African American Groundbreakers at the Smithsonian: Challenges and Achievements

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Jeannine Smith Clark

Jeannine Smith Clark began forty seven years of involvement with the Smithsonian working as a volunteer docent at the National Museum of Natural History in 1968. Since then, she has served on the influential Smithsonian Women’s Committee and was appointed to the Board of Regents, where she served from 1983 to 1994. During her two terms as regent, she played an active role in the Cultural Education Committee, becoming its first chair upon its creation in 1986.1This committee institutionalized many of the commitments to inclusivity and diversity first articulated by her predecessors, Curator Malcolm Watkins at the National Museum of History and Technology, now the National Museum of American History, and Director John Kinard of the Anacostia Neighborhood Museum. She remained regent emeritus of the Smithsonian Institution until her death in 2018.

Family background and career before/outside Smithsonian

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Born in 1928, Jeannine Smith was one of seven daughters of businessman and activist John Archibald Smith and Lorena Jackson Smith.2 A fifth generation Washingtonian, Clark’s family had been in DC since at least 1830, when Clark’s ancestor Mary Jones worked as a candy maker in what is now Chinatown. Mary’s son William worked as a guard at the United States Capitol, where he earned enough to build a house on 12th Street, NW. Another ancestor who foreshadowed Clark’s remarkable career, George Jones, had been extensively involved with the establishment of public schools for DC’s African American children in the 1870s and served on the Republican National Committee.3 

A graduate of Washington’s Dunbar High School, Clark went on to earn a B.A. in German and English from Howard University in 1950. Her lifelong engagement with politics perhaps began through her college sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha, one of the six black Greek-letter organizations that founded the American Human Rights Council.4 As an active member of the AHRC, Clark supported the organization’s efforts in support of civil rights legislation and increased federal funding for education. During its first year, the AHRC also fought against an immigration restriction measure targeting Caribbean immigrants and pressed for the extension of Social Security benefits to agricultural and domestic workers.5 Her continuing commitment to civil rights would also find her with a picket sign in front of Maryland’s segregated Glen Echo Park in the early 1960s and inform her decades-long commitment to the National Urban League.6 

A group of protesters at Glen Echo Amusement Park, 1960

After graduating from Howard, she won a scholarship to continue her graduate study of German at the University of Wisconsin. However, after just one year, she returned to Washington DC to marry a young surgeon named Charles Howell Clark in 1951 and teach German at Dunbar, her alma mater. Within a year, she would give birth to twins, Jeannine and Charles Jr., followed by a second son, John, a year later.7 Though thrilled to start a family, DC Public School regulations in the early 1950s did not allow women to teach after the first trimester and Clark was compelled to leave her job. 

Raising three young children kept her busy throughout much of the 1950s, but by the time they were a little older Clark took advantage of the National Defense Foreign Language Fellowship Program in order to resume her education. Established by the 1958 National Defense Education Act, these fellowships sought to educate American citizens in the languages of newly independent Third World nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Selected as a fellow, Clark used this opportunity to enroll in the M.A. program in African Studies at Howard University where she studied anthropology and the Yoruba language.8 Upon her graduation in 1963, she spent three years directing the DC National Urban League’s Leadership Development Project, a program that sought to train young black professionals for careers in urban development and municipal governance.9

Those three years at the Urban League marked the beginning of long career in public service. Over the course of the 1970s, she was named the founding chair of the Howard University Hospital Advisory Board and served as a consultant for Howard’s Institute for Urban Affairs and Research. Drawing on both of these experiences, she was invited to be a visiting lecturer in the Institute of Gerontology at the University of the District of Columbia in 1976. The following year, in recognition of her fundraising prowess for the Smithsonian's Museum of African Art, the National Urban League, and the Young Women’s Christian Association, she was named chair of DC United Way.10

