Solomon Brown (1829 - 1906) was the first Black employee of the Smithsonian Institution, remaining for 54 years.
Solomon G. Brown was known for his significant contributions as a scientist, educator, and activist.
He was also deeply involved in the fight for civil rights and education for Black Americans, advocating for equality and social justice. Brown’s legacy includes his efforts to bridge racial divides in science.
Found this today. It made me smile. There's nothing like the power of a still photograph.
The report released late on Independence Day by the White House Domestic Policy Council comes in the midst of Trump’s aggressive campaign to
“A White House report brands the leadership of the Smithsonian Institution, especially at the National Museum of American History, as radical activists who cannot be trusted, indicating that President Donald Trump may be preparing to install his own team.”
Democratic women led the charge to keep transphobia out of the Smithsonian Women's Museum.
Greg Owen at LGBTQ Nation:
The Democratic Women’s Caucus on Thursday helped end a transphobic bill seeking to fund the building of the Smithsonian Institution’s new Women’s History Museum, after Republicans added language in a bill funding it to ban inclusion of “any biological male as a female.”
Lawmakers voted 216-204 to reject the bill. Six Republicans joined all Democrats in opposition, Politico reports.
The legislation was on track to pass just weeks ago with bipartisan support: 127 Democrats and 103 Republicans cosponsored the bill funding the museum’s construction.
But in March, Republican members on the Committee on House Administration rewrote the bill, adding provisions that state that only “biological women” could be featured in the museum, and granting President Trump near total authority over its location, construction, and content.
Democratic women revolted.
In a letter from the Democratic Women’s Caucus and House Democratic Caucus addressed to Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (LA), lawmakers blasted the new language.
“This is just another example of Republicans needlessly adding an anti-transgender provision to an unrelated bill that would impact not just transgender women and girls but all women and girls,” the women wrote in April.
That provision is “clearly” intended to “target transgender women and girls,” the Congress members said, but it also “invites arbitrary enforcement and could be used to challenge the inclusion of any woman or girl a politician deems not ‘feminine’ enough,’” they added.
Trump’s effort to wrest control of the museum, the lawmakers wrote, was particularly galling given his own history with women.
“The design and location of a museum about women, fought for and supported by women, should not be controlled by one man and his loyalists — particularly not a man who has been found liable for sexual assault, and regularly denigrates women based on physical appearance, among other repulsive behaviors,” they said, referencing the 2023 civil court decision regarding journalist E. Jean Carroll.
“American women deserve better,” the letter added.
The revised language, swapped out in March, dedicated the museum to “preserving, researching, and presenting the history, achievements, and lived experiences of biological women in the United States.” The new language banned the institution from seeking to “identify, present, describe, or otherwise depict any biological male as a female.”
The House Republicans’ bid to put in transphobia in the proposed Smithsonian Institution’s Women’s History Museum was rightly quashed by the House Democrats (and 6 House GOPers crossing over).
Nikki Giovanni discusses poetry with actor and activist Ossie Davis in 1972 [Johnson Publishing Company Archive. Courtesy J. Paul Getty Trust and Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.]
Akan artist, Ashanti Region, Ghana, 18th - 19th c.
Copper alloy; H x W x D: 4.8 x 3.8 x 7.6 cm (1 7/8 x 1 1/2 x 3 in.)
On display at National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution 96-42-3
<Some figurative weights evoke well-known Akan proverbs, and more than one proverb may apply. This is perhaps particularly true of animal weights. This weight depicting a porcupine (kotoko) relates to a proverb of the Anyi of Côte d'Ivoire in which the porcupine displays greater responsibility than his dependent relative, the hedgehog. The porcupine is cast in the role of the senior, powerful character because of its quills. Its many quills were also taken as a symbol of the Asante kingdom and its large, well-equipped army, as demonstrated in the sayings "Asante kotoko kill thousands and thousands more will come," an expression relating to the size and courage of the army, or "who dares to attack the porcupine which has so many spikes."
Most weights, however, are not commissioned to make a point or tell a story. They are not usually sent as messages, with the exception of an occasion on which an Asante king once dispatched a large weight in the form of a porcupine to indicate the size of a fine owed by a guilty individual.<
US President Joe Biden at the White House, Washington, DC, May 31, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein US President Joe Biden …
by Shiryn Ghermezian
US President Joe Biden signed into law on Wednesday a bill that would make it possible for the nation’s only museum dedicated exclusively to the American Jewish experience to join the Smithsonian Institution, which would help support its existence for years to come.
Bill H.R. 7764 establishes a commission that will examine if the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia can join the Smithsonian Institution. The commission of eight people must submit a report with its findings to Congress and the president within two years of its first meeting. The bill was sponsored by Jewish US Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and introduced in March. It was passed by the House of Representatives in September and the Senate did the same earlier this month. Both votes were unanimous.
Before the bill was passed to Biden’s desk, Wasserman Schultz said in a Facebook post that signing it into law “would help reject harmful prejudices by educating people about the many contributions of Jewish Americans.”
The Smithsonian Institution is the world’s largest museum, education, and research complex, which includes 21 museums, 14 education and research centers, and the National Zoo. If the Weitzman museum, located on Independence Mall in Philadelphia, was to join the Smithsonian Institution, it would become one of the Smithsonian museums in the US dedicated to minority groups such as the African American History and Culture Museum, the American Indian Museum, and National Museum of Asian Art. Museums under the umbrella of the Smithsonian Institution also receive federal government support.
Established in 1976, the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History houses one of the largest collections of Jewish American artifacts in the nation, with more than 30,000 objects.
