Abstract
This article investigates how national histories marred by racial conflict can be translated into narratives of group identity formation. I study the role of “identity-driven” museums in converting American’s racial past into a metanarrative of black identity from subjugation to citizenship. Drawing on a thick description of exhibitions at 15 museums, interviews with curators and directors, museum documents, and newspaper articles, I use the “political economy of memory” as a framework to explain how ideological and material processes intersect in the production of exhibitions. I show that in addition to struggles over the truth and interpretive styles, more prosaic issues of funding, attendance, and institutional capacity-building hve an impact on representational selectivities. I explain how these issues affect black museums operating during the civil rights and post-civil rights eras. I consider the motivations and consequences of “remembering” national histories of violence and intolerance through the prism of group identity formation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
I studied the permanent exhibition at each museum between 2006 and 2008.
This study does not include plantation museums because their origins do not trace back to the black museum movement. See Eichstedt and Small (2002), Representation of Slavery: Race and Ideology in Southern Plantation Museums. Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press.
For a review of these early efforts see Ruffins, “Culture Wars Won and Lost, Part II: The National African American Museum Project,” Radical History Review, 70, 1998. Also see Raol Dennis, “Who Axed the African American Museum on the Mall,” New Crisis, February/March 1998.
See Irvin Molotsky, “Washington Talk: The Mall; An Empty Space Inspires Battle of the Museums,” New York Times, 19 April 1988.
J. Horton and J. Kardux also make this point in their comparison of public responses to commemorating slavery in the United States and the Netherlands. See “Slavery and Public Memory in the United States and the Netherlands,” New York Journal of American History, Fall/Winter 2005.
The museum is expected to open in 2015. Based on preliminary information, some observers have expressed concern that the content is too superficial. See Edward Rothstein, “Web Preview: Tentative Step for Black Museum,” New York Times, 15 October 2007.
Quoted in K. Bradsher, “Up From the Slave Ships: Museum Tells the Story,” New York Times, 12 April 1997.
For a detailed description of the “And Still We Rise” exhibition see Dora Apel, “Images of Black History: The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History,” Dissent, Summer 2001.
This guided tour took place 02 May 2006, with the museum’s director Michele Mitchell serving as the tour guide.
Interview conducted 26 May 2006.
Quoted in Edward Rothstein, “The Black History Exhibit, Museums that Tell You What to Think,” New York Times, 20 April 1997.
Interview conducted 14 June 2006.
It should be noted that these museums disseminate a version of black history remarkably similar to the narratives popularized by Carter Woodson. They do not engage more recent or controversial scholarship, such as findings about the lower morality rates among enslaved people compared to white southerners (See Fogel and Engerman (1974), Time on the Cross)
Quoted in Noam Cohen, “In Frederick Douglass Tribute, Slave Folklore and Fact Collide,” New York Times, 23 January 2007.
Interview conducted 08 May 2008.
This exhibition opened in 2002. See Jeffrey Gettleman, “Museum Gives Voice to Doubts on Dr. King’s Killer,” New York Times, 16 October 2002. Also see Kevin Sack, “In Memphis, Conflicting Paths on Dr. King’s Legacy,” New York Times, 03 April 1998.
Founded by sociology professor David Pilgrim, the museum is located at Ferris State University.
“Anacostia Advocate,” Washington Post 9/16/77
M. Burroughs quoted in interview with J. Fleming, published in The Public Historian, 21(1), 1999.
African American Museums Association and American Association for State and Local History. Profile of Black Museums: A Survey Commissioned by the African American Museums Association. Washington, DC: African American Museums Association, 1988.
Interview conducted 02 May 2006
Camille Akeju, interview conducted 20 August 2007
As reported by museum director and CEO Lawrence Pijeaux Jr., in “Birmingham Civil Rights Institute: A Brief History,” available on-line at http://www.blackpast.org, retrieved 24 September 2010.
As reported by the AAAM in “Dr. Lawrence J. Pijeaux, Jr. Named Alabama Tourism Executive of the Year,” available on-line at blackmuseums.org, retrieved 24 September 2010.
Coca-Cola donated 2.5 acres near its world headquarters for $1 per year. See “Coke to Donate Land for Civil Rights Museum,” Atlanta Business Chronicle, 23 October 2006.
