Embracing Ambiguity: The Challenge of Interpreting African American History in Museums

Abstract

The American national memory is fundamentally shaped by African American history and culture. However, the essence of this experience is often forgotten or downplayed and the story of how race, and African American culture has shaped and continues to reshape American life, is less understood than it should be. The best museum presentations can help people find that meaningful and useable past. While there have been great changes in whom and what museums interpret about the African American experience, the rhetoric of change fails to match the realities of every day life in museums. To have a real and lasting impact on the American public, museums must overcome or at least grapple with a few core challenges, including: 1. Transcending the rosy glow of the past, 2. Resisting monolithic depictions of the past, 3. Ambiguity, and 4. Finding a "new integration" that re-centers African American history. Success in these areas would allow the clashes, conflicts, compromises, and cultural borrowing that is at the core of the American past to be truly sustained in the center of historical thought and collective memory.