National Museum of African American History and Culture To Open First Special Exhibition

‘The King Family at Home’ (James H. Karales/Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture)

Collection of the Smithsonian Na

The National Museum of African American History and Culture will host their first special exhibition, titled “More than a Picture,” in May 2017.

This exhibition includes over 150 photographs and other visual artifacts of African American history, and it illuminates African American life in this country through photos of not only historical and cultural events, but via private, communal ones as well.

Portraits of Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Queen Latifah, and Grace Jones sit alongside images from the civil rights movement, the more recent uprisings in Ferguson and Baltimore, and representations of Black Lives Matter. If there’s a common denominator, it’s a reflection of African American culture and identity.

Museum director Lonnie G. Bunch III lauded the exhibit’s ability to bring history to human scale, saying that “photography plays an important role in constructing memory. Images act not only as repositories of memory but also as stimulants and beacons for remembering.”

“More than a Picture” opens on May 5.

‘First day of Memphis integration, TN’ (Dr. Ernest C. Withers/Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture)

Jen Harris

Positive Reflections, October 16, 1995 (Roderick Terry/Smithsonian National Museum of
African American History and Culture)

Lewis “Big June” Marshall Carrying the U.S. Flag, Selma to Montgomery March, March 21, 1965 (James Karales/Smithsonian National Museum of
African American History and Culture)

Untitled November 13, 2015 (Devin Allen Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of
African American History and Culture)

Tintype of a Civil War soldier (Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture)

Jen Harris

Red Green & Black, Chicago 1988 (Walter Iooss Jr./Smithsonian National Museum of
African American History and Culture)

‘Grace Jones’ (Anthony Barboza/Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture)

Lisa Ackerman

‘Isaac Hayes in His Office at Stax Records, Memphis, Tennessee’ (Ernest C. Withers/Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture)

Jen Harris

‘Rosa Parks’ (Roderick Lyons/Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture)

Photograph of Tuskegee Airman Major Lee Rayford in front of a P-47 Thunderbolt (Robert Scurlock/Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture)

—RealClearLife