{"id":9680,"date":"2021-06-10T09:47:17","date_gmt":"2021-06-10T09:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/media-archive.blackartinamerica.com\/?p=9680"},"modified":"2021-06-10T15:11:08","modified_gmt":"2021-06-10T15:11:08","slug":"the-real-gs-in-black-art-history-and-culture-and-a-word-to-the-met-museum-by-debra-hand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earthexhibitions.org\/media-archive\/?p=9680","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Real G’s in Black Art History and Culture: And a Word to The Met Museum\u201d by Debra Hand\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Real G’s in Black Art History and Culture: And a Word to The Met Museum\u201d<\/b> by Debra Hand\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There are some real G\u2019s making moves in Black Culture.\u00a0 Their actions shout, \u201cI\u2019m playing Chess, not checkers!\u201d\u00a0 When Denzel\u2019s character first yelled these words in Training Day, it became one of his most quotable lines, perhaps because it\u2019s so relatable.\u00a0 At some point, we all want to shout those words at somebody\u2026at those who underestimate us, or think they can shut down our ideas.\u00a0 In Denzel\u2019s case, he was letting it be known that he was thinking way ahead of anyone who dared to come up against him.\u00a0 He was warning his opponents that they were no match for his power.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But in real life, people who change the world face waves of opponents \u2013 human, emotional, financial, etc.\u00a0 Often their journeys are lined with doubters who simply can\u2019t see the visions of those who think hundreds of steps ahead of everyone else. \u00a0 Unlike Training Day, in real life it\u2019s not always just a simple matter of checking your opponents with a clever line of scripted dialog.\u00a0 Sometimes you need other people to complete the mission and it\u2019s more a matter of learning to convert people who doubt your ideas into people who are excited about helping to make them a reality.<\/span><\/p>\n

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A Moment To Think by Kevin Johnson<\/p><\/div>\n

So when I think about Congressman John Lewis and what it must have taken to convince the nation that it needed to build the world\u2019s grandest tribute to African American history, art, and culture, I know there must have been thousands of pitch meetings, heated dialogs, and strategic negotiations, but also there had to be thousands of relationship-building moments.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Looking at the Congressman\u2019s prize jewel, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), I think of not only its magnificence, but also what it means for a Black man to be a real \u201cG\u201d in America.\u00a0 This is a monument that began with the determination of this one man, and now, there it stands.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To get the bill passed to build the museum, it would take Congressman Lewis 25 long years of working both sides of the aisle to sway a majority vote in both houses of Congress.\u00a0 With every move, he had to be incredibly strategic.\u00a0 If Denzel Washington was playing chess not checkers — then what in the world was John Lewis doing?\u00a0 He must have been color-flipping a Rubik\u2019s Cube with one side of his brain, and plotting rocket-launching Calculus with the other.\u00a0 Because to go from this kind of grand idea to a reality in an America where the least important item on the Congressional agenda is acknowledging the great history and contributions of Black folk \u2013 well, what strategy can possibly get you there?\u00a0 The game John Lewis needed, he\u2019d have to invent, and then revamp continuously as the game went along.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

No problem.\u00a0 John Lewis was a \u201cG\u201d of the highest order.\u00a0 And so the game began.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1988, he made his first move.\u00a0 According to Smithsonian library archives, Lewis \u201cintroduced a Bill to establish a national museum devoted to the subject of African Americans.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Immediately, the bill was met with opposition and ridicule.\u00a0 But Lewis was in it for the long game, and according to Smithsonian Library records, \u201cLewis introduced the bill every single year from 1988 to 2003, when it was passed.\u00a0 His determination was unparalleled.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After the first couple of years of Lewis introducing the bill, I can only imagine that, by now, members of Congress were side-eyeing each other when Lewis took the floor.\u00a0 Everyone thinking, \u201cHere comes Lewis and that doggone museum bill again.\u201d\u00a0 And I can just see Lewis thinking to himself, \u201cYou\u2019re doggone right.\u00a0 And I\u2019ll be introducing it until the end of time\u2026every chance I get until you do what\u2019s right!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It appeared he might just have to introduce the bill until the end of time, but finally, in 2003, two decades and some change later, the bill would pass both houses.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t begin to imagine the joy that must have filled John Lewis\u2019 heart, but even with this great feat, that was only the beginning.\u00a0 Another 13 years and another real \u201cG\u201d was needed to take it from there.<\/span><\/p>\n

