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African American History

Artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons spearheaded the creation of When We Gather, a three-minute short film marking Harris' inauguration.

How Seven Women Artists Are Celebrating Kamala Harris’ Historic Inauguration

The group’s upcoming short film, titled “When We Gather,” honors the achievements of women who preceded the vice president

Last June, protesters threw a statue of British slave trader Edward Colston into Bristol Harbor. A salvage team recovered the sculpture the following day.

Proposed Legislation Seeks to ‘Protect’ the U.K.’s Controversial Monuments

If passed, the new measure would make it more difficult for local councils to remove statues of polarizing historical figures

A rendering of by Hank Willis Thomas' The Embrace, a public memorial set to be unveiled in the Boston Commons in October 2022

Monument to Coretta Scott and MLK Is Coming to Boston, City Where They Met

Hank Willis Thomas’ sculpture of intertwined arms will memorialize the civil rights leaders and their fight for racial equality

Based on newly discovered and declassified files, the film MLK/FBI by the acclaimed Emmy Award winning director Sam Pollard, tells the story of the FBI’s surveillance and harassment of King.

Commentary

A New Film Details the FBI’s Relentless Pursuit of Martin Luther King Jr.

Smithsonian scholar says the time is ripe to examine the man’s complexities for a more accurate and more inspirational history

The film fictionalizes the night that Cassius Clay (seated, wearing a bow tie) became the world's heavyweight boxing champion. Three of his friends—Malcolm X (holding a camera at far left), Jim Brown (standing with his hand on Clay's shoulder) and Sam Cooke (raising a glass to the right of Clay)—joined the young athlete for a post-fight celebration.

Based on a True Story

The True History Behind ‘One Night in Miami’

Regina King’s directorial debut dramatizes a 1964 meeting between Cassius Clay, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown

“A key tenet of ... constitutional democracy is the peaceful transfer of power following U.S. presidential elections, dating back to the republic’s first presidential election,” said Anthea Hartig, director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, in a statement. “This week, that core belief was shaken.”

History of Now

How the Smithsonian and Other Museums Are Responding to the U.S. Capitol Riot

Leading institutions have started collecting artifacts and working to contextualize last week’s violent attack

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From His Tattered Chair, TV’s Archie Bunker Caricatured America’s Divides

The 1971 show aired the fraught political differences that were “All in the Family”

Activists toppled and defaced Edward Valentine's statue of Jefferson Davis during Black Lives Matter protests in Richmond last summer.

Why a Virginia Museum Wants to Display a Defaced Sculpture of Jefferson Davis

“Actually bringing that statue back to the spot where it was created has a unique power to it,” says the Valentine’s director

This month's book picks include Icebound, A Shot in the Moonlight and The Eagles of Heart Mountain.

Books of the Month

A Doomed Arctic Expedition, Number-Free Math and Other New Books to Read

These five January releases may have been lost in the news cycle

An illustration of the British burning Washington in 1814

History of Now

The History of Violent Attacks on the U.S. Capitol

While the building has seen politically motivated mayhem in the past, never before has a mob of insurrectionists tried to overturn a presidential election

(Top row) Jing Liu and Florian Idenburg, Barron Ryan, Arturo Elizondo, (middle row) Samantha Pratt, Gitanjali Rao, Anitra Belle Henderson, (bottom row) Kennyjie, Andrea Ponti and Brett Phaneuf

Innovation for Good

Ten Innovators to Watch in 2021

These visionaries are imagining an exciting future with chicken-less eggs, self-piloting ships and more

Ory in November 1945, during his comeback after working as a janitor.

Kid Ory Finally Gets the Encore He Deserves

The childhood home of the musician who put New Orleans jazz on the map will soon open to the public

Cotton coverlet quilted in Texas, 19th century.

Artisan America

The State of American Craft Has Never Been Stronger

Today’s craft renaissance is more than just an antidote to our over-automated world. It renews a way of life that made us who we are

In this newspaper illustration, the Electoral Commission holds a secret candlelit meeting in the courtroom of the Supreme Court on February 16, 1877.

History of Now

Five Things to Know About the 1876 Presidential Election

Lawmakers are citing the 19th-century crisis as precedent to dispute the 2020 election. Here’s a closer look at its events and legacy

Veteran food critic Florence Fabricant has called peanut butter “the pâté of childhood.”

A Brief History of Peanut Butter

The bizarre sanitarium staple that became a spreadable obsession

The costume worn by Chadwick Boseman's Black Panther during his Marvel Studios debut (2016's Captain America: Civil War), from the collection of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

How Black Panther Changed Comic Books (and Wakanda) Forever

The Marvel superhero pounced on the scene in the ‘60s and never looked back

Woman With Flowers, oil and collage on canvas, 1972. A celebration of black beauty, the work alludes to both African sculpture and African American quilt making.

A New Survey of David Driskell, Artist and Scholar of African American Art, Comes to Atlanta

Spirituality, culture and memory come together in collages created by the esteemed curator

Mary Lee Bendolph, Blocks and Strips, 2002

National Gallery of Art Adds 40 Works by Black Southern Artists to Its Collections

The “milestone” acquisition includes works by the Gee’s Bend quilters, Thornton Dial, Nellie Mae Rowe and James “Son Ford” Thomas

Rainey’s “polite and dignified bearing enforces respect,” an 1871 newspaper report said before disparaging him as unequal to the “best men of the House.”

Meet Joseph Rainey, the First Black Congressman

Born enslaved, he was elected to Congress in the wake of the Civil War. But the impact of this momentous step in U.S. race relationships did not last long

Closed to the public and financially strained, museums nevertheless managed to create thought-provoking alternatives to in-person viewing.

Virtual Travel

The Top Ten Online Exhibitions of 2020

From a Smithsonian show on first ladies to Mexican muralists, Rembrandt and the making of the Met, these were some of our favorite virtual experiences

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