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After years of protests @AMNH has agreed to removal of the Roosevelt statue that stands outside. Like many museums born in the colonial era AMNH must face its own complex history of racism & colonialism. A thread… #decolonisemuseums https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/statue-theodore-roosevelt-removed-reexamination-racist-acts-180975154/
The statue places Roosevelt on a horse above a walking Native American & Black African bearing his rifles like servants. It celebrates his colonial, white supremacist and expansionist ambitions. Protests have been going on since the 1970s. https://hyperallergic.com/407921/activists-splatter-roosevelt-monument-amnh/ @decolonize_this
Colleges & universities are having to tackle the legacies of racists memorialized through statues, building names & awards on their campuses – e.g. see recent @UCSUSA blog on this: https://blog.ucsusa.org/adam-markham/u-s-universities-must-stop-honoring-racist-scientists-of-the-past. Many museums are having to come to terms with their pasts too.
The #decolonisemuseums movement is gathering pace. Natural history & anthropology museums are grappling with issues of collection practices, appropriation of knowledge & artefacts, euro-centric interpretation & display, & scientific racism in their pasts. https://museumsandgalleries.leeds.gov.uk/featured/decolonisation-and-natural-science-collections/
At @AMNH for example the issues run much deeper than just the Roosevelt statue. The museum has yet to properly publicly engage with its past support for #eugenics under long-time leader Henry Fairfield Osborn including hosting 2 #eugenics conferences. https://eugenicsarchive.ca/discover/timeline/517228a6eed5c60000000017
Under Osborn, giant murals, life-size dioramas & other displays visually reinforced his white supremacist beliefs that Black & Indigenous people were inferior to whites.
Osborn also wrote a glowing introduction to @AMNH trustee Madison Grant’s racist tract – “The Passing of the Great Race – described as Hitler’s “bible” at the Nuremberg trials - & he was an admirer of Nazi Germany’s programs of forced sterilization. http://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/documents/2703-extract-from-a-book?q=passing+of+the+great+race#p.1
Fun fact: Both Osborn & Grant had caribou named after them – dioramas of which are still on display in the museum. Photo of Osborn's caribou: Dom Dada diorama
Today @AMNH is an iconic educational & scientific institution doing important work, but many of its public displays are rooted in the past. Most of the culture halls at @AMNH are decades old & seem frozen in a colonial past.
Monique Scott writes of @AMNH“Egyptian pyramids are elevated to the MET [ @metmuseum] across Central Park to share space with other great civilizations; but sub-Saharan African people are confined to the “Heart of Darkness” jungles & plains, alongside the great African animals…"
Monique Scott's full article is here: http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2019/03/20/museums-matter-in-the-current-climate-of-anti-black-racism/ @BrynMawrCollege #decolonisemuseums #BlackLivesMatter 
Anthropologists Emily Martin & Susan Harding wrote of @AMNH “the institution continues to work within an ahistorical salvage paradigm of so-called disappearing primitive cultures that both obscures its colonial history & re-inscribes it for five million visitors each year.
Martin & Harding's article is here:
http://anthronow.com/print/anthropology-now-and-then-in-the-american-museum-of-natural-history @anthronow
http://anthronow.com/print/anthropology-now-and-then-in-the-american-museum-of-natural-history @anthronow
The Northwest Coast Hall is currently undergoing a major renovation after more than a century in more or less the same form. @AMNH is engaging Indigenous voices in the restoration. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/the-multimillion-dollar-project-to-update-restore-and-conserve-a-historic-hall-at-the-american-natural-historymuseum/article36377199/
For many museums the question of repatriation on human remains, art and artefacts is an increasingly urgent issue. Some collections were obtained under unethical circumstances including buying & stealing human remains. https://icom.museum/en/news/international-repatriation-of-human-remains-of-indigenous-peoples/ @ICOMofficiel
At @AMNH, from which repatriations have been made to Haida & Tseycum nations & to Māori descendent communities in NZ, questions remain over the potential repatriation of sacred tribal artefacts such as the Muchalaht Whalers’ Shrine from Yuquot. https://www.timescolonist.com/tales-from-the-vault-the-whalers-shrine-of-yuquot-1.36859
AMNH is just one example of a museum that is taking baby steps but needs to take giant leaps to engage with its past racist & colonial entanglements. @UCSUSA has a blog delving further on this topic here: https://blog.ucsusa.org/adam-markham/museums-should-publicly-address-racism-in-their-histories #decolonisemuseums.
This just in - Bronx Zoo issues a long overdue apology for exhibiting Ota Benga, a Mbuti man from then Belgian Congo (now DRC). Henry Fairfield Osborn & Madison Grant were among the founders of the zoo. @TheWCS @BronxZoo #decolonisemuseums https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/zoo-officials-apologize-for-display-of-african-man-in-1906/2020/07/30/45c1ba4a-d280-11ea-826b-cc394d824e35_story.html