Interview conducted 02 May 2006.
Interview conducted 03 May 2006. Hilliard died in 2007.
M. Curnutte, (2011), “Freedom Center Seeks Federalization,” Cincinnati Enquirer, 01/06/11.
K. Holmes, “Funding for the National Civil Rights Museum in Jeopardy,” ABC News, 06/01/10.
References
Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. (2009). Preserve America grants: Assessment of effectiveness. Washington: ACHP.
Alexander, J. (2004). Toward a theory of cultural trauma. Chapter 1. In J. Alexander et al. (Ed.), Cultural trauma and collective identity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origins and spread of nationalism. London: Verso Books.
Bennett, T. (1995). The birth of the museum: History, theory, politics. London: Routledge.
Berlin, I. (2006). Coming to terms with slavery in twenty-first century America. Chapter 1. In J. O. Horton & L. Horton (Eds.), Slavery and public history: The tough stuff of American memory. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Blau, J. (1991). The disjunctive history of US museums, 1869–1980. Social Forces, 70(1), 87–105.
Brooks, P. E. (2008). Boycotts, buses and passes: Black women’s resistance in the U.S. South and South Africa. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
Brubaker, R., & Feischmidt, M. (2002). 1948 in 1998 the politics of commemoration in Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 44(4), 700–744.
Calhoun, C. (1998). Nationalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Carbonell, B. (2003). Museum studies: an anthology of contexts. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Candelario, G. (2007). Black behind the ears: Dominican racial identity from museums to beauty shops. Durham: Duke University Press.
Cornell, S., & Hartmann, D. (2007). A constructionist approach. Ch. 4. In Ethnicity and race: Making identities in a changing world. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press.
Corsane, G. (2005). Heritage, museums, and galleries. London and New York: Routledge.
DiMaggio, P. (1991). Constructing an organizational field as a professional project: U.S. art museums, 1920–1940. Chapter 11. In W. Powell & P. DiMaggio (Eds.), New institutionalism in organizational analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Durkheim, E. (1965). The elementary forms of the religious life. New York: Free Press.
Eichstedt, J., & Small, S. (2002). Representating slavery: Race and ideology in southern plantation museums. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Eskew, G. (2001). From civil war to civil rights: selling Alabama as heritage tourism. International Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Administration, 2(3), 201–214.
Eyerman, R. (2004). Cultural trauma: Slavery and the formation of African American identity. In J. Alexander et al. (Eds.), Cultural trauma and collective identity. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Fabre, G., & O’Meally, R. (Eds.). (1994). History and memory in African American culture. New York: Oxford University Press.
Fleming, J. (1994). African-American museums, history, and the American ideal. The Journal of American History, 81(3), 1020–1026.
Fogel, R., & Engerman, S. (1974). Time on the cross: the economics of American Negro slavery. Boston: Little Brown & Co.
Fuller, J. (2006). Debating the present through the past: Representations of the civil rights movement in the 1990s. Chapter 7. In R. Romano & L. Raiford (Eds.), The civil rights movement in American memory. Athens: University of Georgia Press.
Hobsbawm, E. (1983). Introduction: Inventing traditions. In E. Hobsbawm & T. Ranger (Eds.), The invention of tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Horton, J. O. (1999). Presenting slavery: the perils of telling America’s racial story. The Public Historian, 21(4), 19–38.
Horton, J. O., & Crew, S. (1989). In W. Leon & R. Rosenzweig (Eds.), History museums in the United States: A critical assessment. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Institute for Museum and Library Services. (2004). African American history and culture in museums: Strategic crossroads and new opportunities. Washington: IMLS.
Karp, I., & Lavine, S. (1990). Exhibiting cultures: The poetics and politics of museum display. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Karp, I., Kreamer, C., & Lavine, S. (Eds.). (1992). Museums and communities: The politics of public culture. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Kelley, R. (1996). Race rebels: Culture, politics, and the black working class. New York: Free Press.
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, B. (1998). Destination culture: Tourism, museums, and heritage. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Lauterbach, P. (2008). The national civil rights museum: from scarred to sacred ground. Memphis Magazine, April. http://www.memphismagazine.com/Memphis-Magazine/April-2008/The-Crucible/. Accessed 4 Nov 2012.