In addition to her volunteer work, she intensified her political commitments once her children had left home.11 By the late 1960s, she had long served as a precinct captain for the D.C. Board of Elections. Her commitment to education inspired her to run for the DC school board in 1971.12 Though she lost the election, she won the attention of the DC Republican Party who tapped her to serve on the District’s Republican Central Committee and sent her as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1976 and 1980.13 Though a committed lifelong Republican, she still won the admiration of local Democrats. In 1976, DC mayor Walter Washington selected her to serve on the Mayor’s Committee on Child Abuse and in 1981, Marion Barry chose her as the Republican representative on the DC Board of Elections and Ethics.14 In 1982, the DC Federation of Civic Associations named Clark “Mother of the Year.”15 

From Resurrection City to the Smithsonian

Resurrection City Washington D.C. 1968Among Jeannine Smith Clark’s most significant contributions was her decades-long commitment to the Smithsonian. This began in 1968 when Martin Luther King’s Poor People’s Campaign arrived in Washington DC. Their aim was to pressure Congress into passing an Economic Bill of Rights that would include a broad array of measures aimed at eradicating poverty. In order to force the question of economic justice before the nation’s lawmakers, 3000 marchers erected a makeshift village on the National Mall that they called “Resurrection City.”16

Given the recent history of racial unrest in Washington DC, Smithsonian staff initially sought to bar these protestors from the museum, fearing they would harm the collections.  However, Secretary S. Dillon Ripley overruled the concerns of his top staff, and declared that “these people were fellow citizens of the United States and were, of course, welcome in the Smithsonian.” Aware of the lack of sanitary facilities on the Mall, he also ordered that the museums’ bathrooms be amply stocked with soap and towels.17

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As part of Ripley’s directive to make the protestors welcome, cultural historian Ralph Rinzler secured a grant to establish “a cultural program” for the citizens of Resurrection City that would also provide childcare to free up Resurrection City’s parents to lobby and meet with officials throughout DC.18 As part of this program Betty Jane Gerber, chair of the Smithsonian Volunteer Advisory Board, reached out to Clark and asked her if she would be interested in coordinating a tour for a group of children from Resurrection City through the Smithsonian.19 Unfortunately, the mothers of Resurrection City and the museums’ docents, who according to Clark “were mostly junior leaguers,” could not agree on a program.  Undaunted, she instead arranged for the program to be continued with a “group of children from an inner-city school.”20

This experience rekindled in her a desire to return to teaching and, after this first tour, when Gerber asked if she’d like to be docent, she readily agreed. Over the next decade, she put her M.A. in African Studies to good work and led thousands of schoolchildren through the Africa Hall at the National Museum of Natural History. 

The Smithsonian Women’s Committee and the Board of Regents

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Being a docent led her to deepen her commitment to the Smithsonian.  Her fundraising prowess attracted the attention of the Smithsonian Women’s Committee, which had been founded in 1966 as “a voluntary organization that provides funds for new education and outreach programs.”21 She joined the committee in 1972, serving as its chair from 1979 to 1981.22 During her decade-long tenure on the committee, she aggressively recruited new volunteers and helped start the Annual Craft Show through which the Women’s Committee has raised nearly $11 million dollars since its inception.23  

With control over an autonomous source of money, the Women’s Committee has been able to direct money towards innovative programming that might not otherwise have been funded through regular channels. During Clark’s tenure, it became especially important for sustaining an institutional commitment to African American history at the Smithsonian. Over the course of the 1970s, the Anacostia Neighborhood Museum received funds that helped the museum purchase and maintain audiovisual equipment for use in both producing museum exhibits and recording oral histories; paid the honoraria of guest artists and lecturers; subsidized the research and writing of Louise Hutchinson’s 1977 book, The Anacostia Story, 1608-1930; helped the museum start a lending library; and underwrote a traveling version of the exhibit Black Women: Achievement Against the Odds in 1981.24 In addition, the committee also funded educational programs such as scholarships for underprivileged children to attend classes at the Smithsonian as well as to pay for a high school student to work at the National Museum of Natural History.25

