Latest news with #NationalMuseumofAfricanAmericanHistoryandCulture
Time of India
a day ago
- General
- Time of India
Another federal holiday coming in US next week. Check date, what's open and shut on that day
Mark your calendars because there's a holiday approaching soon! Juneteenth, which takes place on June 19th, falls on a Thursday this year. While Juneteenth officially became America's twelfth federal holiday in 2021, it's been celebrated and observed by communities across the country for more than a century. Is Juneteenth a federal holiday in US? Juneteenth, observed every year on June 19, commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. It marks the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Texas were finally informed of their freedom—more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued. 'Freedom finally arrived on June 19, 1865, when approximately 2,000 Union soldiers landed in Galveston Bay, Texas,' notes the National Museum of African American History and Culture. 'They announced that over 250,000 enslaved Black individuals in Texas were free by executive order.' The newly freed communities began calling the occasion "Juneteenth," blending June and nineteenth. Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Victoria Principal Is Almost 75, See Her Now Reportingly Undo As a result of its significance, some federal offices and businesses may be closed in observance of the holiday. Key Details: When is Juneteenth? Live Events This year, Juneteenth is on Thursday, June 19. ALSO READ: Massive 'No King' protest planned in more than 1500 US cities to counter Trump's June 14 parade: 10 points When did it become a federal holiday? Juneteenth was officially designated a federal holiday in 2021 with the passage of the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act. Is the post office closed on Juneteenth? Post offices will close for the holiday, the U.S. Postal Service told the Canton Repository, reports CantonRep Are banks open on Juneteenth? Banks tend to close on Juneteenth and other federal holidays, but digital services may still be available. Contact your local branch for more information on closings. ALSO READ: Diet Coke is making a comeback in US after four years and internet can't keep calm Is trash pickup delayed for Juneteenth? The city of Canton is not expected to delay trash pickup in observance of Juneteenth, as services are scheduled to continue as they would normally. Are grocery stores open on Juneteenth? Many grocery stores remain open on Juneteenth. What's open and closed on Juneteenth? All federal offices — including courts, post offices, and Social Security offices — will be closed in observance of Juneteenth. State government offices, such as the Secretary of State, will also shut down for the day, giving state employees the day off. Local government services, including courts, will be unavailable. However, essential services such as police, fire departments, and emergency medical responders will remain fully operational. The U.S. Postal Service will suspend regular mail delivery on Juneteenth, with limited exceptions for Holiday Premium Priority Mail Express and Holiday Same Day Package Delivery. ALSO READ: Los Angeles protest: Journalist shot at during live broadcast in harrowing moment caught on camera Are banks open on Juneteenth? Most banks will be closed for the holiday, though ATMs and online banking services will remain accessible for customer use.
Toronto Star
21-05-2025
- Toronto Star
I love visiting the U.S. — from the San Diego tacos, to the black sand beaches in Hawaii — but I'm sure as heck not going there in the next four years
Last year, this time, I was in sunny San Diego. It was a golf trip for my husband and a few days of relaxing for me. We went to Balboa Park, Old Town, Coronado and the Gaslamp District. I can say we ate entirely too many tacos and burritos. The Mexican food scene is great. In February 2024, I was in Washington, D.C. on an experiential learning trip with Black students from the University of Toronto Scarborough. We visited Howard University, a historically Black institution and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
NBC News
17-05-2025
- Politics
- NBC News
Critics question why exhibits at the African American History Museum are rotating out
Before sunrise in Baltimore on Friday, the Rev. Robert Turner, senior pastor of the Empowerment Temple AME Church, set out to walk 43 miles from his church to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Turner, who has made the trip from Baltimore to D.C. more than 30 times to call for reparations for Black people across America because of the consequences of slavery, made the 14-hour journey this week to protest what he says is an attempt by the Trump administration to erase important American history. For him, the future of the museum that he and many other Black people lovingly call the 'Blacksonian' is worth every step. 'If you don't know the horrors that we went through, the hell, then you might not see the need for repairing,' Turner said. 