Listen Up Museums! Black History Month Edition
February is Black History Month. And while the responsibility of acknowledging the often overlooked contributions of Black people and inequities they face is a daily endeavor, February offers us an annual opportunity for organizations (particularly predominantly white ones) to look inward and consider whether they are living up to their anti-racist ideals.
At Kera Collective, promoting Black voices also means listening to them. In that spirit, we wanted to highlight findings from this survey of nearly 4,000 Black American adults, fielded by Pew Research Center in October 2021, which speak to what Black Americans believe is needed to overcome racism and offer our own recommendations for how these ideas might be implemented in museums.
1. Voting Matters
Pew finding: Most Black adults feel that voting is an “extremely or very effective” strategy for promoting equality. This view is more likely to be shared by Black Democrats, women, those with at least a bachelor’s degree, and in an upper and middle income bracket. Age is also a factor; a little less than half of Black adults under 30 feel that voting is an extremely or very effective tactic, while the majority hold this view among those 65 and older.
This raises some questions for museums:
What role should museums play in supporting education around and access to voting?
What can museums learn from younger Black adults’ skepticism around the benefits of voting?
Black subgroups that are more hopeful about voting (Democrats, women, educated, and those with higher socio-economic statuses) also generally map onto who tends to visit museums in general. We also know that museum visitors in general tend to be more inclined to vote. This is good news for reaching people who already visit museums, but it begs the question: How can museums support access to (and interest in) voting for those who fall outside their typical audience?
For museums that are serious about listening to Black people and that want to create more access and awareness about voting, we recommend this extensive list from Made by Us, which includes language for calls to vote as well as tips for becoming a polling location.
2. Support #BlackLivesMatter
Pew finding: When asked what entity has done the most to help Black people in recent years, Black Lives Matter (#BLM) ranks top among Black adults, compared to the NAACP, Black churches or other religious organizations, the Congressional Black Caucus, and the National Urban League. A separate Pew survey also reveals that teens and young adults are more likely to support #BLM than older Black adults.
We recommend museums become familiar with local efforts that fall within the vast umbrella of the Black Lives Matter movement (also known as the Movement for Black Lives, which is different from Black Lives Matter the organization). These may include local organizations working towards prison abolition, police reform, local bail funds, youth services, and mutual aid groups.
Museums also need to consider how they are authentically supporting efforts and movements already underway in their own backyards. For example, the Walker Art Center cut ties with the Minneapolis Police Department in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. If #BLM has taught us anything, it is that saying (or posting online) that Black lives matter is one thing, but taking action to show that they matter to an organization is another.
3. Boosting Black business presence
Pew finding: More than a third of Black adults feel that Black people owning all businesses in Black neighborhoods would be an effective strategy for helping Black people move toward equality.
This says a lot about Black perception of the negative impacts of gentrification, and raises important questions for museums located in predominantly Black neighborhoods. One of the more visible tensions related to this issue were 2018 protests led by Decolonize This Place, who were joined by Brooklyn community organizations, including Brooklyn Anti-Gentrification Network, Equality for Flatbush, and Movement to Protect the People to protest the Brooklyn Museum. The groups accused the museum of being “out of touch with the communities at its own doorstep.”
Museums located in all predominantly Black neighborhoods should pay close attention to Decolonize This Place’s demands (co-signed by several local human rights and community organizations), including creating a Decolonization Commission to “account for [the museum’s] own role in the histories of colonialism and white supremacy… [and] be a first step in rebuilding trust with the communities to whom the museum should be accountable.” Additionally, one of their specific demands is “The undertaking of a de-gentrification initiative to examine and mitigate the museum’s role in boosting land value and rents in the borough.” What would it look like for museums in Black neighborhoods to undertake this work, to ensure not just their relevance to their local community, but also to undo and lessen any further harm their physical presence may cause? What would it look like to reallocate power in your museum, such that the community is better represented on the board, on the staff, on the walls, and in your audience?
4. Large-scale Prison and Justice System Reform
Pew finding: The majority of Black adults say policing, the courts and judicial process , and the prison system require major changes or need to be completely rebuilt for Black people to be treated fairly. Over half feel the prison system needs to be “completely rebuilt.”
These numbers shouldn’t be too surprising as Black people continue to be extrajudicially murdered by the police and Black Americans are incarcerated in state prisons at nearly 5 times the rate of white Americans.
Museums wanting to take action should consider aligning with local community groups who are already working towards prison and policing reform. They could also take on efforts to support rehabilitation for current and formerly incarcerated people in their community. This MuseumNext article makes several suggestions for how to do this, including hosting exhibitions featuring incarcerated persons’ artwork or that critique the system and reduce stigma, running outreach programs to prisons, and providing rehabilitation programs for formerly incarcerated people.
5. Allyship with Other Racial Groups
Pew finding: While a majority of Black adults feel white people, Latinos , and Asian people would make good political allies, they disagree on whether being a good ally depends on having experienced “some of the same hardships.” For example, 42% percent of Black adults feel that white people can make good political allies only if they share some experience of hardship, while 35% believe white people can make good allies even if they don’t.
It seems clear that while Black people share a hope that people from other racial groups can be good political allies, empathy and appreciation for the unique experience Black people share in the United States goes a long way in producing trustworthy alliances. Museums might program with the goal of highlighting the social-emotional learning skills required for non-Black individuals to strengthen their capacity for genuine allyship and engage meaningfully with anti-Black racism.
This article by Andrea Jones, museum consultant and Associate Director of Education at the Smithsonian's Anacostia Community Museum, discusses the need for museums to go beyond empathy in order to support students (and adults) in identifying and processing emotions, and “examin[ing] the roots of our emotions, values, ethics, and relationships.” These are the building blocks for supporting productive race talk and building the solidarity Black people feel is needed.
We hope this provides some actions you might consider in your own museum for supporting initiatives that Black people themselves feel are needed to create change. At Kera Collective, we believe that visitors are experts on their own museum experiences. Similarly, we need to listen to Black people, who are experts not just on their own oppression but also the ways out of it.
