'Show me my soul!': The evolution of the black museum movement in postwar America

Before most museums began to acknowledge that they must integrate African American history and culture into their programs, the leaders of the "black museum movement" stood at the forefront in contesting and reinterpreting traditional depictions of African American history and culture. African American neighborhood museums, which were created and staffed primarily by black community leaders, took root in urban neighborhoods across the country after World War II. Black museum leaders designed their museum's missions, exhibits, and educational programs to counter the skewed impressions of black history and culture that they believed people absorbed when visiting "traditional" museums. In their view, mainstream museums perpetuated white America's power over the historical narrative. It was therefore the task of African American neighborhood museums to disrupt this narrative.;Yet while these museums were often defiantly "black power" in mission, they do not fit the outdated definition of black power as a militant, anti-white movement that began in 1966. I demonstrate how black museum leaders confronted and negotiated with white politicians and cultural institutions, even as they posited alternatives to the traditional model of museum as Eurocentric "mausoleum." Finally, I illustrate the fault lines that emerged within the movement as African American neighborhood museums evolved from small-scale, community resources to large-scale institutions intent on bringing black history to a national audience.;My dissertation explores the thematic ties that connect five African American "neighborhood" museums of the black museum movement---the DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago (founded in 1961); the International Afro-American Museum in Detroit (1965); the Anacostia Neighborhood Museum in Washington, D.C. (1967); the Studio Museum in Harlem (1968); and the African American Museum of Philadelphia (1976). Because of their promotion of a narrative of African American culture and history that was separate from, but grimly intertwined with, European culture, their encouragement of a uniquely "black" identity and consciousness, and their emphasis on the vital need for interaction between the museum and the local African American community, I argue that black museum leaders grounded their institutions in the radical ideology of what became known as the black power movement.