'It's important for President Trump to know this issue of saving the Blacksonian and the issue of repairing America, and creating a culture of repair is very important to saving the soul of America.' The context: Decades-old artifacts related to slavery and civil rights are rotating out of exhibits at the museum as a potential White House review looms. In late March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order demanding in part that the museum take down any exhibits that ' divide Americans based on race.' But now, the White House says it is not involved in any changes at the museum, while Democrats in Congress are sounding the alarm, signing a letter and introducing legislation to protect civil rights landmarks. NBC News went inside the museum and found at least 32 artifacts that were once on display have been removed. They include Harriet Tubman's book of hymns filled with gospels that she is believed to have sung as she led enslaved people to freedom through the underground railroad, as well as a cloth made by enslaved people and a photo of the hip-hop group Public Enemy. Also removed was the 'Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,' the memoir by one of the most important leaders in the abolition movement. Both items were gifted to the Smithsonian. In a statement, White House spokesperson Lindsey Halligan said, 'The White House had no involvement in removing any exhibit from the National Museum of African American History and Culture or any other Smithsonian institution. They did this on their own accord.' The museum pushed back on criticism, saying on its website that 'claims that objects have been removed for reasons other than adherence to standard loan agreements or museum practices are false.' It also listed 11 new artifacts coming on display later this month, including a photograph focused on how mass incarceration impacts Black people, a painting depicting a Ku Klux Klan figure, and artwork dedicated to Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black boy from Chicago murdered by white men in 1955 while visiting family in Mississippi after the teen was accused of trying to flirt with a white woman. In an email to NBC News, the museum reiterated that rotating objects is normal. But Turner isn't convinced. 'We have to now say enough is enough, and America is better than this, Black and white,' he said. 'We are stronger than this. If our children can endure being lynched, then white children can endure a classroom that teaches that America used to lynch kids.' Liz Brazelton, the owner of a diary connected to the Oscar-winning film '12 Years a Slave,' isn't convinced either. She's the great-great-granddaughter of the lawyer who helped free Solomon Northup, a free Black man who was kidnapped and forced into slavery. 'I grew up with the diaries,' Brazelton said. 'The most important thing in his diaries was the fact that he did help free this man who was a free man of color. And it's just an amazing story. And in central Louisiana, it's quite a prominent story. And I'm very proud of it.' She gave one of her great-great-grandfather's diaries to the museum in September 2015 on a 10-year loan. The museum sent her a letter in March, before the end of the term, saying, 'We have decided to move ahead with the return a bit early to coincide with our internal gallery rotation schedule.' The letter was sent two weeks before Trump signed the executive order targeting exhibits at the Smithsonian, which raised a red flag for Brazelton. 'When I saw the executive order, I wondered if they maybe knew something was going to happen and they rotated it out early because it was about slavery, that entire exhibit,' she said. The Smithsonian declined NBC News' request for an interview. But it repeated in an email that the diary move was a scheduled rotation to 'allow for necessary rest following an extended display period.' Brazelton said she was never told between 2016 and 2025 that her family's diary was ever taken off of exhibit or rotated out. She believes it had stayed in the exhibit until recently. The Rev. Amos C. Brown, a prominent pastor and civil rights leader, lent two of his books to the museum when it opened in 2016. The items included his father's Bible, which is more than 100 years old and was carried by Brown during protests with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as well as a book on the history of Black people that was written in the 1800s. 'I was feeling that through this museum, America will see me, will see Black people,' Brown said. 'We have been and are architects, designers of great things. … We took a negative and turned it into a positive, and telling the story of how people achieved great things in spite of oppression, in spite of those evil things that were done to us, that's what that museum represents.' Earlier this year, the Smithsonian sent him an email saying it would return his books. The museum called it a ' standard practice,' adding that the loan expired in May. Still, Brown called that explanation an excuse, noting to NBC News that the museum has always chosen to renew the loan until now. 'I feel it to be very much inhumane, disrespectful and downright unjust,' he said of the decision to end the loan. After his public pushback, the museum offered to keep the books permanently, according to a letter reviewed by NBC News. The broader controversy is becoming increasingly political. House Democrats are demanding Vice President JD Vance, who now sits on the board of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, not take steps to overhaul the museum. In a letter, the lawmakers said, 'This flagrant attempt to erase Black history is unacceptable and must be stopped.' Rep. Terri Sewell, an Alabama Democrat who sits on a House committee that conducts oversight of the Smithsonian Institution, was among the lawmakers who signed the letter. 'To tell the truth means to share the good and the bad. And if we don't tell our stories, who will tell our stories?' she said. Meanwhile, Turner plans to continue making his monthly, hourslong pilgrimage from Baltimore to Washington, D.C., to shine a brighter spotlight on the museum's artifacts getting pulled from displays and to demand reparations for Black people across the nation. 'Our story cannot die, no matter who's in the White House,' he said.
