Friday, 26 April 2019
Washington DC, USA
Weather forecast is not good so it’s a museum day and manage to gain entry at the last minute to the fully booked National Museum of African American History.
One of the most fascinating and interesting museums I’ve been too. After a 6hr visit still haven’t had time to fully see everything. Well worth a visit.
The recently completed museum charts the history of African Americans starting with the expansion of European trade in the 1400s, through to slavery during the colonisation of America, Independence and the Civil War, subsequent emancipation and segregation.
The British weren’t exactly whiter than white in their day either.
The museum is designed so that you start in the dark, gloomy and cramped basement which details slavery and as you progress up the different levels of the building it gets lighter and more roomy as African American history progresses to the present day.
It’s a lift ride down to the lowest basement level and told by the little lady lift attendant that you then have to make your way through the exhibits and up the various ramps to exit. However, after an hour or so, in need of lunch but still in the lowest basement level exhibits. Not wanting to traipse all the way through the one way system and up three levels of ramps to the museum café, decide it will be easier to get in the lift and go up three levels and I’ll be straight at the café.
Easy peasy.
Lemon squeezy.
Step inside the lift once the new batch of visitors have decanted.
Oh oh. Little lady lift attendant isn’t having it. “You can’t come in here.”, she says, “The lift doesn’t go up!”
Erm.
Not much of a lift then is it, I hear you cry.
An argument ensues.
“Yes it does!”, says I, “It has to. You need to get back up to collect the next batch of visitors.”
She has to think about that argument for a bit. Can see her little brain whirring.
“No, the lift only goes down. You’re not allowed to go up in the lift.”, she retorts.
“Why?”
“Because them the rules!”
Oh FFS.
She throws me out of the lift. Make my way through the busy tightly packed crowds up three levels to the café.
Muttering to myself.
Bloody jobsworths.
Many of the African American Civil Rights names of the 20th century you will know, such as Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr and Malcom X, but there’s one name I hadn’t heard of until now.
Emmett Till.
There’s a long queue waiting to enter a small room with an empty coffin. Ask a young black woman what the queue is for and there’s a slight air of disgust that I don’t know about Emmett Till, until I explain I’m British and don’t know American history, and then she lightens up a bit and tells me to read the display behind me.
In 1955, at the age of 14, he was alleged to have whistled at a 21 year old, married, white woman, Carolyn Bryant, a store owner in Mississippi. She alleged that he grabbed her waist and uttered obscenities. At the time, this violated the Jim Crow laws, which enforced segregation between blacks and whites in the former Confederate states of the south. Emmett Till was from Chicago though and on holiday with family in Mississippi at the time.
A few days after the alleged incident, Bryant’s husband and his half brother went to Emmett Till’s relatives’ home and abducted the 14 year old, taking him away for a beating. They mutilated his body and then shot him in the head before sinking his body in the river. A few days later, the body was discovered.
At the funeral, Till’s mother insisted that his mutilated body should remain as is and be placed in an open coffin to show the world the horrific mutilation.
The two white men were quickly cleared of any wrongdoing by an all white jury.
A video of Till’s mother taken some years later shows her describing what she saw on that fateful day his body was discovered.
“His eye ball was hanging from its socket half way down his cheek.”
Just think about that for a moment.
A mother describing her teenage son.
No one should ever have to describe any one like that.
Decades later, Carolyn Bryant, the white woman, admitted that she had lied and that Emmett Till had not grabbed her waist and uttered obscenities.
As I’m walking about, overhear a young black woman talking to another black woman in the section highlighting lynchings and the Ku Klux Klan.
Wasn’t quite sure if I’d heard correctly so explain I’m British etc and did I hear right.
Told that the Ku Klux Klan put a burning cross in her grandmother’s garden once.
She then goes on to say, “A few years later the Ku Klux Klan burnt my grandmother’s house down.” This is in North Carolina. She further explains that her father is black but her mother is Irish and they got married in the 1960s when mixed race marriages weren’t exactly as socially acceptable as they are now.
Bit of excitement mid-afternoon, the fire alarms go off with bright white strobe lights flashing (the sort that would give you an epileptic fit) and an automatic PA announcement booms out, “This is a fire alarm, please evacuate the building by the nearest fire exit.” Not been in a building with so many tightly packed people when a fire alarm has gone off and surprised how calm and slowly everyone moves.
But.
The fire alarm announcement is quickly followed by another ‘live’ announcement over the PA, “Disregard, disregard, disregard, fire alarm is cancelled. This is a stay in place warning. The National Weather Service has issued a severe weather warning for the area until 1515hrs. You are advised to stay in the museum.” Even though I’m three levels down in the basement, can hear thunder a few minutes later, so it must be bad. Tornado warnings also in force. Again.
The exhibits continue with the Oprah Winfrey story plus more levels of African American successes in sports, arts, culture, films and music but as the museum is closing soon, rapidly running out of time. Have been here 6hrs and not seen everything.
One of the most interesting museums I’ve visited.
Merely as an observation: all the staff are black and the majority of visitors are black. Not seen this many blacks in the other museums that I’ve visited in the USA on this trip. It’s like a pilgrimage, I guess.
It’s only when you see the museum and understand the long history of slavery and subsequent segregation that you start to understand the race problems America still has today.
Well after all that, dear reader, time for celebration. Was hoping to celebrate being 49 in the 49th state, Alaska. But, you know, dinner in a luxurious hotel in Washington DC will pass muster.
President Trump is known to dine at the hotel restaurant and as the First Lady, Melania, and I share the same birthday (I kid you not), she’s a fellow Taurean, half expecting to see Mr President and the First Lady on the table next to me.
I wish.
Convince myself they’re in the hotel as there’s a lot of security milling about and convince myself they’re all Secret Service. Not helped by a loud bloke on table near me saying that he was in the toilets when a Secret Service guy walked in. I’d assumed it was just now but it soon becomes clear that was an old anecdote.
They’re not in the hotel. They’re actually entertaining the Japanese Prime Minister at the White House.
Excellent dinner but served by the dullest waiter who isn’t exactly Captain Charisma. Half expecting him to jump off the balcony.
Anyway, dear reader, cheers.
One response to “125. Ku Klux Klan burnt by grandmother’s house down”
Congratulations 🎂🥳🤪