Spending a few hours contemplating what never should have happened

The writing on the wall...

It's one of the hottest tickets in town, and it took several months of trying before I was finally able to score three ducats online, but on Saturday my daughter and I (the wife opting out as usual at the last moment) visited the National Museum of African-American History and Culture:

The museum has been extremely popular since its opening in September 2016, and timed entry passes (free) for weekend visits are required. The passes become available three months in advance on the first Wednesday of each month. After a couple of unsuccessful prior attempts, I was finally able to reserve three spaces for an early afternoon slot on the first Saturday in March. Even with the timed entry system, the museum was still packed with visitors:

Which was a shame, as the crowds made it difficult to fully appreciate the extensive historical exhibits, packed into three subterranean levels. The displays cover arguably the most disturbing chapter in American history (along with the genocide committed against the indigenous populations). It's all there - the enslavement of West Africans and their transport to the New World; two centuries of often brutal forced labor; Jim Crow, lynchings and segregation; the Civil Rights struggles and so on. It's a lot to take in, a depressing failure of the so-called ideals of equality, justice and opportunity that this nation is supposedly founded on, and which our politicians never seem to tire of trotting out for public speeches. This particular American chapter is a sobering but absolutely necessary read, and it was too bad the museum's popularity meant it wasn't possible to take all of it in, to give each exhibit the time it needed, to record in photographs all the images I would've like to have shared on this post. Do yourself a favor and try to visit:

The Amistad revolt:

The cotton gin, the "benefits" of which only served to strengthen the institution of slavery in the Antebellum South:

Lynchings no longer occur in the U.S. Nowadays, young, unarmed African-American males are instead gunned down by law enforcement officials. Due to the crowds, we somehow missed the section on Emmett Till, but considering Amber's age and everything we had seen already, it was probably for the best:

Black travelers faced extensive hardships just simply trying to move around their country:

Two of my favorite TV shows when I was a kid were The Flip Wilson Show and Sanford and Son:

I'm old enough to remember the Boston busing crisis (though too young at the time to have understood it) and the shameful incident pictured below of an African-American man being attacked with an American flag. (I also remember hating Reggie Jackson for hitting three home runs in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series, but that was due to the fact that he was playing for the New York Yankees and against the Los Angeles Dodgers, my then-favorite team):

Tuskegee Airmen exhibit:

It was a lot to process, but at the end of the historical sections the museum provides a much-needed Contemplation Court. Individually, I was aware of  most of the things that make up the black American historical experience, but to see it all in one place, at one same time, was overwhelming, to say the least. It's a history that sadly should never have occured, but it did (and is still happening in some aspects), and more Americans need to familiarize themselves with the narrative if this country is ever going to be all that it claims to be:

The upper floors of the museum continue to focus on the struggles faced, but also celebrate the contributions made, by black athletes, artists and entertainers to American culture and society. I found myself gravitating toward the baseball exhibits. The Cardinals uniform below belonged to Curt Flood, whose unsuccessful fight against the reserve clause eventually laid the groundwork for free agency:

I was floored to learn that Amber did not know who Jackie Robinson was. What are our schools teaching our kids these days?:

Muhammad Ali was one of my favorite athletes when I was a sports-crazy boy growing up in southern California - by the mid-1970's kids my age didn't know who Cassius Clay was, nor did they care. All of my sports heroes back then were African-American, including Henry Aaron, Wilt Chamberlain and O.J. Simpson. Yeah, about that last one, he was a great running back...:

I was equally impressed at seeing a photo of the Bad Brains playing a gig (in the background) as I was with Jimi Hendrix's vest:

The P-Funk Mothership, from which Dr. Funkenstein would emerge "to better administer funk to the audience":

Chuck Berry's 1972 Cadillac:

The Garden of Eden (1852), by Robert Duncanson:

Skin-whitening products:

