Much has already been written about the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, which opened Sept. 24 amidst grand ceremony and critical praise for its Yoruba-themed architecture, its collection (35,000 items) and the depth and breadth of its 600-year coverage.
But the real richness of this newest Smithsonian museum is the deep personal recognition — joyful and sad — that it brings forth from visitors.
One week after it opened, the museum hummed non-stop with conversation as visitors, about 80 percent African American, found their singular stories within the big story that all Americans share, regardless of race or ethnicity.
“My grandmamma did tatting good as that,” said one woman to another, gazing at a silk, lace and linen shawl given to freedom fighter Harriet Tubman, a former slave, by England’s Queen Victoria around 1897.
“Cool,” was the succinct consensus among a group of young women reacting to a 1969 ink on paper poster created by the Black Panther Party of Connecticut headlined “Women! Free Our Sisters.”
Elsewhere, an older man stood mesmerized before a “Whites Only” sign dating from the 1950s. “I came home from serving my country in Japan in 1960,” he said to a young companion, shaking his head, “and the first thing I saw when I got off the bus in Dallas was a sign just like that.”
One conversation after another confirmed that people had come to validate their experience. Many brought their children. I was there, in part, to seek out Connecticut connections, and report any obvious omissions.
The museum has 400,000 square feet of space and three major exhibition areas — History, Community and Culture. It’s impossible to see it all in one day, or even several days. So where do you start?
The logical place is the history galleries, which begin in the museum’s underground space with the Transatlantic Slave Trade and rise upstairs through Slavery and Freedom. There, as expected, the mutiny aboard the slave ship Amistad plays a noteworthy role.
After the Amistad left Cuba in 1839, its African captives, led by Joseph Cinque, successfully commandeered the ship. But the ship was intercepted off Long Island, and the slaves were imprisoned in New London.
Although slavery itself remained legal in America, importation of new slaves had been outlawed in 1808. Former President John Quincy Adams, who defended the mutineers at their trial in New Haven, won their freedom by arguing that they were purchased illegally. But the museum notes that Adams was not an abolitionist, and did not regard Africans as his equal.
On the day I visited, contemporary equality got an unplanned hearing. “Is he part of the exhibit?” someone asked regarding a tall African American man walking around wearing a burlap sackcloth smeared with what pretended to be copious blood stains, plus heavy chains around his waist, arms and neck.
“Oh, he’s not part of this, he’s just making a statement,” said another voice in the crowd.
Sharif Shafi, the man in question, confirmed that he was acting on his own, and said museum officials had refused him entry until he convinced them he wasn’t a threat. “I want to inject some living history,” he said, “and make the point that this (racial oppression) still exists.”
Shafi works in mental health in the D.C. area, but said he used to live in Hartford and graduated in 1980 from Bulkeley High School. “I think people need to see,” he said, “we are still in slavery now.”
“I want to start a dialogue,” said Sharif, and he did, in between posing with visitors for selfies. But it didn’t take a costume. There was dialogue aplenty throughout the museum, and also at times some tears.
Venture Smith And Prince Simbo
Connecticut gets several mentions in the history galleries, including via the inspiring story of Venture Smith (ca. 1729-1805).
Born in Guinea, West Africa, the son of a wealthy leader, Venture Smith was captured and sold into slavery. Slavers replaced his given name, Broteer, with Venture. He took the surname Smith from a Stonington slave owner who, unlike others for whom he toiled, allowed him to earn money of his own.
In 1765, Smith purchased his freedom and that of his wife and children. By 1775 he was a successful businessman and landowner in East Haddam. Most noteworthy, in 1798 he published his autobiography in New London. It was a rare triumph for a former slave, and proved a treasure for historians.
Many of the museum’s most captivating objects are historic items touched by human hands. One of these, a Connecticut artifact from Revolutionary War days, is Prince Simbo’s powder horn.
Prince Simbo remained a slave throughout his service with the 7th Regiment Connecticut Line of the Continental Army. Wounded in battle, he was said to have bravely fought on and, upon mustering out, he was freed.
In 1787, Prince Simbo’s hometown of Glastonbury voted to give him land for a house on Chestnut Hill Road. His story illustrates that African Americans fought for the nation’s freedom long before they gained freedom for themselves.
Nancy Bercaw, a museum curator, said the origin of Prince Simbo’s name is unknown. Most of what we know comes from military records, which show that his regiment fought in the battles at Brandywine and Germantown, Pa. Perhaps he was wounded in one of those battles.
