Meet the Man Behind the National Museum of African American History and Culture

You already know the legacy even if you don’t know the name of the man behind it.

If you are celebrating the inauguration of the new National Museum of African American History and Culture, then you have Robert L. Wilkins to thank. He tells the story of his journey - and ours - in a powerful and thorough new book, Long Road to Hard Truth: The 100-Year Mission to Create the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Originally from Muncie, Indiana, Robert L. Wilkins is the son of a single mother birthed him at age 17. He received a degree in chemical engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Indiana, and a law degree from Harvard Law School. After clerking for an African American federal judge in San Diego, Mr. Wilkins moved to Washington, D.C. and was a public defender for 10 years. The married father of two teenage sons, he left the practice of law to work full-time on the efforts to create the new museum.

Today, Mr. Wilkins exclusively with our readers what he wants us to know about this victory and our collective future.

Thank you so much for helping to preserve and honor our culture. What has been your role in the birth of this museum?

I became interested in why there was no national museum dedicated to African American history and culture, and I formed a non-profit organization with some friends in the late 1990s to try to spearhead or facilitate the efforts to create such an institution. I worked closely with Congressman John Lewis and the others in Congress to push for legislation to create a museum, and when Congress created the Presidential Commission to plan the museum, I was appointed to serve on it. I chaired the Site and Building Committee of the Presidential Commission and worked very closely with the other commissioners and Congress to push for the Museum to get a prominent site on the National Mall. I document all of those efforts, as well and the entire 100-year journey to create this museum in my book, Long Road to Hard Truth.

Beautiful. When you first conceived of a possible museum, were you aware of the now 100 year-old vision of a Black American Heritage Museum?

I first became interested in creating a national African American history museum in 1996. At that time I had no idea that the vision extended all the way back to 1916. As best as I can tell no one in Congress was aware that the history went back that long either, because it never came up in any of the reports or discussions that I had with anyone on this issue. I also had done quite a bit of research, and none of the newspaper articles, historical journals, or anything else mentioned the efforts going back prior the 1960s. From my conversations with everyone in the late 1990s, the assumption and conventional wisdom was that the efforts to create a national African American museum began in the mid to late 1960s.

What a compelling journey. What was the spark for you where you felt that this historical and cultural institution had to come into fruition?

For me there were several things that came together that motivated me to believe that this Museum really just had to happen. One “spark” was being at the home of fellow church member after his passing, and listening to his family and church elders tell stories that evening that so richly described the African American experience. As my wife and I drove home that evening, I said to her why don’t we have a museum to capture all of those stories? And that was what really got me interested in the concept.

But as I discuss in the prologue to my book, there were other things that motivated me as well. In my work as a public defender, I came across so many stories of tragedy and hurt in the African American community, and in my work fighting racial profiling through my lawsuit against the Maryland State Police, I further felt like I was focusing on problems and the legacy of racial discrimination. I wanted to be a part of something positive, something that would help the African American community feel validated, something that would hopefully inspire African American youth to take advantage of their educational and other opportunities that they had, and something that would help bring better understanding of racial issues to the Country so that we could move beyond the past and work better together

That you for sharing how your personal experiences informed this journey. What were the early reactions to the idea of this museum?

Robert L. Wilkins: From my research, it appears that most of the reaction in the period after World War I to the concept of the “national memorial building” were pretty positive. The proponents saw the museum as a response to the negativity and slander of the D.W. Griffith movie Birth of a Nation, and as a way to humanize African Americans and promote their contributions in the hope that it would demonstrate their worth to the Nation. There were some though, including Colonel Charles Young, the third African American to graduate from West Point and the highest ranking member of the Army during World War I, who felt that while they weren’t necessarily opposed to this museum, they thought that resources were better spent on directly attacking the vestiges of discrimination, including lynching and Jim Crow laws. I think that the people who were pushing for the museum also supported those fights, and they saw the museum as being complementary to those efforts.

Sir, how do you address folks like Stacey Dash who argue that we should be post racial and no longer need race pride markers like Black History Month - even as black churches are still being burned and unarmed black citizens are lynched regularly by law enforcement?

I would rather not respond to any one individual directly, or speak directly about any current public controversies. What I can say is that in the 20 years I have been associated with the efforts to create this Museum, people of all political parties and all races have seen it as an institution that was valuable and needed in order to fill a void, because African American history is not properly and comprehensively taught, and in doing so the Museum will serve the public good by helping its visitors understand American history that much better, while also placing important historical events in context to hopefully facilitate dialogue and understanding of racial prejudice and discrimination so that we can understand better how to move beyond it and come together as a nation.

Well said. What were some of the critical milestones in bringing this dream to fruition?

There are several important milestones. Of course, the first is 1916, when Ferdinand Lee and the others formed the National Memorial Association and started the ball rolling. Nineteen twenty-nine was an important year, because Congress approved the establishment of a national memorial commission to plan for the construction of a national memorial building to Negro achievement and contributions to America; while that commission was not able to achieve the goal, it laid the groundwork for the efforts that would come many decades later.

Another milestone was in the period from 1965 to 1968, when efforts resumed to create this museum with the support of people like James Baldwin and Jackie Robinson and organizations like the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History and the NAACP. Another milestone occurred in the period of 1990 to 1991, when the Smithsonian, at the urging of an African American institutional study committee headed by Claudine Brown, formally endorsed the idea of creating a new national African American museum.

The next milestones were in 2001, when Congress created a presidential commission, 2003, when Congress authorized the National Museum of African History and Culture to be built within the Smithsonian, in 2006, when the Smithsonian selected the site for the Museum on the National Mall. Of course, the other very important milestone along this timeline was 2005, when the Smithsonian hired Lonnie Bunch as the founding director of the Museum, as he would lead the efforts to bring this project over the finish line.

Was it important for this museum to break ground during the tenure of our first African American president?

I think that it is extremely significant and serendipitous that the Museum opened during the tenure of President Obama. As I recount in my book, the first presidential commission dedicated to creating this institution had a meeting with President Herbert Hoover in 1929, in which he refused to fight for federal funding for the effort, and he even refused to pose for a photograph with the commission members, because he had an unwritten but firm policy at that time against taking photographs with black people.

What a contrast the opening of the Museum, when you have a president who himself is African American throwing open the doors to the institution and giving its utmost and unqualified support. That change in circumstance alone shows how far we have come as a nation. Even if things are not perfect, we should nonetheless celebrate and acknowledge the progress that we have made.

Black lives matter - and black history and culture matters. Why does this museum matter?

This museum matters because it serves as a testament and memorial to millions of people of African descent, whose faces we will never see and names we will never know, who suffered, sacrificed, and contributed so much over the past several hundred years in this great nation. In telling their stories, the Museum gives better context to the journey of this great nation. And in doing so, I believe it can help lead to better understanding among all peoples.

You can purchase Long Road to Hard Truth: The 100-Year Mission to Create the National Museum of African American History and Culture by Robert L. Wilkins wherever you buy books.

Visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture at 1400 Constitution Ave NW, Washington, DC 20560.