Museums in the USA Preserve Artifacts of Human Rights and Racism

• Museums showcase artifacts from the era of civil rights.
• The Trump administration restricts access to certain artifacts.
• Artifacts are preserved that illustrate racism in the history of the USA.

In museums across the USA, artifacts are displayed that reflect significant events in the history of civil rights. For instance, at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, visitors can see a bus on which Rosa Parks famously refused to give up her seat to a white man in 1955, as well as the style under which Dr. Martin Luther King planned a march for voting rights.

The museum curator, Ember Mitchell, noted that their work aims to clarify the history of society for those who may not have lived through that time or have a different perspective on events.

Access to these artifacts at federal institutions may be restricted or banned under the rules of the Trump administration, which aims to diminish the significance of racism in American history.

Among the artifacts:

• The doll of Clark, used in studies by psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark in the 1940s, is on permanent display at the National Historic Site "Brown vs. Board of Education" in Topeka, Kansas.
• Fragments of the church on 16th Street in Birmingham, Alabama, are exhibited at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington.
• Parts of the bus of NAACP activist Vernon Dahmer, which is on long-term display at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson.

In addition, the museum preserves the pens with which President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. National archives preserve executive orders that established segregation in the U.S. Army, and copies are available in the presidential library of Harry Truman in Independence, Missouri.

Museums work on preserving these artifacts, regardless of political pressure, especially from the Trump administration, which seeks to minimize the significance of racial issues in the cultural memory of the USA.

Tags: USA