#history

The first African American Secretary of the Smithsonian and former director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture about the NMAAHC, museums and their role in creating inclusive national narratives.

In the Middle East, neighbors warned the Christians: ‘after Saturday comes Sunday.’ It means: ‘after we finish off the Saturday people, we will finish you, the Sunday people.’  For the Jews, 850,000 of them – the Saturday people – left their homes in Arab lands years ago for Israel. Now in the days of ISIS it is the turn of the Christians – the Sunday people – to find themselves in mortal jeopardy in Iraq, Syria and adjacent countries. Over the past years, we have opened the newspapers every day to read about increasing attacks on Christians, who were killed and their villages decimated.  Sunday finally may be here.  But the persecution is nothing new.