The National Museum of African American History and Culture, colloquially known as the Blacksonian displays almost every aspect of African American culture including: art, slavery, the fight for civil rights and voting rights, Black inventors, prominent achievers in every profession etc. What is missing is our recovery story!
According to Frederick Douglass, from the beginning alcohol was used to control enslaved Africans. They would abuse enslaved Africans during the week and give them alcohol on weekends. Paraphrasing Douglass It was the sober minded Negro they most feared would rebel and attempt to escape, not the drunkard. The Black Panther Party and Nation of Islam in the 1960's expressed their view that drugs were infiltrated into the Black community and was a form of Genocide. In the 1980's during President Ronald Reagan's administration, Colonel Oliver North was accused of shipping tons of cocaine into South Central Los Angeles’ Black community for money, in order to fund the Contras in Nicaragua, a right wing group attempting to overthrow the government of Nicaragua. Pastor Cecil Williams, author of the Book No Hiding Place called the war on drugs in the 1980's and 90's, A war on Black men! Disproportionately African American men, were stopped and frisked, arrested and served long prison sentences for low level drug related offenses. Today, in the midst of the opioid crisis, overdose deaths are flatlining or decreasing in many white communities and increasing in Black communities.
While the above paragraph may sound bleak, recovery is thriving in Black communities beginning with some of our greatest fighters for liberation such as Fredrick Douglass and Malcolm X. In addition, stories are written daily of prominent African Americans in recovery including: actor Denzel Washington, NBA Hall of Famer Allen Iverson, movie director Lee Daniels, comedian Whoopi Goldberg, actress Jada Pickett Smith and scores of African Americans who are not historical figures or famous. Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous are thriving in Black Communities and African Americans are achieving long term recovery using other pathways of recovery.
How would a national museum display sharing our recovery story help? The stigma of addiction in the Black community remains high. I read an article entitled, White pain as tragedy, Black pain as crime: The racial double standard of America's drug epidemic. When stigma is high individuals and communities are more likely to receive incarceration rather than treatment. Also, high community stigma can play a role decreasing help seeking behavior. Visual recovery can instill hope, increase help seeking and ultimately decrease the sigma of addiction.
Can't you visualize the exhibit? I visualize a display in the African American Smithsonian featuring: Frederick Douglass as one of the first prominent American recovery alcoholic; the story of singer Billie Holiday, who in spite of threats to take away her freedom to sing at night clubs, (due to her heroin use), if she continued to sing Strange Fruit, a song about lynchings of African Americans in the southern states. She continued to sing the song and it ultimately was the theme song for the anti-lynching campaign. We could include the story of Afena Shakur, the former Black Panther and mother of slain rapper Tupac Shakur, who in long term recovery founded the Tupac Shakur Foundation for Performing Arts.