Que, Lonnie G. Bunch III.<\/span><\/p>\n

It would now be up to him to take this grand dream from a thought to real life.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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“In the Park” by Allen Stringfellow<\/p><\/div>\n

In 2005, Lonnie Bunch was appointed as the Founding Director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now that\u2019s an impressive title, Founding Director, but let us zoom in on the word \u201cFounding\u201d for a moment.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure how the word was broken down in the job description, but basically the word meant, \u201cLonnie Bunch, you need to go and <\/span>found<\/span><\/i>, find, acquire, invent, or otherwise cause to exist, ALL of each and everything needed museum to make a museum be standing there out of thin air.\u00a0 You need to <\/span>found<\/span><\/i> tons of building materials, architects, artifacts, specialist teams, engineers, and giant, giant piles of money.\u201d\u00a0 For Lonnie Bunch, the game couldn\u2019t be checkers, chess, Rubik\u2019s cube, or rocket science.\u00a0 He had to, straight-up, come screeching out the crib in a bat-mobile, with cape flying.\u00a0 This was a job for some super-power type stuff.\u00a0 He was gonna have to \u201cgo where no man had gone before\u201d with a sale\u2019s pitch few were try\u2019na hear, undoubtedly.\u00a0 Imagine those calls.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHoney, who was that on the phone?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLonnie Bunch.\u00a0 He wants to know if we\u2019ve got $10 million dollars we can let him have?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor what?!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe wants to teach the world American history through Black folks.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe already watch the news, let him call Oprah.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

LOL!\u00a0 That\u2019s how I imagine the calls went anyway.\u00a0 People not quite seeing the vision right off\u2026like, lots of them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In writing about the journey of building the museum, Lonnie Bunch, himself, titled his book, \u201cA Fool\u2019s Errand.\u201d\u00a0 So I\u2019m thinking there were at least a few kryptonite\u2013wielding villains snapping at his heels throughout the ordeal, whether figurative, financial, or otherwise. \u00a0 And we know the financial part of it was hardly \u201cotherwise.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, despite whatever tried to stop him, block him, checkmate him, shut him down or out, Lonnie G. Bunch III pressed onward.\u00a0 \u201cUnder his watch, the museum grew from a project with no staff, collections, funding, or site,\u00a0 to become a cornerstone of American history and culture that has welcomed more than six million visitors since its opening and houses a collection of 40,000 objects.\u00a0 It is the largest museum devoted exclusively to examining and teaching African American history and its impact on the nation and world,\u201d according to Congressional records.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Edward The Gentleman by Dean Mitchell<\/p><\/div>\n

Lonnie Bunch, like Congressman John Lewis, wasn\u2019t playing checkers, or chess.\u00a0 In fact, he wasn\u2019t playing at all.\u00a0 He was being a real \u201cG\u201d in real life.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As for Denzel, he continues to prove he\u00a0 doesn\u2019t just play a \u201cG\u201d on TV.\u00a0 According to Essence Magazine, he and his wife, Pauletta, raised over $17 million for the museum.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Oh, and about that call to Oprah I joked about earlier\u2026in real life Oprah reached over there in her little clutch purse and peeled off $21 million for this massive cultural layaway plan.\u00a0 Robert Frederick Smith dropped $20 mil plus some change, as did Bill & Melinda Gates.\u00a0 Shonda\u00a0 Rhimes and David Rubenstein came through with over $10 mil each, and Michael Jordan put $5 on it, mil that is.\u00a0 There were plenty of other G\u2019s, both celebrity and regular good folk that pulled up for the cause.\u00a0 Americans of every color, age, and gender came together to say that our history and culture is critical to the story of America.\u00a0 In addition, many corporations stepped up with their wallets.\u00a0 A full list of donors can be found on the Smithsonian\u2019s website.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lonnie Bunch had a goal to raise $270 mil.\u00a0 He raised $386 mil.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When it was all said and done, land once occupied by plantations, was now occupied by the world\u2019s greatest monument to African American contributors; a monument which houses the most comprehensive repository of our survival; our struggles, triumphs, inventions, creativity, and beauty.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, today, towering above it all is the great spirit and legacy of Congressman John Lewis, the preeminent \u201cG\u201d of \u201cG\u2019s\u201d who not only stirred up \u201cgood trouble,\u201d but in doing so, incited a half-billion dollar institution dedicated to educating the world with our truth and the full American story.<\/span><\/p>\n

