Thanksgiving is, of course, a
time for gratitude. I just returned from our nation’s capital full to the brim
with a sense of well-being. No, I can’t say I’m grateful for the quagmire
aspects of contemporary politics. The recent impeachment hearings have
certainly not lacked for entertainment value, but I take no pleasure in
contemplating the blows afflicting our venerable system of checks and balances.
So while I was in Washington D.C., I tried to avoid thinking too hard about
what was going on in the White House, and on Capitol Hill.
But if you strip Washington
of its political dynamics, there’s a great deal to enjoy. One of the city’s
treasures is the multi-branched Smithsonian Institution. The Smithsonian,
founded by a philanthropic Englishman in 1846, now encompasses some nineteen
museums, not to mention the National Zoo. I’m particularly grateful that
admission to all these locales is completely free, so you can dip into the
various collections at your leisure, without worrying about shelling out a lot
of hard-earned cash.. The Smithsonian’s museums, most of them housed in
imposing buildings rimming the National Mall, cover such diverse areas as
American history, natural history, Native American culture, and the history of
air and space exploration. But it took until 2016 for the Smithsonian to open
its newest branch, the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
The National Museum of
African American History and Culture is still so new that visitors must line up
to enter (and on weekends still need to reserve their spots in advance). Housed
in a strikingly cantilevered building whose outer skin manages to look like
basketry, it occupies a prime spot not far from the Washington Monument.
Naturally, the heart of the museum is its sobering history section, which lays
out how black slaves oh-so-gradually evolved into full-fledged citizens. It’s
an evolution that has often stalled, needless to say. I’ll only mention here the
painful and eerie corner devoted to the memory of 14-year-old Emmett Till, who
in 1955 was brutally murdered for apparently whistling at a white woman while visiting relatives in
Mississippi.. Here’s one place where video footage has the power to smack us
between the eyes, as we realize what cruelty was visited upon the fresh-faced
young boy from Chicago.
Upstairs, for a complete
change of pace, there are exuberant galleries celebrating the highlights of
African-American achievement in sports, in music, in popular culture, and in
the entertainment field. In the area of television, I enjoyed the tribute to
the late Diahann Carroll, who by way of the gentle sitcom called Julia showed
that a black woman could be a full-fledged part of middle-class family life. (Carroll
later, in Dynasty, got to be an All-American vixen.) The museum
addresses the more problematic history of African-Americans in movies by
acknowledging the bad old days when “colored folk” were automatically
considered sex-crazed villains (Birth of a Nation) or loyal retainers (Gone
With the Wind.) But the vast majority of film clips on display feature
black performers in power roles, up to and including Pam Grier as a
tough vigilante in Coffy. Sidney Poitier, revered in mid-century films
for making nice to white men (and women) in such box-office hits as The
Defiant Ones, Lilies of the Field, A Patch of Blue, and Guess
Who’s Coming to Dinner, is instead shown in a powerhouse scene from A
Raisin in the Sun. The one love scene on display features two gorgeous
black performers, Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandridge in Carmen Jones. And even Hattie McDaniel, “Mammy” herself, is seen
showing a white soldier who’s boss.
Happy Thanksgiving to all!
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