Artifacts in US museums explain the outsized role of racism in the nation’s history

By Associated Press

Museums across the U.S. are displaying artifacts that represent and reflect landmark events of the Civil Rights era. Visitors to the Henry Ford near Detroit can see the bus Rosa Parks was riding when she refused to give up her seat to a white man in 1955, and a desk where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. planned voting rights marches.

“What we do here is help explain our story, as a community, as a culture, as a society to those who may not have lived through it, who may not remember it or who may have a different memory than what we collectively understand,” said Amber Mitchell, curator of Black history at the Henry Ford.

Public access to these items at federal sites may be restricted or prohibited under Trump administration rules seeking to bar what the president calls “divisive” ideology that acknowledges the outsized role racism has played in American history