In 1983, in recognition of her two decades of service, the Smithsonian governing board, the Board of Regents, invited Clark to join their body.  Secretary Ripley declared that “Mrs. Clark’s years of dedicated service to the institution will make her a valuable asset to the board. We believe that her fresh outlook, her enthusiasm and her intimate knowledge of the Smithsonian will be of immeasurable assistance.”26 Over the course of her two six-year terms her service included the Board’s Audit and Review Committee, chairing that committee in 1994, and serving as chair of the National Portrait Gallery Commission.27 However, her most important contribution was the role she played as the founding chair of the Cultural Education Committee. 

The Cultural Education Committee

The Cultural Education Committee had its roots in the Committee for a Wider Audience (CWA), which had been founded in 1983 to “increase minority community participation in all aspects of the Smithsonian’s activities.”28 The CWA operated on the premise that the reason for “the relative paucity of minority visitors to the Smithsonian museums stems from the absence in ... exhibitions and programs of a fair reflection of the contributions of minority Americans.” Instead, the committee charged, the Smithsonian’s programs reflected an exclusively “white educated middle class point of view,” to the exclusion of any other perspectives.29  

For the first two years of its existence, the CWA attempted to convince the staff of the “need for a less one-sided approach in programming.” While able to achieve some modest successes, the committee met a great deal of resistance “rationalized on various grounds, ranging from budgetary strictures to explanations that minority contributions have not been sufficient to warrant substantial changes in museum mandates.”30 

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In the face of this intransigence, the members of the CWA created the Cultural Education Committee (CEC) in 1986 to serve as a “multi-cultural, multi-racial committee of citizens in the Metropolitan-Washington area,” selecting Jeannine Smith Clark as its founding chair.31 Modeled on the Women’s Committee, its intended role was to “organize fundraising activities and solicit community support” for the Smithsonian’s outreach activities.32 They hoped that what Clark called a “rainbow” committee of influential people of color would have greater success in convincing a largely white staff to diversify the Smithsonian’s programming.33  

Among the longest lasting of the CEC’s interventions was the establishment of an annual celebration at the Smithsonian celebrating the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. The first of these celebrations in 1987 coincided with a sneak preview of the groundbreaking National Museum of American History exhibit Field to Factory: Afro-American Migration, 1915-1940 and continue to this day. Additionally, the committee also laid the foundation for building long-term collaborative relationships with groups such as the Association of Chinese American Women, the National Council of La Raza, and the Links, a national organization of professional African American women. The impact of this outreach had a significant impact on the Smithsonian’s efforts to reach a wider audience.34 A 1987 memo from curator Bernice Johnson Reagon described how that year’s Black History Month Conference was so well attended that for the first time she had to “turn away more people than we could accommodate.”35 In the years to come, these connections would continue to strengthen the Smithsonian’s programming for Black History Month, Women’s History Month, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, and American Indian Heritage Month. 

Bringing Diversity to the Smithsonian

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Though its original mandate was to serve in an advisory and fundraising capacity to the Office of the Committee for a Wider Audience, during the committee’s first two years, its members expanded that mandate to include pressuring the Smithsonian into hiring people of color at all levels. This happened in two ways. First, those who served on the committee represented a pool of talented people of color who could be recruited to high-ranking positions within the Smithsonian. Richard West, an early member of the Cultural Education Committee and a citizen of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, later became the founding director of the National Museum of the American Indian.36 Second, the committee also helped bring affirmative action to the Smithsonian’s hiring process. Peggy Cooper Cafritz, one of the community leaders whom Clark had recruited to the CEC, argued that “the most valuable contribution that the Committee can make is to bring about change in the employment policy of the Institution.” She added that “until this kind of change is put in place all else is meaningless.”37