My daughter poses outside of the museum afterward. I'm not sure what Amber made of everything she had seen inside, especially the more disturbing exhibits. She had been excited about going, but was quiet throughout our visit as we made our way around. On the way home, we talked about the discrimination faced by Asian immigrants and Asian-Americans:

Being an American of Asian descent means having to attend Chinese classes on the weekend, and on Sunday my daughter's school held a show to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Amber's class (they learn to read and write traditional characters) read a story (in Mandarin) about red envelopes 紅包, while one student showed off his skills with the Chinese yo-yo 扯鈴:

The National Museum of African-American History and Culture is an excellent, albeit long-overdue, addition to the Smithsonian group. I would like to return one day when the crowds are a little thinner in order to spend more time coming to greater grips with this country, its history and its peoples. 

In and out of the cold

My daughter shows off the card she made for students at an elementary school in Haiti. Amber's school recently organized a drive for school supplies to be sent to the Caribbean island nation.

It was 21°F (-6°C) this morning as my wife took my daughter and me to the East Falls Church subway station. Too cold, really, to go outside. But we'd already spent too much of this three-day holiday weekend indoors - heavy rain on Friday evening meant it probably wouldn't have been a good idea to go hiking on Saturday as I'd originally planned, while yesterday we had snow flurries from mid-morning to mid-afternoon (not to mention Amber's weekly Mandarin class). Today may have been bitterly cold, but it was also sunny and so the two of us (Pamela sensibly choosing to stay indoors) headed into Washington to spend the day there.

This being Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the logical place to have visited would've been the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in West Potomac Park, southeast of the National Mall. But to get there would've meant a 20-minute walk in the frigid air from the nearest Metro stop (Smithsonian), so my daughter opted instead to check out the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, which was a much more bearable seven-minute stroll from L'Enfant Plaza:

I wish it could be said that the museum ranks up there with the other Smithsonian showpieces on the National Mall, but it doesn't. The building is huge, but makes poor use of the possible exhibition space. The exhibits within don't present a linear history of Native Americans, and although we are told there are 565 tribes recognized by the federal government, visitors are only introduced to a small handful of them. I'm not sure what my daughter took away from the displays - she seems to have learned a lot more at her elementary school about the tribes who live in Virginia. Still, there were some interesting presentations, such as the fourth-floor exhibit on the history of the numerous treaties negotiated between Native Americans and the federal government (virtually all of which were broken in some form or other by the latter):

A Northern Tsitsistas (Cheyenne) depiction of the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn (c. 1890):

Amber enjoyed the activities center on the third floor. She was able to explore various aspects of American Indian life, including those related to igloos, kayaks, snowshoes and...skateboards:

The same floor has an exhibit on the Inca (Inka) road system. Here my daughter poses in front of a copy of a rope bridge: 

For me, the most fascinating exhibition was a small one on the Kingdom of Hawaii and the events leading up to its annexation by the U.S. in 1898, described as the first act in American empire building. The displays are refreshingly frank, especially considering they're presented in a publicly-funded museum:

There were decent views from some of the museum's windows, including the National Museum of Natural History and the National Gallery of Art...:

...and the Capitol and the United States Botanic Garden:

The National Museum of the American Indian is "best known" for its cafeteria, which is hands down the best eatery out of all of the dining options at the various Smithsonian museums. The dishes are organized by regional themes:

I went with the Indian Frybread Taco (with buffalo meat) for lunch, washed down with an alcoholic root beer:

Still, it's a poor reflection on a museum when its cafe gets higher marks than what it has on display. The National Museum of the Native American isn't bad, but it could've been done so much better; the indoor atrium, while impressive, is unnecessary, and uses up space that should've been devoted to more exhibitions. The original inhabitants of this continent deserve better:

It was an uncomfortable walk back to the subway station, as the wind was blowing directly into our faces, making Amber wish we had ski masks. The cold temperatures are set to continue for the remainder of this week, with snow a possibility for next weekend. The frigid conditions are no doubt good preparation for what we'll be facing next winter in the Baltic republic of Lithuania.