This national museum authority has been erected just in time to help thoroughly inform a new day of non-African Americans struggling for insight into Black history, culture, and art, as well as our impact on all American life, and the globe.\u00a0 Along with other Black museums and cultural institutions such as the DuSable Museum — principally founded by one of the greatest cultural leaders of the 21<\/span>st<\/span> century, Dr. Margaret Burroughs \u2013 the truth of our beauty is that much more available to nourish those seeking the truth.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Conversations In The Abstract #102 by Downs<\/p><\/div>\n

As I hear other museum leaders like Daniel H. Weiss, President and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum, avow to correct the blatant omissions of narratives, art, and artifacts from the museum; and as he promises to change the museum\u2019s direction, I have a suggestion:\u00a0 the same way you want your museum visitors to stand face-to-face with your prized van Goghs to experience his pallet\u2019s sweeping brush strokes, raw textures, and vivid colors \u2013 that\u2019s the same way you need to experience Black history and Culture.\u00a0 If you have not had the opportunity to do so, I recommend you begin your corrective processes by first standing inside the NMAAHC, face-to-face with the entire story of America; face-to-face with the beauty of cultural practices salvaged and evolved from the Motherland;\u00a0 face-to-face with the narratives and artifacts smelted in the crucibles of America\u2019s whole truth.\u00a0 Sit with those realities.\u00a0 Study those faces as you have studied van Gogh\u2019s famous self-portrait.\u00a0 Hear the echoes, experience the textures, see the items they left to us, tinted and etched by the realities of their times.\u00a0 You are the one who knows best that seeing van Gogh\u2019s \u201cStarry Night\u201d in person immerses you in his story in ways unequalled by any other research. \u00a0 Go to the NMAAHC and stand in America\u2019s full truth and, and as best you can, look out into the world through the eyes of those whose stories are told there.\u00a0 Look out of their eyes even at your own institution, and see the reality the Met has existed in, all along.\u00a0 This is the cognitive shift that will lead to real change.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Start there and you will know what African Americans have known all along — we have been relevant, we have been contributing, and we have been brilliantly creating the whole entire time.\u00a0 It is America who has been missing out on her own great attributes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In a country that spends billions on telescopes to explore the mysteries of the universe and to discover the secrets of dark energy, it has yet to discover the power and beauty of all the dark energy existing right in our midst in America.\u00a0 Just as in the blackness of the vast universe, there has been \u201csomething\u201d in the so-called nothingness, all along.\u00a0 This is what the work of John Lewis has left to all of us, and until America (and particularly those charged with telling her story) is willing to take an honest look in the mirror and examine her real face, flaws and all, she will never begin to understand her true power and potential.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thankfully, the nation has not overlooked the power that is Lonnie G. Bunch III.\u00a0 In addition to building and directing the NMAAHC, in 2019, he was installed as the 14<\/span>th<\/span> Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.\u00a0 Currently he oversees 19 major museums, 21 libraries, the National Zoo, numerous research centers, and several education centers.\u00a0 Secretary Bunch, along with Congressman John Lewis, has truly shown us all what real \u201cG\u2019s\u201d are.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe the next time you feel discouraged, you can look at that magnificent museum masterpiece on the nation\u2019s Mall \u2013 a museum idea once scoffed at and rejected repeatedly — and remember that Congressman John Lewis stood there year after year and presented that bill to Congress from 1988 to 2003, when he finally succeeded in getting it approved.\u00a0 With that same tenacious determination, he fought for our civil rights.\u00a0 He fought unwaveringly to correct the wrongs of this nation until his final days.\u00a0 In one of his many, many grand acts on Earth, he left us with the NMAAHC museum, the likes of which the world had never seen.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thank you Secretary Bunch for completing the dream, I know your book \u201cA Fool\u2019s Errand\u201d is a must read.\u00a0 Thank you NMAAHC staff, and all the donors who made it possible to bring this vision into the world.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And to one of the greatest \u201cG\u2019s\u201d Black history and culture has ever known I say, Rest in Peace, Congressman John Lewis.\u00a0 Thank you for your legacy of good trouble that\u2019ll forever continue to lead and win new fights for a better America.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In closing, here’s a clip of Dr. Margaret Burroughs, the Queen Mother of G’s, reciting her epic poem “What Shall I Tell My Children Who Are Black?”\u00a0 She answered the question by starting the DuSable Museum in her living room.\u00a0 The DuSable grew to become\u00a0 a world-class institution, and one of the first of its kind.<\/span><\/p>\n