Reference Request
Finding Aids to Official Records of the Smithsonian Institution Archives
Accession 23-048
Smithsonian Institution
Website Records, 2020-2022
Descriptive Entry
This accession consists of web content created by the Smithsonian Institution to address current events in racial justice and to lead a national discourse on race. Following months of nationwide protests against police brutality towards Black individuals, the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) launched a web portal for "Talking About Race" on May 31, 2020, with topics and suggestions for conversations tailored to different audiences and links to resources. On June 8, 2020, the Smithsonian Institution announced the "Race, Community, and Our Shared Future" initiative, in partnership with Bank of America, to explore how Americans currently understand, experience, and confront race, its impact on communities, and how that impact is shaping the nation's future. The hashtag #RaceAndOurSharedFuture was promoted for use in posts related to the initiative on the microblog Twitter (known as "tweets"). Part of this initiative was to launch the "Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past" website in late 2020 to list present resources, list events, and share stories. The website was redesigned and moved to a new URL in the summer of 2021. Also included in this website are a blog post by NMAAHC Director Kevin Young and a limited time online edition of the "Justice for Our Lives" exhibition by Oree Originol at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, both in recognition of the one-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin, and two statements by Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III, one calling for ordinary people to confront racial divisions (published on both the Smithsonian Institution and Smithsonian Magazine websites, and one following the conviction of Chauvin. Materials are in digital format.
Index Terms
This collection is indexed under the following access terms. These are links to collections with related topics, persons or places.
Name
- Bank of America
- Bunch, Lonnie G., III
- Chauvin, Derek, 1976-
- Floyd, George, 1973-2020
- Justice for Our Lives (Online exhibition)
- National Museum of African American History and Culture (U.S.)
- Originol, Oree, 1984-
- Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past (Website)
- Race, Community, and Our Shared Future (Initiative)
- Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Smithsonian Institution. Office of the Secretary
- Smithsonian Magazine
- Talking About Race (Website)
- Young, Kevin, 1970-
Subject
- African Americans -- Social conditions
- Blogs
- Museum exhibits
- Museums -- Educational aspects
- Museums -- Public relations
- Online social networks
- Racial justice
- Racial profiling in law enforcement
- Social media
- United States -- Race relations
- Web sites
Physical Characteristics of Materials in the Collection
Administrative Information
Preferred Citation
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Accession 23-048, Smithsonian Institution, Website Records