of programmes run during the Poor People’s Campaign at Resurrection City on the National Mall. Contextual and related events, including the development of the Anacostia Museum and the National Museum of African American History and Culture (scheduled to open in 2015), will be addressed briefly in the final section of the chapter.