By Darryl York III
Today, Dean Livingston dropped the group inside the National Museum of African American Culture and History in Washington D.C. for a day-long museum experience. The NMAAHC is especially valuable as it is home to a collection of millions of artifacts donated by collectors, friends, and descendants of African Americans throughout history. The artifacts included a handwritten letter from a free woman in the 1800s permitting her to see her husband; the Mothership prop that the Parliament-Funkadelic music performed on tour with; jerseys and attire signed and donated by professional athletes of all generations; and art created by black artists to tell stories untold in normative artistic spaces. All of these and more felt like a chance to appreciate the African American experience unlike the class culture of being lectured, reading a textbook or biography, or even watching a documentary. These tangibles and very raw accounts of individual experiences help to humanize my ancestors oppressed through so much slavery and injustice.
Tucked off in one of the corners of the Musical Crossroads exhibit lies a set of inviting double doors which pointed to a plaque warning guests of the Neighborhood Record Store’s ability to bring them to a place of nostalgia and remembrance through the sound of music. I read this plaque as my foot tapped along to the funk and soul of George Clinton’s One Nation Under a Groove and I was brought back to watching my elders get down at our family reunions during the summer. As I moved into the exhibit I looked up at the walls lined with musical icons like Public Enemy, Outkast, Queen Latifah, James Brown, and The Temptations. Under each of these photos, there were trays filled with album vinyl organized by genres like Hip Hop/Rap, Soul, R&B, Funk, Gospel, Rock n Roll, Jazz, Spirituals, Global, and more. Flipping through the 200+ vinyl available, I would begin to sing some of my favorite songs that popped up while adding others to my playlist that I had forgotten about! The record store was a beautiful show of the African American influence on music as a whole and reminded me of my time at the National Museum of African American Music in Nashville, TN this past December.
Another memorable piece of the museum highlighted the many black towns and settlements created by communities after the Civil War who decided to find isolation and build self-sufficiency for themselves. Places like Greenwood in Tulsa OK and Nicodemus, Kansas were thriving, self-sufficient settlements that I loved reading about as a reminder of the power held by a small community of people who decided to change their world for the better.
As a whole, I feel that my time at the National Museum of African American Culture and History reinforced the knowledge that I began this trip with and it has furthered my understanding of the true history of this country and the experience of my people here in America.