Kevin Young
Kevin Young, the director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington, D.C., resigned as President Donald Trump stepped up attacks with plans to overhaul the Smithsonian’s landmark museums and cultural institutions.
In a statement, the museum said that Young wanted to focus on his writing and his position as poetry editor of The New Yorker magazine.
Young reportedly went on leave indefinitely on March 14 before the order was issued. Shanita Brackett, the museum’s associate director of operations, reportedly serves as the museum’s interim director.
Before serving as the NMAAHC’s director, Young was director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a New York Public Library division, and poetry editor at The New Yorker magazine.
At the Schomburg, Young presided over the archives of Harry Belafonte, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, Sonny Rollins and Fred Brathwaite, known as Fab 5 Freddy.
Since opening its doors under President Barack Obama in 2016, the NMAAHC has been one of the most popular museums among the Smithsonian’s 21 museums. The museum’s five floors are packed with artifacts, objects, documents, and interactive exhibits that tell the story of Blacks’ struggles and achievements from slavery to Jim Crow to the Civil Rights Movement to modern times.
With its bronze-colored exterior, the NMAAHC became a popular destination for Black churches and family reunions.
Young succeeded Lonnie Bunch III as director of the NMAAHC in 2021. Young steered the museum through the pandemic, during which time, like other Smithsonian museums, the NMAAHC limited its operating hours as momentum and national interest in Black history soared.
When the NMAAHC fully reopened after the pandemic, it was the second most visited Smithsonian museum in 2022.
But last month, President Trump issued an executive order accusing the Smithsonian of promoting a “divisive, race-centered ideology.” His order targeted the Smithsonian Institution and the NMAAHC.
President Trump called for reshaping the Smithsonian into a “symbol of inspiration and American greatness.” The order singled out the NMAAHC.
In the order, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” Trump took aim at what he described as a “revisionist movement” across the country that “seeks to undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light.”
The president also said in the executive order that the Smithsonian had advanced “narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.”
In the order, President Trump called on Vice President JD Vance, who is a member of the Smithsonian’s board, to work with Congress to prohibit expenditures on exhibitions or programs that “degrade shared American values, divide Americans by race or promote ideologies inconsistent with federal law.” His executive order also called for making sure that the Smithsonian’s American Women’s History Museum, which is under development, does not “recognize men as women in any respect.”
In February, President Trump installed himself as chairman of the Kennedy Center board after he purged members who were appointed by President Joe Biden.
In January, after President Trump was sworn in for a second term, the Smithsonian closed its diversity office shortly after he signed an executive order banning diversity, equity and inclusion programs at organizations receiving federal money. The Smithsonian gets nearly two-thirds of its $1 billion budget from the federal government, as appropriated by Congress.