Miles finds it bottomless because it is filled with love across generations that cannot be quenched by slavery.
God bless Tiya Miles for giving us this beautiful, heartbreaking book about this simple object that a mother gave her daughter before they were to be sold away and a granddaughter who embroidered and made visible its enduring message of love.
and South Carolina to witness its powerful presence. Countless people have visited with it in Washington, D.C. I have had dreams about it and the lives of the family members, Ruth, Ashley and Rose. I have sat with this small piece of fabric that had been hurriedly packed with survival goods and stitched with the words "It be filled with Love always." For more than ten years, it has remained at the center of many of my museum talks. Recommended by Paul Gardullo, director, Center for Global Slavery, National Museum of African American History and CultureĮncountering Ashley’s sack, the artifact, for the first time in 2009 at the museum’s Save Our African American Treasures program in Charleston, South Carolina, is burned into my memory. All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake Their readings of memoirs, novels, historical analysis and archival explorations may just prove to be must-reads for generations to come. It is evident that to the challenges Americans are facing-global climate change, racial barriers and inequality, a democracy in crisis-scholars are bringing their best game. And finally, staff brought multiple museums to life again, reopening gallery spaces and new exhibitions after months of pandemic-related closures.Įvery year, Smithsonian magazine invites dozens of Smithsonian Institution professionals to share what they found most enticing of the year’s best books. Exciting new artifacts are entering the collections even now as a rising cadre of new curatorial expertise is taking shape. In this year also, the Smithsonian is shouldering a massive expansion after 2020 legislation enacted two new museums-the National Museum of the American Latino and the American Women’s History Museum. A new initiative, “ Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past,” is seeking to expand public understanding of how racism blights our country. This year the Institution celebrated its 175th anniversary with a ground-breaking new exhibition "Futures" to explore the multivalent theme that humans can have agency in crafting a better tomorrow. The hundreds of men and women, who haunt the backroom warren of offices, libraries, laboratories and storage spaces at the largest museum and research complex in the world together form the intellectual wellspring of the Smithsonian Institution’s world-class exhibitions, events and happenings, scientific endeavors, and so much more. Visitors often entertain the romantic notion that behind-the-scenes at a Smithsonian museum is a mind-bending alternate universe that far surpasses anything they might encounter in the exhibition galleries.
Dozens of Smithsonian Institution professionals share their favorite reads from this year.