February is African-American History Month: Art History and Prominent Black Artists
Typically, African American or Black History Month is about "regular" history and how Black Americans have experienced the US. I take it a little further in my piece on transportation history ("African American History Month and Transportation: February 4th | Transit Equity Day," 2025), and have written about creating "history trails" in systematic ways ("Four points about presentation of African American History in the context of Black History Month | reprint with an addition about the US Civil Rights Trail (versus the Dixieland Trail)," 2024).
I'm the last person to be able to write about art history generally, or in terms of African-Americans specifically, but that seems like a great topic area to celebrate during the month as well. I don't recall a lot of art presentation in the context of Black History Month.
Although yes, we see exhibitions all the time of Jacob Lawrence, Sam Gilliam, and contemporary artists Kehinde Wiley and Kara Walker.
For example, the Boston Globe has an article, "Art Review: Has John Wilson’s time arrived? He’s been here all along," on a retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts on the sculptor John Wilson. Who I hadn't heard of, but hell, I can pretty much only identify Rodin and Wiley as sculptors generally, given my lack of knowledge
“Father and Child Reading” by John Wilson. PHOTO: COURTESY OF ROXBURY COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Also see, "Sculpting a Legacy: The Art and Impact of John Wilson," Tufts Now.
Labels: African American/black politics, art history, critical race theory, cultural heritage/tourism, cultural planning, culture wars, historiography, public history, urban history
posted by Richard Layman @ 3:26 PM&Permanent Link
2 Comments:
Trump’s Orwellian Assault on Black History
https://prospect.org/politics/2025-04-15-trumps-orwellian-assault-on-black-history
Amid anti-DEI push, National Park Service rewrites history of Underground Railroad
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2025/04/06/national-park-service-underground-railroad-history-slavery/
Historians rip Trump attacks on the 'Black Smithsonian'
https://apnews.com/article/trump-black-history-smithsonian-dei-687fd306dc9c6d7611300d74fe49b8aa
Former NAACP President Ben Jealous, who now leads the Sierra Club, said museums that focus on specific minority or marginalized groups — enslaved persons and their descendants, women, Native Americans — are necessary because historical narratives from previous generations misrepresented those individuals or overlooked them altogether.
“Attempts to tell the general history of the country always omit too much ... and the place that we’ve come to by having these museums is so we can, in total, do a better job of telling the complete story of this country,” he said.
Head of African American Museum Departs as Trump Targets Smithsonian
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/arts/design/kevin-young-smithsonian-african-american-museum-departs.html
RESTORING TRUTH AND SANITY TO AMERICAN HISTORY
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/restoring-truth-and-sanity-to-american-history/
Trump Wants to Rewrite History at the Smithsonian. It’ll Be an Uphill Battle
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/story/true-colors-trump-wants-to-rewrite-history-at-the-smithsonian
Historians see Trump attacks on the ‘Black Smithsonian’ as an effort to sanitize racism
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/30/historians-see-trump-attacks-on-the-black-smithsonian-as-an-effort-to-sanitize-racism-00259310
Postelection surrealism and nostalgic racism in the hands of Donald Trump, HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.14318/hau7.1.026
Trickle-down racism: Trump's effect on whites’ racist dehumanizing attitudes, Current Research in Ecological and Social Psychology
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666622723000710
Letter: Trump’s claim about the museum of African American history is a lie
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/letters/2025/04/13/letter-trumps-claim-about-museum/
While on a recent vacation in Washington D.C., my partner and I went to what felt like a thousand museums. I would say my top two (not including the Gershwin exhibit in the Library of Congress) were the National Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of African American History and Culture. I came out of our trip with a renewed hope for our First Amendment rights and for our nation’s ability to overcome the toughest divisions over time.
Less than two weeks after we returned, POTUS signed an executive order targeting several of the Smithsonian museums we visited. The order specifically calls out the National Museum of African American History and Culture as one that promotes “improper ideology.” I am very distressed by this.
One of my favorite things about the museum was the piece of it that walks you through an honest history of some of the darkest parts of our nation’s history — the slave trade, the Civil War, segregation, etc. — and still manages to leave you feeling hopeful about America. It shows you exactly how the Founding Fathers failed to live up to their own principles, but how, after years of struggle and bloodshed, we have grown closer and closer to living up to the ideal.
This administration claims in the order that, “The National Museum of African American History and Culture has proclaimed that ‘hard work,’ ‘individualism,’ and ‘the nuclear family’ are aspects of ‘White culture.’”
From my experience there last month, I can only conclude this claim is a lie. And to me, it seems like a pretty pernicious one.
Ian McDougal, Tooele
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