Smithsonian to review whether to keep artifacts donated by S.F.'s Rev. Amos Brown

San Francisco Chronicle​

10-05-2025

The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture is going to consider whether to permanently keep two prized artifacts belonging to civil rights icon Amos Brown — which the institution had tried to return to him, sparking a controversy over the Trump Administration's influence over the historical collection.
Since opening in 2016, the museum has displayed Brown's bible, which he carried during the Civil Rights movement, and his copy of the History of Negro Race in America by George Washington Williams.
On Monday, Brown, pastor of San Francisco's Third Baptist Church, received an email from Erika D. Gault, a director at the museum, confirming that the museum's collections committee will consider permanently keeping the artifacts. 'I have already begun to complete the necessary collections documents and will personally work to ensure that this moves quickly and positively through the necessary steps for donation and permanent accession into the collection,' Gault wrote in the email, which Brown shared with the Chronicle.
Brown said he knew little about the committee and who would be on it. 'I asked them (the museum) right up front, who's on it. We ought to be transparent with things like these. Any time people cannot be transparent it says they may be into something that's not in the best interest of the common good.'
The exchange between the museum and Brown occurred in the wake of President Donald Trump's March 27 executive order titled, 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.' In it, Trump targeted various Smithsonian institutions, who he said in recent years haves 'come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.' He specifically named the National Museum of African American History and Culture and criticized it as proclaiming that ideas like hard work, individualism and the nuclear family were aspects of white culture.
On April 10, Brown received an email from Constance S. Beninghove, the museum's exhibitions and loans registrar, who told him his artifacts were being returned.
'I wanted to alert you that the National Museum of African American History and Culture will be returning your Bible and book we borrowed for our exhibition, Segregation,' said Beninghove. 'We are grateful for the loan of these important objects and the ability to share them with the public. In order to preserve them and not display them for too long, we are now returning them to you.'
Brown immediately questioned why the museum suddenly wanted to return his items, believing it was connected with Trump's crackdown on diversity initiatives. 'There's a sneaky, sly, sinister movement going on,' Brown told the Chronicle. 'We all know that the present (Trump) administration has tried to wipe out anything that has to do with Blackness, our identity.'
Brown said the museum told him it wanted to return the artifacts because the 'light (in the exhibit they're kept) would be damaging.'
'That doesn't make sense,' said Brown. 'They're a museum, they (the museum) they know how to preserve delicate artifacts.'
After Brown pushed back on why the artifacts were being returned, he said the museum phoned him.
The controversy coincided with fears from the public that other civil rights artifacts, such as Nat Turner's Bible, were being removed from the museum, NBC Washington reported. Media reports also circulated that the museum had removed its Greensboro, NC lunch counter from the Civil Rights Movement.
The museum, in a statement last month, called the reports 'inaccurate.' 'Both the Greensboro lunch counter and stools where college students sat in protest during the Civil Rights Movement are and continue to be on display,' said the museum.
The museum continued, saying, 'recent claims that objects have been removed for reasons other than adherence to standard loan agreements or museum practices are false.'
Media representatives for the museum did not respond to a request for comment on the situation.
As the museum faces threat under the Trump administration, Brown said he has ideas to carry the teaching of Black history forward.
'The Black family, the Black church, and our historically Black college,' he said when asked on who could teach Black history. 'We got to learn and teach in spite of. This is not the first time that the empire, the oppressors, have tried to keep us down through such corny messages, even during the days of slavery.'
When asked about the future of the museum, Brown said, 'Black folks, our allies, our friends…have got to stand up and make sure that we push back. And say we're going to stand for a diverse, yet unified country. Unity does not mean uniformity.'