Museum Pieces

A night at the "racist" museum:

The National Great Blacks Wax Museum has a wide array of statues from all stages of black history, and is receiving $250,000 in taxpayer funds. It received $2 million in federal funds last year. It reports having 150,000 annual visitors. The Lewis museum claims to have over 10,000 items in its collection. It reported 15,000 general admission visitors in its 2023 annual report. The art museums that did not receive the Mayor's funding, include the three most prominent museums in the Charm City such as the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Walters Art Museum and the American Visionaries Art Museum. But none of those three appear to be hostile to black art, black leadership, or are especially white-run, in contrast to the Mayor's statements. The Baltimore Museum of Art's Director is Asma Naeem, who is Pakistani as noted in the press release announcing her appointment. The Mayor's comments about Baltimore's art museums being white-run as it relates to the Walters Art Museum are even more out-of-touch with reality though. Oddly, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott sits as a trustee on the Walters Art Museum's leadership board. As well, the Chair of the Board is Guy Flynn, is black. The third traditional Baltimore art museum, the American Visionary Art Museum was, until very recently, similarly led by a black woman, Jenenne Whitfield. Whitfield was the director of the museum from March 2022 through September 21, 2023, because of unstated creative differences with the organization's board of directors. The museum's co-founder Rebecca Alban Hoffberger is currently serving as an interim until they can find a permanent replacement. So the motivation as stated by the Mayor to fund all-black art outlets at the expense of the more traditional art museums in Baltimore because they were all white-run, appears to be wholly false. National Public Radio has previously said that criticism of the Baltimore Mayor was racist, no matter the terms used.

But he'll still get paid...