The importance of placing African Americans in positions of authority at the Smithsonian cannot be overstated. This is underscored by one Clark’s first experiences as a regent. Running late for one of the first meetings of the Board of Regents, she recalled parking in front of the Castle and dashing up the stairs in order to make an 8:00 a.m. meeting time. As she tried to get into the building, the guard attempted to stop her, refusing to believe that Clark could be a regent.38 

This lack of diversity among the upper level staff undermined the very mission of the Smithsonian. As the Cultural Education Committee pointed out in a memo to Secretary Robert McC. Adams:

the absence of minority staff in policy positions means that the Institution’s mandate to increase and diffuse knowledge is interpreted narrowly with little or no focus on diverse cultural contributions and perspectives ... the net effect of this de facto policy is the mis-education of the American people at large.39

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Under Clark’s direction the CEC’s autonomy as a volunteer committee gave it the power to call for reforming the Smithsonian’s hiring practices.40 In 1988, the committee released a report that pointed out that of the 63 upper-level management positions at the Smithsonian, 17 were held by women and only 6 were held by people of color.41 It was in part through their efforts that the institution hired some of the first African Americans to upper-level administrative positions. These included Alice Green Burnette, who became Deputy Assistant for External Affairs in 1988 and was promoted the following year to Assistant Secretary for Institutional Advancement. Through Clark’s influence, Carmen Turner became Undersecretary of the Smithsonian in 1990.42 Two years later, following Turner’s untimely death, she was replaced with another African American woman, Constance Berry Newman, who served with distinction until 2000.43   

With decades of volunteer experience, Jeannine Smith Clark possessed an intimate knowledge of the strengths and shortcomings of the Smithsonian’s commitment to diversity and inclusion. As a member of the Board of Regents, Clark used the weight of her office to bring that perspective to bear on the effort to make the Smithsonian representative of the American people writ large. 

 

FOOTNOTES

1 Smithsonian Insitution Archives (hereafter SIA), Research File, Jeannine Clark Smith Research File. Return to text

2 Leah Latimer, “’On-the-Go’ Activist is Mother of the Year,” Washington Post, 12 May 1982, DC3; Obituary. “John Archibald (Archie) Smith, 74, Worked for FBI, D.C. Businessman,” Washington Post, 18 July 1980, B4. Return to text

3 Sarah Booth Conroy, “D.C.’s First Families,” Washington Post, 14 June 1987, G1. Return to text

4 “Clark, Jeannine Smith,” Who’s Who in American Politics, Sixth Edition 1977-1978, Jacques Cattell Press, ed. (New York: R. R. Bowker Company, 1978), 183. Return to text

5 For more on Alpha Kappa Alpha and the founding of the ACHR, see Robert L. Harris, Jr., “Lobbying Congress for Civil Rights: The American Council on Human Rights, 1948–1963,” in African American Fraternities and Sororities: the Legacy and the Vision (Louisville: University Press of Kentucky, 2012), 213-231. Return to text

6 Leah Latimer, “’On-the-Go’ Activist is Mother of the Year,” Washington Post, 12 May 1982, DC3. Return to text

7 “Clark, Jeannine Smith,” Who’s Who in American Politics, Sixth Edition 1977-1978, Jacques Cattell Press, ed. (New York: R. R. Bowker Company, 1978), 183; SIA, Record Unit 371, Smithsonian Institution, Office of Public Affairs, The Torch, October 1983, 3, “She’s no stranger to SI.” Return to text 

8 “Clark, Jeannine Smith,” Who’s Who in American Politics, Sixth Edition 1977-1978, Jacques Cattell Press, ed. (New York: R. R. Bowker Company, 1978), 183. Return to text

9 SIA, Record Unit 371, Smithsonian Institution, Office of Public Affairs, The Torch, October 1983, 3, “She’s no stranger to SI.”; “Clark, Jeannine Smith,” Who’s Who in American Politics, Sixth Edition 1977-1978, Jacques Cattell Press, ed. (New York: R. R. Bowker Company, 1978), 183. Return to text

