Cultural pluralism

The National Museum of African American History and Culture tend to be a great experience for all ages. As explained on the website about the museum, it is the only national museum that is fully devoted to documenting the African American life, culture, and history. The museum was established by the Act of Congress in 2003 after a decade of efforts to promote and also highlight the contribution of African Americans. The museum continues to collect and also document the African American culture through its artifacts. From the time that the museum was established, it has collected more than 36000 artifacts, and that makes it an excellent institution to review the history and the lifestyle of African Americans. From the museum website, it shows the main pillars that define the existence of the museum. The first is that the museum does offer opportunities to anyone who is interested in exploring the African American culture and keeping track of the history. The second pillar is that it helps Americans to become aware of their histories, cultures, and stories and enable them to understand how this culture was shaped and the external influences affecting the culture.

The third pillar as explained is that the national museum helps in defining what it entails to be Americans through providing evidence of some of the outstanding values of Americans such as resilience and optimism.  Finally, the museum serves as a place that allows collaboration beyond Washington DC to engage the new audiences and work with various museums and educational institutions that understand the importance of the American history.  The national museum is usually open to everyone and does not discriminate on anyone and in doing that it encourages collaboration and participation among people who show interest in learning about the history and culture of African Americans. This museum also allows for exceptional learning for different groups of people, and the categories of learners include students, families, and adults. A person visiting this museum gets to learn based on the identified categories so that to allow for a better understanding and review of the African American history and culture.

Cultural diversity

The national museum seeks to understand the American history through the lens of African American experience. The museum has been able to open a portal for the public to gain the American experience and ensure a better understanding of America. The trip to the museum indicates that the museum not only embraces the African American history and culture but also how the history shaped America’s identity. It is an institution that finds the right tension between the moments of pain and also the stories of uplift and resilience.

Visiting this museum shows why it is important for anyone in America to allocate some time and take a trip to the museum. It has a large collection of American culture and history which has been arranged in agreement with their purpose and timeline. By exploring the collections, it involves exceptional, and great learning and some of the used types of learning is a film screening, book discussion, and staged readings on culture and history. With these kinds of teaching, it allows the audience to understand cultural diversity that has been in existence for years among African Americans.

There are several cultural expressions in the museum that present an introduction to African American and the African Diaspora culture. When looking through the exhibitions, one is introduced to a broad concept of African American culture in different ways that the culture is expressed. Some of the forms of expressions that are presented in the cultural expressions are image and identity, craftsmanship and creativity, language, culture and cuisine, gesture and dance. With the expression of the African American culture, it shows how the culture is rich in diversity. Some factors like the socio-economic class, age, and the geographic region contribute to the variance in the cultural forms that are being practiced. The transmission of African American culture is well documented as the museums demonstrate through art and books how it incorporates aspects of African, native America, and European culture through the contact with the groups in different geographic regions of the US.

New ideas

As museums have always been a passion of mine, this museum has had a great impact on me in helping me learn more about the American history and culture. Learning about the African American history has been a unique and passionate experience. The museum does have large, powerful quotes that have been engraved on the walls contrasting the small objects and exhibits. One quotation that stood out for me was from the ship captain that described the life for slaves crossing the ocean. Before my virtual trip to the museum, I did not have a clear view of how tough it was for slaves and the extent some of them went so that to see their families or friends survive. For instance, the quote described how about 12 black Americans willfully drowned themselves and others starved to death as they believed that when they die, they will return home to their friends and their country. Some iconic artifacts in the museum include the Emmett Till’s coffin, Jim Crow railway care, slave chains, and the prison guard tower. Something that I found interesting during this trip is that the museum has considered highlighting some of the small stories about African American history that are not taught in the narrative of American histories such as the daily life and farmers.

The museum is a part of celebrating the black heritage and commemorating civil rights leaders and reflection on aspects of that past that are still relevant to American society. The museum has greatly helped me to understand the African American culture through the lens of black life in American. I managed to gain a better understanding of the atrocities that were committed during the era of slavery and launchings in Jim Crow South. I also got to see the bullwhip that was used against slaves, which left me with much sorrow and tears in my eyes seeing how much our ancestors suffered. There was some history that I did not know about such as the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. I learned about this experiment that was done on black men who were unethically mistreated. Some other new ideas evident in the museum are spread through publications made in the museum such as the African American legacy recording and the double exposure that is a photography collection taken by African Americans.

Perspective

The visit to the museum has changed my perceptions and feelings in a certain way. From this experience, I am more determined to educate myself about understanding the American history and also educating others on the significance of understanding their culture and history. It is also an experience that has enabled me to start appreciating the presence of museums and dedicate myself to visiting more museums. Through this experience, I have come to believe that one of the essential things that we need to do as citizens is exploring our history. By looking and learning about the past does allow an individual to see how far that we have come as a group and how far we need to go and enables one to learn how we have got here. The national museum explores and exposes the troubled history of the country and is full of emotion. I feel that as an individual, it is important that we dedicate our time in learning about our culture and history as that gives us a better view to celebrate who we are and what we need to do so that to be better. The national museum tends to be a mixture of celebrations, triumph, and heart-wrenching accounts of suffering from real people across different periods.  For the period that I researched through the museum, I was emotionally touched by learning about the life and the death of Emmett Till and the videos of his mother that describe the horror tend to present an overwhelming experience.

Evaluation

The national museum is an American treasure serving as a repository for the history of the struggle, suffering, and triumph of African Americans. It is a preservation, celebration, and interpretations of African American culture and history and I would recommend every student to take some time and visit this museum. There is so much that one can learn from this museum about the African American history. By visiting the African American museum, it presents the opportunity of addressing our pre-American identity. In the case that I would like a friend to visit the site, one issue that I would like them to consider is the section for double exposure photos. The section explains the fight for equality in the Civil Rights and the Promise of Equality. Some iconic civil rights leaders such as John Lewis, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr have been juxtaposed with those citizens most affected in the struggle for the civil rights. The extensive collection of the artifacts and exhibitions does help the visitor to keep track of the progress that African Americans have made in their struggle for equality and social justice in the American society. Taking a visit to this site enables an individual to learn more about cultural diversity, which is incorporated in the design and the structure of the building that properly defines the African American life. The museum outlines the African American history and culture in various sections of the museum. In general, I believe that everyone should consider visiting this site as it contains a lot that people can learn about the American history. The museum has not an effective job of promoting the African American culture and the contributions that different personalities made in the fight for equality and social justice in the society. I am glad that I have been able to experience each aspect of the museum and it is one of my favorite museums.

Reference

National Museum of African American History and Culture. 

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in legitimate custom writing services Texas. If you need a similar paper you can place your order from research paper writing service Florida services.