MLK Day: one step forward, two steps back

We’re approaching our first Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday after last summer’s protests of George Floyd’s murder. Can someone tell me where they think Black people in the arts are headed?

On the one hand, look at curator Naomi Beckwith’s career: she’s leaving Chicago for New York, to become the Guggenheim Museum’s new chief curator and deputy director. Starting in June 2021, Beckwith will oversee exhibitions and pretty much everything else the public experiences. Which is fantastic — I hope.

Curator Naomi Beckwith. (Photo credits: Tony Hisgett/ MCA Chicago/Guggenheim Museum NYC)

Yeah, she resigned her position last Friday. (No, I’m not going to name her.) The National Museum of Women in the Arts also dropped her from their advisory board. But she’d already served on the Ohio Arts Council since 2016, so… how many funding opportunities or leadership roles did artists of color miss out on, thanks to her influence?

Photo: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

I know, I know: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I imagine Dr. King is waiting for us at the other end of that arc. Maybe text him that we’re running late.