An exhibit honoring Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas opened Sunday at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.
For much of its inaugural year, the museum only acknowledged Anita Hill, the he woman who accused Thomas of sexual harassment during his 1991 confirmation hearing. The move prompted criticism from lawmakers who claimed the downplaying of Thomas was evidence of “racism” by progressives.
An exhibit features testimonies underscoring Hill’s courage and the surge of women’s activism that ensued, while making only a peripheral reference to the nation’s second black Supreme Court justice.
Now an updated exhibit called “The Supreme Court,” honors both black justices who have sat upon the nation’s highest court.
“There is a label for Thurgood Marshall and one for Clarence Thomas, the two African Americans who have served on the Supreme Court,” Linda St. Thomas, chief spokesperson for the Smithsonian Institution, told the Washington Times.
The exhibit also spotlights Supreme Court rulings that were “landmark decisions on matters of race, as well as issues of ancestry, ethnicity and tribal sovereignty.”
According to St. Thomas, the museum is “evolving and other things will change over time.”
The National Museum of African American History and Culture was established by an act of Congress in 2003 and President George W. Bush endorsed building it on the National Mall. The museum, which was opened to the public last year, “seeks to understand American history through the lens of the African-American experience.”