10 SIA, Accession 99-020, Smithsonian Institution., Office of Public Affairs, Biographical Files, Box 1, Folder: “Clark, Jeannine Smith”, Jeannine Clark Smith Résumé, 9 August 1983. and Press Release, “Washingtonian Jeannine Smith Clark Appointed to Smithsonian’s board of Regents,” 31 Aug 1983.; “Jeannine Clark,” Washington Post, 1 Nov 1982, A7; “Clark, Jeannine Smith,” Who’s Who in American Politics, Sixth Edition 1977-1978, Jacques Cattell Press, ed. (New York: R. R. Bowker Company, 1978), 183; SIA, Record Unit 371, Smithsonian Institution, Office of Public Affairs, The Torch, October 1983, 3, “She’s no stranger to SI.” Return to text

11 Leah Latimer, “’On-the-Go’ Activist is Mother of the Year,” Washington Post, 12 May 1982, DC3. Return to text

12 David R. Boldt, “Old Hope, New Fear Stir Fourth Ward: School Election,” Washington Post, 12 Oct 1971, B1; Abbott Combes, “Novices Vie for School Seat,” Washington Post, 17 Nov 1971, C1, C6; Keith Richburg, “Community Worker Nominated by Barry for Election Board,” Washington Post, 18 June 1980, C5. Return to text

13 “Jeannine Clark,” Washington Post, 1 Nov 1982, A7; “Clark, Jeannine Smith,” Who’s Who in American Politics, Sixth Edition 1977-1978, Jacques Cattell Press, ed. (New York: R. R. Bowker Company, 1978), 183; SIA, Record Unit 371, Smithsonian Institution, Office of Public Affairs, The Torch, October 1983, 3, “She’s no stranger to SI.” Return to text

14 Keith Richburg, “Community Worker Nominated by Barry for Election Board,” Washington Post, 18 June 1980, C5; “Jeannine Clark,” Washington Post, 1 Nov 1982, A7; “Clark, Jeannine Smith,” Who’s Who in American Politics, Sixth Edition 1977-1978, Jacques Cattell Press, ed. (New York: R. R. Bowker Company, 1978), 183; SIA, Record Unit 371, Smithsonian Institution, Office of Public Affairs, The Torch, October 1983, 3, “She’s no stranger to SI.”. Return to text

15 Leah Latimer, “’On-the-Go’ Activist is Mother of the Year,” Washington Post, 12 May 1982, DC3. Return to text

16 For a brief history of “Resurrection City,” see Gordon Mantler, Power to the Poor: Black-Brown Coalition and the Fight for Economic Justice, 1960-1974 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013), 90-153. Return to text 

17 Edwards Park “Secretary S. Dillon Ripley retires after twenty years of innovation,” Smithsonian magazine (Sept., 1984), 77-78. Return to text

18 SIA, Accession 96-095, Smithsonian Institution, Assistant Provost for Educational and Cultural Programs, Records, Box 3, Folder: “MLK, Jr. Holiday Celebration, 1987,” “Comments for Jan. 19 Evening Event Announcing the Establishment of The Smithsonian Cultural Education Committee” 19 Jan 1987. Return to text

19 SIA, Record Unit 9578, African American History Interviews, Clark, Jeannine Smith, interviewee, Interview 1, 17 November 2015, 7. Return to text

20 Ibid. Return to text

21 SIA, Accession 99-020, Smithsonian Institution., Office of Public Affairs, Biographical Files, Box 1, Folder: “Clark, Jeannine Smith,” Press Release, “Washingtonian Jeannine Smith Clark Appointed to Smithsonian’s board of Regents,” 31 Aug 1983. Return to text

22 SIA, Record Unit 371, Smithsonian Institution, Office of Public Affairs, The Torch, October 1983, 3, “She’s no stranger to SI.” Return to text

