Description: [edan-image:id=siris_sic_8629,size=350,left]C. Malcolm Watkins was an unlikely revolutionary; nevertheless, he would lead a vanguard of curators who brought African American history into the Smithsonian in the 1960s and 1970s. C. Malcolm Watkins, Smithsonian curator and cultural historian, brought African American history into the Smithsonian in the 1960s and 1970s. Attentive
Description: Born in 1829 to free black parents along the border between Maryland and the District of Columbia, Solomon Galleon Brown would become, at age 23, the first black employee of the Smithsonian. Starting out as a laborer in the Exchange Office, he ultimately became the personal assistant of Spencer Baird, the second secretary of the Smithsonian. By the time of his 1904 retirement,