Smithsonian

African American church leaders are speaking out over budget cuts being proposed by the Trump White House. The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture features artifacts from, and has sponsored research into, the slave ship Clotilda. The double masted schooner carried the last kidnapped Africans to be held as slaves at the time of the U.S. Civil War.

Washington, D.C. has a lot of museums. The National Gallery of Art has a painting by Leonardo DaVinci. The Museum of Natural History has The Hope Diamond. And, The Museum of American History has a set of the Ruby Slippers Judy Garland wore in the Wizard of Oz. Another museum features items associated with a resident of Alabama.

Oyster habitats are rapidly disappearing around the world. That doesn’t just mean losing a delicacy. Oysters also play a major role in coastal environments. A team of scientists on Mobile Bay is working to turn that loss around. That effort may have national impact.

The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts is looking into the positive and negatives of implicit bias on a new level with the help of the Smithsonian Institute.