The Man, The Movement, The Museum: The Journey of John R. Kinard as the First African American Director of a Smithsonian Institution Museum

John Kinard changed the face of museums all over the United States and won international acclaim as an ecomuseum innovator. Kinard learned important life lessons from his family and those lessons empowered him: as a forceful civil rights activist at Livingstone College and Hood Theological Seminary; an inspiring leader who participated in the construction of homes and schools in East Africa; and, the first African American to become the Director of a Smithsonian Institution museum. This visionary museum pioneer, who won acclaim from all over the nation and the world, remained a revered community organizer committed to his family, church, Anacosita neighborhood, and Washington, D.C. community. The dramatic scope of John Kinard’s extraordinary life is richly detailed by his daughter, Dr. Joy G. Kinard. Dr. Kinard guides us to an appreciation of her father’s intuitive genius and wiliness to defy the museum world’s standard, polite expectations and assumptions. Since 1967, the Anacostia Neighborhood Museum-the first federally funded African American museum and unit of the Smithsonian Institution- has served as a model for museums around the world. Using the lens of John Kinard’s life, this book gives every reader a much deeper understanding of how we all have the power to make a difference in the world.