Leon, W., & Rosenzweig, R. (1989). History museums in the United States: a critical assessment. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Linenthal, T., & Engelhardt, T. (1996). History wars: the Enola Gay and other battles for the American past. New York: Metropolitan.
Logan, J., & Molotch, H. (1988). Urban fortunes: The political economy of place. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Lowenthal, D. (1985). The past is a foreign country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Luke, T. (2002). Museum politics: Power plays at the exhibition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
MacDonald, S. (1996). Theorizing museums: An introduction. Chapter 1. In S. MacDonald & G. Fyfe (Eds.), Theorizing museums: Representing identity and diversity in a changing world. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Misztal, B. (2005). Memory and democracy. American Behavioral Scientist, 48(10), 1320–1338.
Morgan, M. (2011). Travelling facts. Chapter 1. In P. Howlett & M. Morgan (Eds.), How well do facts travel the dissemination of reliable knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nagel, J. (1994). Constructing ethnicity: creating and recreating ethnic identity and culture. Social Problems, 41(1), 152–176.
Olick, J. (1999). Collective memory: the two cultures. Sociological Theory, 17(3), 333–348.
Olick, J. (2007). The politics of regret: Collective memory and historical responsibility. New York: Routledge.
Renan, E. (1996). What is a nation? In G. Eley & R. Grigor Suny (Eds.), Becoming national: A reader. New York: Oxford University Press.
Romano, R., & Raiford, L. (Eds.). (2006). The civil rights movement in American memory. Athens: University of Georgia Press.
Rosenzweig, R. & Thelen, D. (1998). The presence of the past: popular uses of history in American life. New York: Columbia University Press.
Ruffins, F. D. (1992). Mythos, memory, and history: African American preservation efforts, 1820–1990. In I. Karp, C. M. Kreamer, & S. D. Lavine (Eds.), Museums and communities: The politics of public culture. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Ruffins, F. D. (1994). Lifting as we climb: black women and the preservation of African American history and culture. Gender and History, 6(3), 376–396.
Ruffins, F. D. (1998). Culture wars won and lost, part III: the National African American Museum Project. Radical History Review, 70, 78–101.
Savelsburg, J., & King, R. (2005). Institutionalizing collective memories of hate: law and law enforcement in Germany and the United States. The American Journal of Sociology, 111(2).
Schwartz, B. (1991). Social change and collective memory: the democratization of George Washington. American Sociological Review, 56(2), 221–236.
Schwartz, B. (1997). Collective memory and history: how Abraham Lincoln became a symbol of racial equality. The Sociological Quarterly, 38(3), 469–496.
Smelser, N., & Alexander, J. (1999). The public representation of culture and history. American Behavioral Scientist, 42(6), 913–921.
Smith, A. (1999). Myths and memories of the nation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Smith, R. (2003). Stories of peoplehood: The politics and morals of political membership. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stanton, C. (2006). The Lowell experiment: Public history in a postindustrial city. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
Wagner-Pacifici, R., & Schwartz, B. (1996). Memories in the making: the shapes of things that went. Qualitative Sociology, 19, 301–321.
Wilson, W. J. (1978). The declining significance of race: Blacks and changing American institutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Young, J. E. (1993). The texture of memory: Holocaust memorials and meaning. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Zerubavel, E. (2003). Time maps: Collective memory and the social shape of the past. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Zolberg, V. (1992). Barrier or leveler? The case of the art museum. In M. Lamont & M. Fournier (Eds.), Cultivating differences: Symbolic boundaries and the making of inequality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Zolberg, V. (1998). Contested remembrance: the Hiroshima exhibit controversy. Theory and Society, 27, 565–590.
Zukin, S. (1996). The culture of cities. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Gay Seidman, Mara Loveman, Ron Aminzade, Mary Jo Maynes, Erik Wright, Paul Bjerk, Mary Ann Clawson, Greg Goldberg, and Pamela Oliver for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Thanks also to Karen Lucas and the anonymous reviewers at Theory & Society for their thoughtful comments and suggestions.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Autry, R. The political economy of memory: the challenges of representing national conflict at ‘identity-driven’ museums. Theor Soc 42, 57–80 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-012-9185-5
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-012-9185-5