“Our history doesn’t need a government warning label.”
“Black lives and Black history matters.”
These messages were written on signs by local history teachers Dwayne Williams and Mark Ehlers as they protested outside the Smithsonian Museum of American History in reaction to the president’s executive order demanding signs outside the museum that correct what he called “inaccurate information,” without giving specifics.
President Donald Trump gave the order for the signs to be placed Friday. As of Monday, no signs have been placed.
“We’re a great country. We’re good and we’re ugly too, and if Americans know that story, they’ll be comfortable understanding it, and they can reconcile and decide what they think and what they think is the most important part of the story,” Williams said. “But we don’t want people to be silenced and we don’t want people to be marginalized.”
The executive order says, in part, the secretary of the interior “shall install temporary exhibits or signage on NPS-maintained sidewalks, walkways, and land used by the public that corrects inaccurate information presented in the Museum.”
The White House Domestic Policy Council recently released a report that claimed the museum views American history as a tool to advance social justice and radical transformation of society.
The teachers said they were inspired to engage with the public because there’s a concern that the warning signs could sow distrust in the Smithsonian and the telling of America’s story.
“It’s really important that they understand the concerns that we have, the historians have, that the American public should have about what’s happening right now,” Ehlers said.
It follows testimony from the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History’s director, who was grilled by Republican members of Congress last week over how it tells America’s story.
Georgetown University American history professor Chandra Manning cofounded a group called Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian, which uses volunteers to document Smithsonian exhibits.
“There were two hearings last week in Congress and the same thing happened. There were plenty of things that people don’t like about the museum, but really no one was able to point to falsehoods or inaccuracies there,” Manning said.
It is not yet clear when the signs will be placed or what they will say. News4 reached out to the White House Monday for guidance on the executive order, but it has not yet responded.
As workers at the museum arrived, volunteers showed up outside to greet and thank them in a show of their appreciation.
“Essentially someone is proposing planting signs all around their place of employment saying that they’re not good at their job,” Manning said. “And that is a demoralizing thing for anybody to experience.”
from Local – NBC4 Washington https://ift.tt/cG2KR3S
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