Days 1-6 were spent on the Eastern seaboard of the U.S. It will be about 80 more days until I return home. For the duration, I’ll try to keep you up to date, but your best bet is to find me on Instagram. Goodbye was DC and Philly for Roller Derby World Championships. However, all of these photos were taken in the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is phenomenal on so many counts.
Here you’ll see the architecture. A hulking building, clad intricately in gold, casting complex shadows on every level of the interior. But I was dumbstruck by the design of the history exhibit which descended far into the depths of the foundation of the building. For me, it clearly presented a parallel between the insanely horrific experience of African Americans in this country and their rise to freedom. From the low slung basement cielings depicting the appalling conditions of slaves, where it was (coincidentally?) most crowded with visitors, through the suddenly expansive high cielinged room highlighting the words of our forefathers, “All men are created equal…”, and the painful irony that slaves were not even considered human much less equal. This area begins to highlight individuals who fought for freedom, slaves who won their own independence, and other stories of resistance. The exhibit ascends (literally up ramps) slowly through centuries, eventually rising to the civil rights movement and finally breaking free into a frenetic display of black culture in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, and so on. It’s bold, energetic, cacophonic, and powerful–finally. But it’s not even a quarter of the exhibit because these freedoms are so recent and equality still limited.
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