Featured book: Museums and Social Activism: Engaged Protest

Museums and Social Activism: Engaged Protest, a new book by Associate Professor Kylie Message, explores the impact of protest and reform activities associated with American civil rights movements on Smithsonian Institution museums through the turbulent 1960s and 1970s.

This is the first study to combine historical accounts of the African American and American Indian social reform movements that took place on the National Mall in Washington, DC, with the significant but unknown story of museological transformation and curatorial activism emerging at that time at the Smithsonian Institution.

The study investigates the legacy of these activities on current-day museum activities up to 2013, the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington.

The book tells the story of conflict and collaboration between federal government agencies and legislative processes and American Indian activism associated with the tribal museum movement, culminating in the founding of the National Museum of the American Indian.

Published by Routledge, Museums and Social Activism is the outcome of an Australian Research Council Discovery Project and a Smithsonian Institution Fellowship at the National Museum of American History and the National Museum of the American Indian.

Associate Professor Message, Head of the School of Archaeology and Anthropology, says that the book highlights the relevance of past practice and events, and improved ways of understanding the challenges and opportunities that result from the ongoing process of renewal that museums continue to exemplify.