The Smithsonian kicks off its new initiative on race and racism with a virtual forum Thursday that brings together curators, researchers and activists to discuss topics including the disparities between races in health care, how biological racism lingers in sports culture and the history of the emotional stress of racism.
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The hour-long event launches “Our Shared Future: Reckoning with our Racial Past,” an ambitious multiyear program that is fully funded by a $25 million grant from Bank of America that will tap into the vast expertise of the Smithsonian to examine the history and legacy of race through conversations, community events and digital content. The Smithsonian created the program last summer, in the wake of social justice protests held in communities across the country. Many museums and cultural organizations responded to the calls for racial justice and equity by presenting more diverse artists, and are revising their collection policies to be more inclusive. The Smithsonian decided to harness its diverse network of museums and experts to foster a national conversation.

The goal, said Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III, is nothing short of creating a better America.
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“We want to contribute to making the county better,” Bunch said about the project. “The goal is to find that shared future. The only way to do that is to engage and to debate.

“I really believe that part of the role of the Smithsonian is to define reality and give hope,” he continued. “Giving people the reality — here’s the information, here’s a way to contextualize the moment we are in — you can’t build optimism unless you face the reality of the past, the reality of today. But once you do that you can find ways to find common ground.”

Thursday’s inaugural event, beginning at 7 p.m., will feature three discussions of race, wealth and wellness. Among those expected to participate are Bunch; Damion L. Thomas, curator of sports at the National Museum of African American History and Culture; Louise Seamster, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Iowa who studies race and economic inequality; Sean Sweat, a medical student who rewrote the Hippocratic oath to reflect racial injustice; and Diana Chao, who was in high school when she founded Letters to Strangers, a nonprofit focused on increased access to mental health services and treatment for young people.

When Lonnie G. Bunch III, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, announced last year that the organization had received a $25 million gift from Bank of America, he envisioned an initiative that would create safe spaces in communities across the nation where Americans could gather to discuss the country’s racial past.

The result, “Our Shared Future: Reckoning With Our Racial Past,” a two-year series of online and in-person events, will kick off Thursday in Los Angeles with a virtual summit meeting that will focus on income and health care inequality and include subjects ranging from early race science to vaccine distribution. The initial event will be livestreamed at oursharedfuture.si.edu, starting at 7 p.m. Eastern.

“We can’t solve the problems of race in America ourselves,” Bunch said in a phone conversation on Monday. “But we can give the public the tools to stimulate those conversations to help people understand race beyond Black and white.”

The organization is planning conferences, town halls and immersive pop-up experiences in communities across the country to allow people to share their experiences and increase their understanding of the legacy of race and racism. Bunch said the goal is to encourage conversations among people who might not otherwise cross paths.

“We hope the Smithsonian can be a trusted place where people with a diversity of political opinions can engage with each other,” he said.

Museums nationwide are reckoning with race in their collections, including how to diversify their historically white holdings and how to display artifacts of traumatic periods in the country’s history, such as Ku Klux Klan robes, with proper context. But the Smithsonian wanted to take the conversation beyond museum walls, Bunch said.

“In many ways, it’s an initiative about race,” he said. “But it’s also an initiative about the different ways the Smithsonian can do our work moving forward.”

Though arrangements are in flux because of the pandemic, the Smithsonian does plan to dispatch a video team to events including the annual Farm Aid Festival, to be held this year in Hartford, Conn., on Sept. 25, in the hope of gathering oral histories from people about their experiences of race in America.
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“We want to make sure, as we talk about the grand issues of race and wellness, we reduce it to a human scale,” Bunch said.

New York City plans to require visitors and staff members at museums and other cultural institutions to be vaccinated, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday.

“Defeating the Delta variant is the best way to support cultural institutions, because it brings us all back,” Mr. de Blasio said at a news conference at which he outlined the new requirements. He said that “we believe, if we take these aggressive measure, this is going to encourage a lot of people — audience members and staff alike — to get vaccinated.”

The new vaccine mandate for museums came as the city expanded its “Key to NYC” program, which requires vaccinations in a number of settings, to include “bars, fitness gyms, movie and stage theaters, museums and other indoor venues.” The policy will take effect Tuesday, but enforcement will not begin until Sept. 13 to educate the public and give venues time to adjust.

Children younger than age 12, who are not eligible to be vaccinated, will have to be accompanied by a vaccinated person and will be encouraged to wear masks, city officials said.

“We’re saying get at least the first vaccination — of course the goal is to get everyone fully vaccinated — but get at least the first vaccination and you’ll be able to work or enjoy indoor dining, indoor fitness, indoor entertainment, concerts, movie theaters,” the mayor said as he outlined the requirements. The city plans to conduct a $10 million media campaign to inform the public of the new requirements, according to city officials.
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The 34 museums and arts groups operating in city-owned buildings or on city-owned land — known as members of the Cultural Institutions Group — and other arts organizations had been in discussions over the last few weeks with the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs. There was broad consensus among those arts organizations — as well as others that are not city-owned — in favor of a vaccination mandate.