Special Report

Breaking Ground

Smithsonian Institution

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The Definitive Story of How the National Museum of African American History and Culture Came to Be

The Jones-Hall-Sims House, stripped down from 140 years of additions and siding, was acquired in 2009 by the National Museum of African American History and Culture and has been rebuilt as part of an exhibition called “Defending Freedom, Defining Freedom: The Era of Segregation.”

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For Nearly 150 Years, This One House Told a Novel Story About the African-American Experience

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The Powerful Objects From the Collections of the Smithsonian's Newest Museum

Featured Stories

In the aftermath of the Civil War, more than four million newly freed Blacks sought fulfillment of the promises laid out in the U.S. Constitution. Says Kinshasha Holman Conwill, NMAAHC's deputy director: "The shadow of Reconstruction is a long shadow." (Above: Lewis "Big June" Marshall carries the flag during the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965.)

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A Profound Demand to Make Good on the Promises of Freedom

Smithsonian scientist Genevieve Noyce conducts a plant census in a wetland at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Maryland.

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How the Smithsonian Grapples With Climate Change

Lonnie G. Bunch III

Attorney, author, scholar and reverend Pauli Murray, pictured here on December 22, 1976

The Trailblazing, Multifaceted Activism of Lawyer-Turned-Priest Pauli Murray

Detail of Ronald N. Sherr's General Colin Powell, 2012, oil on canvas

Colin Powell, First Black Secretary of State, Dies of Covid-19 at 84

I Go To Prepare A Place For You (detail) by Bisa Butler, 2021

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These Stunning Artworks Capture the Resilience—and Defiance—of Black Lives Matter

In this 2017 photo, employees set up scaffolding to remove stained-glass windows depicting Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson at Washington National Cathedral.

National Cathedral to Replace Confederate-Themed Stained Glass With Art Dedicated to Racial Justice

Through the Freedmen's Bureau, formerly enslaved people were able to obtain formal legal recognition of their marriages.

Newly Digitized Freedmen's Bureau Records Help Black Americans Trace Their Ancestry

Josephine Baker's remains will be reinterred at Paris' Panthéon on November 30.

Performer Josephine Baker to Be First Black Woman Buried at Paris' Panthéon

Simone Biles (pictured) and Naomi Osaka, both Black athletes at the top of their sports, have been vocal about their struggles with mental health.

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The Relationship Between Race and Wellness Has Never Been More Pressing

The Smithsonian Anthology of Hip Hop and Rap tracks the evolution of the genre from its music to its culture and to its people. "Everything that is part of hip-hop," says the Smithsonian's Dwandalyn Reece, curator of music and performing arts.

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Chronicling Hip-Hop's 45-Year Ascendance as a Musical, Cultural and Social Phenom

Isis Davis-Marks