San Francisco Chronicle
10-05-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Smithsonian to review whether to keep artifacts donated by S.F.'s Rev. Amos Brown
The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture is going to consider whether to permanently keep two prized artifacts belonging to civil rights icon Amos Brown — which the institution had tried to return to him, sparking a controversy over the Trump Administration's influence over the historical collection. Since opening in 2016, the museum has displayed Brown's bible, which he carried during the Civil Rights movement, and his copy of the History of Negro Race in America by George Washington Williams. On Monday, Brown, pastor of San Francisco's Third Baptist Church, received an email from Erika D. Gault, a director at the museum, confirming that the museum's collections committee will consider permanently keeping the artifacts. 'I have already begun to complete the necessary collections documents and will personally work to ensure that this moves quickly and positively through the necessary steps for donation and permanent accession into the collection,' Gault wrote in the email, which Brown shared with the Chronicle. Brown said he knew little about the committee and who would be on it. 'I asked them (the museum) right up front, who's on it. We ought to be transparent with things like these. Any time people cannot be transparent it says they may be into something that's not in the best interest of the common good.' The exchange between the museum and Brown occurred in the wake of President Donald Trump's March 27 executive order titled, 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.' In it, Trump targeted various Smithsonian institutions, who he said in recent years haves 'come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.' He specifically named the National Museum of African American History and Culture and criticized it as proclaiming that ideas like hard work, individualism and the nuclear family were aspects of white culture. On April 10, Brown received an email from Constance S. Beninghove, the museum's exhibitions and loans registrar, who told him his artifacts were being returned. 'I wanted to alert you that the National Museum of African American History and Culture will be returning your Bible and book we borrowed for our exhibition, Segregation,' said Beninghove. 'We are grateful for the loan of these important objects and the ability to share them with the public. In order to preserve them and not display them for too long, we are now returning them to you.' Brown immediately questioned why the museum suddenly wanted to return his items, believing it was connected with Trump's crackdown on diversity initiatives. 'There's a sneaky, sly, sinister movement going on,' Brown told the Chronicle. 'We all know that the present (Trump) administration has tried to wipe out anything that has to do with Blackness, our identity.' Brown said the museum told him it wanted to return the artifacts because the 'light (in the exhibit they're kept) would be damaging.' 'That doesn't make sense,' said Brown. 'They're a museum, they (the museum) they know how to preserve delicate artifacts.' After Brown pushed back on why the artifacts were being returned, he said the museum phoned him. The controversy coincided with fears from the public that other civil rights artifacts, such as Nat Turner's Bible, were being removed from the museum, NBC Washington reported. Media reports also circulated that the museum had removed its Greensboro, NC lunch counter from the Civil Rights Movement. The museum, in a statement last month, called the reports 'inaccurate.' 'Both the Greensboro lunch counter and stools where college students sat in protest during the Civil Rights Movement are and continue to be on display,' said the museum. The museum continued, saying, 'recent claims that objects have been removed for reasons other than adherence to standard loan agreements or museum practices are false.' Media representatives for the museum did not respond to a request for comment on the situation. As the museum faces threat under the Trump administration, Brown said he has ideas to carry the teaching of Black history forward. 'The Black family, the Black church, and our historically Black college,' he said when asked on who could teach Black history. 'We got to learn and teach in spite of. This is not the first time that the empire, the oppressors, have tried to keep us down through such corny messages, even during the days of slavery.' When asked about the future of the museum, Brown said, 'Black folks, our allies, our friends…have got to stand up and make sure that we push back. And say we're going to stand for a diverse, yet unified country. Unity does not mean uniformity.'
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Why Racists Are Emboldened to Say Exactly What Is On Their Minds
2025 has been an all-out assault on Blackness. Since Donald Trump took office on January 20th, he tried to erase the contributions of the Tuskegee Airmen from military history, has made attempts to gut the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and is trying his best to eradicate all Diversity, Equity and inclusion initiatives. These are the blatant, in your face results of his Presidency. But there is a more subtle and far more insidious thing that is happening because of the man who occupies the Oval Office. By now I'm sure you've heard of Shiloh Hendrix. She is the white woman who was caught on camera unapologetically calling an autistic 5-year-old child the N-word. According to her, that situation 'put [her] into a very dire situation,' and has since raised over $700,000 to help her navigate it. This is deeply concerning because this racist woman is now being rewarded for doing something that she would have been cancelled for just a year ago. But Hendrix is not the only one. She is but the most recent example of a white person profiting off racism. Lily Gaddis was a self-proclaimed 'tradwife' who went viral last year after she used the N-word during a cooking tutorial video. (Making potato salad with raisins, I suspect.) She is now a right-wing pundit who proudly proclaims that she is an 'unashamed racist.' Gaddis now is invited by the likes of Pies Morgan to share screen time with intellectuals like Dr. Marc Lamont Hill. One more time for those in the back. Shiloh Hendrix and Lilly Gaddis both engaged in behavior that would have gotten them cancelled in years past, but the opposite has happened. They are now being rewarded for their bad behavior. The former was given nearly a million dollars and the latter now has a burgeoning media career. What are we to make of this? President Donald Trump has created a culture of anti-Black permissibility. Let me put it another way. Things that racist white folk used to only say privately, they now feel emboldened to say with their chest. No longer are they socially ostracized for uttering these vile things…they are now rewarded. Others who always wanted to say these things but felt silenced have rallied around these individuals. If you look at who's donated to Hendrix's fundraiser or who gives Gaddis a platform, they are, at best, conservative, and, at worst, Neo-Nazis. This is the Trump effect. He makes racists feel comfortable to say whatever comes to mind, and they have no fear of what might happen. In fact, in the culture he created, there is a possibility that they might be rewarded. This is America in 2025. It's not as bad as 1965, but it's not much better. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
