If Federal Museums Aren’t Allowed to Tell the Truth About the Past, it’sTime to Start Supporting the Organizations That Can.

By Michelle Caswell and Bergis Jules

https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/13030/hb2n39n88k/

The Trump Administration is openly waging a war against America’s public libraries, archives, and museums and the historical evidence they preserve. In August, the President instructed his staff to conduct an audit of Smithsonian Museums, calling particular attention to the ways that the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture focused too much, in his estimation, on “how bad slavery was.” In a letter to Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie C. Bunch, the White House stressed the need for federal museums “to celebrate American exceptionalism” and “remove divisive or partisan narratives.”

The audit comes after an April Executive Order promised to “Restor[e] Truth and Sanity to American History” by purging any “divisive” museum content related to the history of racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression. In a dizzying array of executive actions the Administration has gutted the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC); fired the National Archivist and the Librarian of Congress; and ordered a purge of books addressing race and gender in the U.S. Naval Academy Library. This culture of censorship has also had a chilling effect on non-government museums, some of which have cancelled exhibitions and changed language around exhibitions featuring art that may affront the Trump administration. As these unprecedented attempts of historical erasure rage on, we must ensure that safe spaces where members of a wide range of communities can tell their stories will continue to exist.

Yet, we were not caught off guard entirely by these devastating developments. After working for the past 20 years in the cultural memory sector, we have seen how federal institutions are oftentimes not safe spaces for BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ communities to tell their stories.

In order to protect the full range of our culture, history and shared stories, we need to increase investments in independent community-based archives. These are independent spaces in which members of marginalized communities come together to document, preserve, and share their own histories on their own terms. Ranging from small historical societies that start in a community member’s basement or garage to digital spaces of documentation and online exhibition, community archives empower marginalized communities to tell their own stories free from government interference.

For example, Shorefront Legacy Center in Evanston, Illinois is an organization that collects, preserves and educates through the lived experiences and histories of Black communities along Chicago’s suburban north shore. Archivists at the Shorefront Legacy Center were responsible for drafting a harm report detailing the history of racist redlining practices in Evanston. The report supported the work of the City of Evanston to create a $10 million reparations fund for Black residents.

For another example, the After Violence Archive, run by the After Violence Project, is an online repository for oral histories, correspondence, art, and other records documenting state-sanctioned violence in the U.S. These materials help us understand the personal impact of police violence, mass incarceration, and the death penalty, and move towards futures that do not rely on more violence and retribution.

Invisible Histories is yet another example. They locate, collect, research, and create community-based, educational programming around LGBTQ history in the Deep South. They also run the Queer History South conference, which focuses on issues in Southern LGBTQ history and archiving.

Community archives like these are filled with materials that demonstrate successful strategies for resistance and provide inspiration to keep social movements going. Deeply rooted in the communities they serve and represent, these organizations are based on tenets of care, sustainability, and belonging. These archives are also committed to a critical inquiry of our historical narrative and celebration of our diverse histories. Today, they are more important– and more precarious– than ever.

This independence comes at a cost. Most community-based archives struggle for basic resources to fulfill their important missions. Many of these organizations are volunteer run and exist without adequate support for operations and basic care for the rich collections they hold. Despite the wealth of cultural knowledge they steward through their vast collections, these archives have been chronically underfunded by government agencies and private foundations for decades, passed over in favor of wealthier institutions that, in some cases, promise longer term stability and prestige, but they also propagate dominant narratives to appease majoritarian audiences. And we have already seen the ways, under the current Administration, these dominant historical narratives around “Western Civilization” and American exceptionalism will be favored to receive federal support.

This is why we need funding models and incentives that more aggressively shift the burden of care for these collections to independent cultural memory organizations like community-based archives. We have been advocating for decades that federal agencies and private foundations should take the work of community-based archives seriously. In the face of the politically motivated takeover of government agencies, private funding is more important than ever. Even as we call for the immediate reinstatement of the programs that direct taxpayer dollars to grassroots memory work, and some of that is happening, we know we must also build sustainable alternatives.

The principles of mutual aid offer one avenue forward. Financial gifts from individual community members are also important sources of funding right now. By pooling small gifts from individual community members, even communities with few financial resources can make a huge impact. In our communities, we can collaboratively support each other to do autonomous archival work in the face of historic erasure, create networks of care and mutual aid around preservation, and build solidarity to critique the systems that have underinvested in this work. The Community Archives Collaborative is a global peer support and resource sharing network that is attempting to do just that.

Yet there is no replacement for large gifts from private foundations. Philanthropic foundations have a tremendous opportunity to support the sustainability of independent community-based archives and to bolster their vital work. In this current political moment, where diverse and inclusive views of our shared cultural memory are threatened, community-based archives represent perhaps our most effective model for resisting these overt acts of historical erasure.

Foundations should come together to jointly fund this important work. For example, a national fund to support independent cultural memory organizations like community-based archives would be a great starting point. In 2018, and again in 2023, community-based archives gathered together in New Orleans to examine the funding landscape for their field and to explore new ideas towards supporting their capacity building and sustainability. The resulting report, Architecting Sustainable Futures, presented a road map of funding possibilities for foundations that is more relevant than ever and should be adopted. Foundations that dedicate programs to civic engagement, social entrepreneurship, economic development, technology and society, education, and democracy should all embrace community archives’ impact in these areas. Foundations should also increase direct giving to these archives and launch outreach and engagement efforts targeted to this sector to build relationships and explore possibilities together.

Foundations have already demonstrated strong leadership this year to defend freedom of speech and firmly stand behind the work that they do. As historical erasure continues to be one of the gravest threats against our democracy, foundations can increase support for these independent cultural memory organizations stewarding the histories of our most vulnerable and marginalized communities, so they can continue to inspire and tell our stories free from government interference.

The government will not accurately preserve all of our nation’s stories. Only we can, collectively. Let’s make sure we support the sustainability of the organizations that can guide us through this crisis and into a more equitable future.

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Michelle Caswell, is a Professor in the Department of Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles and the author of *Urgent Archives: Enacting Liberatory Memory Work*. She is on the board of the Shorefront Legacy Center and was co-founder of the South Asian American Digital Archive. She co-directs the UCLA Community Archives Lab.

Bergis Jules is an Archivist and Public Historian with the Shift Collective. He is the convener of Architecting Sustainable Futures, an initiative focused on designing sustainable funding models with community-based archives, and increasing resource streams that support these organizations.