My earliest museum memory isn’t an artifact of the past. It often floats from its unlocked chamber in my mind and colors my understanding — what I believe to be true about myself and the world around and above me.
It was winter in early grade school. We poured out of the bus and into the sunny snow, our senses crisp in a uniquely pre-smartphone way. Our guide led us deep into the belly of the Nebraska State Capitol, into the gallery chambers of the “living museum,” stopping to explain our history and democratic processes, a story told by each painting and relic.
As the day faded and we drew near to the exit, she stopped once more. “The Blizzard of 1888, by Jeanne Reynal,” she said, gesturing up toward a mural on the domed ceiling. I knew the story: Schoolteacher Minnie Freeman of Valley County rescued her students from the 18-hour storm by tying them together with a rope and forging through the -34 degree wind toward the nearest farmhouse. My copy of Mari Sandoz’s “Winter Thunder” was dogeared and tired.
The hand-smashed tile mural was black and speckled with indigo. Minnie was gold, her students stick-like figures bound by a single gold thread. Minnie herself was being guided by a golden tether, I noticed, to a large entity in red, its arm outstretched to shield her from the snow.
“The artwork of the Capitol tells the story of Nebraska,” say the authors of “Creative Genius: The Art of the Nebraska State Capitol.” “It tells us where we came from, how we govern, how we live, how we create, and more.”
“As we take time to consider our shared histories and stories,” they write, “the artwork within the Nebraska State Capitol reminds us of where we started and where we can go.”
On Capitol Hill, a different story is being told by the Smithsonian, the largest museum, education, and research complex in the world, which operates 21 museums, 14 research centers, and the National Zoo.
“Is it important to be polite?” Republican Rep. Brandon Gill asked Anetha Hartig, director of the National Museum of American History, last Tuesday.
“Yes, sir,” she answered.
“That’s interesting, because the same MASS Action Toolkit that your organization has been promoting references politeness as a defining characteristic of white supremacy culture,” he said in his Texas lilt, referring to the Museums as Sites for Social Action training material used by Director Hartig’s organization. “Ma’am, are you a white supremacist?” he asked.
“Mmm, no, sir,” she said with a hum, underlining a passage on the page in front of her in green pen.
“You’re not,” he replied. “Can you help me square why your organization says that being polite is part of being a white supremacist?”
Though the moment went viral as the hearings on the Hill wore on, no one who had been following the Smithsonian’s increasingly ideological programming was shocked. According to a chart unveiled by the National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2020, “Aspects and Assumptions of Whiteness in the United States” include the nuclear family (2.3 children being the ideal social unit), objective and rational linear thinking, hard work, timeliness, and planning for the future.
“At a time when the soul of our country is being tested, our Talking About Race portal will help individuals and communities foster constructive conversations and much-needed dialogue about one of our nation’s most challenging topics: racism and its corrosive impact,” the museum began in a July 15, 2020, Twitter thread.
“As an institution devoted to learning and education, we welcome those discussions while also encouraging the public to take a holistic approach and read the information in its full context,” it concluded.
The African American history museum later apologized in a statement, saying, “Education is core to our mission. We thank you for helping us to be better.”
Smithsonian staff said they “erred in including the chart” in their online content and removed it from their website. Yet the lesson appears to have gone unlearned. The MASS Action Toolkit, co-authored by half a dozen current and former Smithsonian staff members, was lauded in a 2022 Excellence in DEAI Report, co-authored by Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch, which praised the toolkit as a resource for the dissemination of formal Smithsonian-wide training.
“One major aspect of the work that takes time is shifting leaders and museum professionals away from white-dominant characteristics of perfection, risk aversion, and conflict avoidance to move toward action,” the report stated.
These are not the only instances of the Smithsonian abusing its mission. On July 4, the White House’s Domestic Policy Council presented a comprehensive report on the topic, titled “Saving America’s Story: How Ideological Capture at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History Erases Our Heritage,” where the entity’s shift from history to activism is clearly documented:
Anthea Hartig, [the National Museum of American History’s] director since 2019, has explicitly stated that she sees history as a “prime tool of social justice” and one of her roles as connecting “research and scholarship to activism and advocacy.” Hartig has also stated that “we work to reframe the traditional celebratory narrative of U.S. history for visitors. She claims to have had a personal head start “propped up as I was and I am by the cushions of whiteness and the pillows of the bourgeoisie.” Hartig believes the museum profession has “to figure out” how “we’re going to” “problematize” the “250th Anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 2026,” that “loving America is very complicated,” and that objects in the Museum’s collection should be used to move attention away from an “Anglo-centric” focus on the American Founding.
The internal efforts and museum exhibits dedicated to pushing this agenda are too numerous to name, and they are rampant across the Smithsonian’s many museums. “An exhibition affiliated with the forthcoming Museum of the American Latino, shown temporarily at the Museum of American History, contained section after section on white colonization and racism,” wrote the editors of the National Review in mid-2025.
“The future American Women’s History Museum — the new museums check all the identity-politics boxes — plans to feature biological men who identify as transgender,” they continue. “Multiple items at the National Museum of African American History and Culture glorify the Marxist activist Angela Davis.”
So, the Smithsonian is captured. Why does it matter?
Since 1846, the Smithsonian’s foundational mission has remained the same: “the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” But to the 16.5 million students who pour off buses and through its doors each year, a museum’s charge is much more than that: it’s a golden thread, preserving the physical manifestations of our collective memory, bringing us together through a shared vocabulary, stewarding and preserving artifacts that tell our true stories, reminding us where we started, and where we might go.
“That’s why we have the Museum, Matty,” wrote Lois Lowry in her classic, “Messenger,” “to remind us of how we came, and why: to start fresh, and begin a new place from what we had learned and carried from the old.”
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Grace Salvatore is the senior editor of media, arts, and culture at Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Restoring the West and a contributor to Independent Women’s Voice.
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