23 SIA, Record Unit 9578, African American History Interviews, Clark, Jeannine Smith, interviewee, Interview 1, 17 November 2015, 10; Smithsonian Women’s Committee, “About Grants.”  http://swc.si.edu/about-grants - Accessed 23 May 2016. Return to text. Return to text

24 SIA, Accession 96-012, Smithsonian Institution, Office of Development, Smithsonian Women's Committee, Records, Box 4, Folder: “Projects 1971-1972,” John Kinard to Mrs. Henry P. (Helen) Smith, 19 Jan 1972 and 27 Jan 1972; SIA, Accession 96-012, Smithsonian Institution, Office of Development, Smithsonian Women's Committee, Records, Box 4, Folder: “Projects 1973-1974,” “Project Committee”; SIA, Accession 96-012, Smithsonian Institution, Office of Development, Smithsonian Women's Committee, Records, Box 4, Folder: “Projects 1976-1977,” 1976-1977 Projects Report; SIA, Accession 96-012, Smithsonian Institution, Office of Development, Smithsonian Women's Committee, Records, Box 4, Folder: “Projects 1979-1980,” Projects Committee Report – June 1980; SIA, Accession 96-012, Smithsonian Institution, Office of Development, Smithsonian Women's Committee, Records, Box 4, Folder: “Projects 1980-1981 – Proposals Funded,” Projects to be Considered – 1981. Return to text

25 SIA, Accession 96-012, Smithsonian Institution, Office of Development, Smithsonian Women's Committee, Records, Box 4, Folder: “Projects 1971-1972” Helen P. Smith to the members of the Smithsonian Women’s Committee, 15 Aug 1972; SIA, Accession 96-012, Smithsonian Institution, Office of Development, Smithsonian Women's Committee, Records, Box 4, Folder: “Projects 1972-1973,” Memorandum from Executive Director, Smithsonian Associates to Distribution List, 14 July 1973. Return to text

26 SIA, Record Unit 371, Smithsonian Institution, Office of Public Affairs, The Torch, October 1983,“Two new regents on the board.” Return to text

27 SIA, Research File, Jeannine Smith Clark.  Return to text

28 SIA, Accession 88-142, Smithsonian Institution, Assistant Secretary for Public Service, Committee for a Wider Audience, Program Records, Box 4, Folder: “CEC Minutes, 1986-1988,” Report to the Smithsonian Management Committee Submitted by the Smithsonian Committee for a Wider Audience, 24 June 1986. Return to text

29 SIA, Accession 88-142, Smithsonian Institution, Assistant Secretary for Public Service, Committee for a Wider Audience, Program Records, Box 4, Folder: “CEC Minutes, 1986-1988,” Report to the Smithsonian Management Committee Submitted by the Smithsonian Committee for a Wider Audience, 24 June 1986. Return to text

30 SIA, Accession 88-142, Smithsonian Institution, Assistant Secretary for Public Service, Committee for a Wider Audience, Program Records, Box 4, Folder: “CEC Minutes, 1986-1988,” Report to the Smithsonian Management Committee Submitted by the Smithsonian Committee for a Wider Audience, 24 June 1986. Return to text

31 SIA, Accession 88-142, Smithsonian Institution, Assistant Secretary for Public Service, Committee for a Wider Audience, Program Records, Box 4, Folder: “CEC Minutes, 1986-1988.” Notes from June 6, 1986 Meeting; Memorandum from Vera Hyatt to Jim Symington, 7 Oct 1986. Accession 96-095, Box 3, Folder: “Martin Luther King Holiday Celebration, 1987.” Smithsonian Institution Archives. Return to text

32 SIA, Accession 96-095, Smithsonian Institution, Assistant Provost for Educational and Cultural Programs, Records, Box 3, Folder: “Martin Luther King Holiday Celebration, 1987,” Memorandum from Vera Hyatt to Jim Symington, 7 Oct 1986. Return to text