Records indicate that Prince Simbo enlisted in the Continental Army in 1778, when Washington’s army was in winter quarters at Valley Forge. It’s unknown whether he ran away from a slave owner or was offered by a slave owner as a “substitute recruit,” which Bercaw said was a common practice.
Prince Simbo’s powder horn, “made at Glastenbury (sic) November 17th AD 1777,” is a rare artifact, said Bercaw, and was purchased by the museum from a collector. Many other museum items were donated, or are on loan, like the pulpit Bible of the Rev. James W.C. Pennington (1807-1870).
Pennington was a fugitive slave who, in 1840, became pastor of Talcott Street Church, now Faith Congregational Church in Hartford. He achieved international fame as an abolitionist preacher and writer, and supporters in Scotland raised money to eventually buy his freedom.
Pennington is credited with being the first black student admitted to Yale University. But Faith Church’s former historian, Yvonne McGregor-McCaulley, clarifies that he was forced to sit outside classrooms and forbidden to speak.
When church members toured the museum last weekend they saw their beloved Bible displayed near one of the museum’s most prominent exhibits, a re-assembled slave cabin from Edisto Island, S.C. “It was very emotional,” recalled McGregor-McCaulley. “Some were crying softly.”
All were pleased that the Bible is open to Isaiah 58:10, which reads, “and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry — and satisfy the needs of the oppressed — then your light will rise in the darkness — and your night will become like noonday.”
The passage has special significance, McGregor-McCaulley said, because Pennington read it on Aug. 18, 1841, when five of the Amistad mutineers attended services at the Talcott Street church. Pennington was helping to raise funds to repatriate them to their homes in West Africa.
The Bible is on loan for 12 years, said McGregor-McCaulley, “subject to renewal. I don’t expect we’ll be taking it back anytime soon.” Church members feel its placement in the museum puts their history on the national and international map, she said, and reminds them that they “stand on the shoulders” of slaves and freemen, like Pennington, who built the life they have today.
Among thousands of items donated to the museum, a New Haven family’s 19th century photograph album proved especially fruitful. Its contents included a stunning cabinet card portrait of an elegantly dressed African American woman.
The photographer was Daniel P. Ramsdell (active 1862-1889). The lady, sadly, is unidentified. But her beauty and dignity led her portrait to be chosen for a prominent spot in the new book “Double Exposure: African American Women.”
More Connecticut Ties
Connecticut’s role in the museum continues in the fourth floor culture galleries. A towering portrait by New London artist Barkley Hendricks, titled “New Orleans Niggah,” is included in the visual arts galleries. And playwright August Wilson (1945-2005) is featured in the stage section.
Wilson developed the major works in his 10-play cycle about African American life at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford, and premiered them at the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven.
Admittedly, playbills and photos of Wilson can’t compete for glitz with Ray Charles’s blue and gold tuxedo jacket, Chuck Berry’s convertible red Cadillac Eldorado, Lena Horne’s elegant dresser set, and Michael Jackson’s sequined red, white and blue shirt from his 1984 Victory concert tour. But Wilson fans were found eagerly comparing his works.
Similarly, legendary contralto Marian Anderson’s black skirt and remade orange silk shantung jacket lacked the glamour of gowns worn by Whitney Houston and Diana Ross. But when you realize Anderson wore this for her 1939 concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, it gets more interesting.
Near the outfit is the little red diary Anderson kept in 1952 while she was living in Danbury. To see her graceful cursive writing inside the diary is touching, especially since 1952 was the year she returned to the Lincoln Memorial to honor those who helped make her landmark concert possible.
Because the museum tells America’s story, all who visit will find something of themselves there.
“My father had one of those,” said a man somberly looking at a 1955 Travel Guide for African Americans in the era of segregation, offering a list of places to find “Vacation and Recreation, without Humiliation.”
“I had those!” exclaimed a woman as she spied a giant gold pair of bamboo doorknocker earrings popularized by female rapper MC Lyte in the 1980s.
Somewhere in this expansive, inclusive museum you’ll surely recognize your story, too.
For information about admission including free, timed entry passes to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, visit: nmaahc.si.edu/visit/passes; 844-750-3012. Due to unprecedented demand, advance passes are unavailable until April 2017. A limited number of free Timed Passes per visitor can be obtained in person on the same day of your visit at the museum, first-come, first-served basis, beginning at 9:15 a.m. The line forms on the Constitution Avenue side of the building. Same Day Timed passes are not available online or by phone.
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to add additional information about the source of a photograph of an unidentified woman in the museum’s collection.