33 SIA, Accession 88-142, Smithsonian Institution, Assistant Secretary for Public Service, Committee for a Wider Audience, Program Records, Box 4, Folder: “CEC Minutes, 1986-1988.” Notes from June 6, 1986 Meeting and Minutes, Core Planning Committee, Smithsonian Cultural Education Committee. Return to text

34 SIA, Accession 88-142, Smithsonian Institution, Assistant Secretary for Public Service, Committee for a Wider Audience, Program Records, Box 4, Folder: “CEC Minutes, 1986-1988.” Minutes of the Meeting of the Committee for a Wider Audience, 18 Nov 1986; SIA, Accession 88-142, Smithsonian Institution, Assistant Secretary for Public Service, Committee for a Wider Audience, Program Records, Box 4, Folder: “CEC Minutes, 1986-1988.” Notes for the Record, 10 Nov 1986; SIA, Record Unit 9578, African American History Interviews, Clark, Jeannine Smith, interviewee, Interview 1, 17 November 2015, 3; Leslie Maitland Werner, “Smithsonian Sets a Minorities Goal,” New York Times, 10 Jan 1987, 8. Return to text

35 SIA, Accession 96-095, Smithsonian Institution, Assistant Provost for Educational and Cultural Programs, Records, Box 3, Folder: “Martin Luther Kig Holiday Celebration, 1987,” Memorandum, Bernice Johnson Reagon to Ralph Rinzler, 12 Feb 1987. Return to text

36 SIA, Record Unit 9578, African American History Interviews, Clark, Jeannine Smith, interviewee, Interview 1, 17 November 2015, 2; Tom Nugent, “A Warrior in Washington,” Stanford Magazine (March/April 1998).  http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=42114 – Accessed 18 May 2016. Return to text

37 SIA, Accession 88-142, Smithsonian Institution, Assistant Secretary for Public Service, Committee for a Wider Audience, Program Records, Box 4, Folder: “CEC Minutes, 1986-1988.” Minutes of the Meeting, Cultural Education Committee, 7 April 1987. Return to text

38 SIA, Accession 88-142, Smithsonian Institution, Assistant Secretary for Public Service, Committee for a Wider Audience, Program Records, Box 4, Folder: “CEC Minutes, 1986-1988.” “First Very Rough Draft,” Minutes of Core Committee of the Cultural Education Committee, 16 Oct 1986; SIA, Record Unit 9578, African American History Interviews, Clark, Jeannine Smith, interviewee, Interview 1, 17 November 2015, 5. Return to text

39 SIA, Accession 88-142, Smithsonian Institution, Assistant Secretary for Public Service, Committee for a Wider Audience, Program Records, Box 4, Folder: “CEC Minutes, 1986-1988.” Memorandum from Cultural Equity Subcommittee of the Smithsonian Cultural Education Committee to Secretary Robert McC. Adams, 29 Jan 1988. Return to text

40 SIA, Accession 88-142, Smithsonian Institution, Assistant Secretary for Public Service, Committee for a Wider Audience, Program Records, Box 4, Folder: “CEC Minutes, 1986-1988.” Minutes of the Meeting, Cultural Education Committee, 7 April 1987. Return to text

41 SIA, Accession 88-142, Smithsonian Institution, Assistant Secretary for Public Service, Committee for a Wider Audience, Program Records, Box 4, Folder: “CEC Minutes, 1986-1988.” Memorandum from Cultural Equity Subcommittee of the Smithsonian Cultural Education Committee to Secretary Robert McC. Adams, 29 Jan 1988. Return to text

42 Obituary, “Carmen E. Turner, 61, Official at Smithsonian,” New York Times, 12 April 1992. http://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/12/obituaries/carmen-e-turner-61-official-at-smithsonian.html - Accessed 18 May 2016. Return to text

43 SIA, Record Unit 9578, African American History Interviews, Clark, Jeannine Smith, interviewee, Interview 1, 17 November 2015, 4-5. Return to text

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