Dr. Deborah Lynn Mack has worked in leadership positions at the Smithsonian since 2012. Currently she serves as the Director of Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past and Associate Director for Strategic Partnerships at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Dr. Mack holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in anthropology from Northwestern University and a B. A. in geography from the University of Chicago. Dr. Mack unexpectedly stumbled into the museum world to become one of the most influential leaders in the industry. Her boundless energy and love of museums has taken her around the world in efforts to build connections between people and institutions for the betterment of humanity.
I met Dr. Mack in 2006 while working on the Slavery and Freedom in Savannah project at Telfair Museums’ Owens-Thomas House. She served as a consultant to the museum and has been a guiding light for me since then, like so many others. On occasion I’ll mention her support to another museum professional only to hear them exclaim: “she’s my mentor too!” Their enthusiastic sentiment always makes me smile because I know I have found a kindred spirit with whom I share mutual admiration and awe for Dr. Mack.
I have talked about museums with Dr. Mack many, many times since 2006, but we sat down for this interview earlier this year, on a hot August day at her home in South Carolina.

Tania Sammons
Thank you for talking about museums with me.
I’d like to begin by asking you to talk about how you saw things when you got started with museum work and how you see things from where you are now. Perhaps you could frame your answer in response to your first experience visiting the Smithsonian in the late 1980s, during the planning phase of the Africa exhibition, for which you served as project director, at The Field Museum in Chicago. You have shared that you saw an exhibition titled Field to Factory: Afro-American Migration, 1915-1940 at the National Museum of American History and the experience blew your mind.
Dr. Mack
It changed everything for me. It's what made me realize that this was something I wanted to do because I liked museums, but it had never occurred to me to make it my career.
Tania Sammons
What changed for you?
Dr. Mack
Museums were places for the master narrative historically, whether the field was science, which I think of as European-ethnoscience, frankly, or art.
I think it was in my freshman year in college that I finally found the vehicle to articulate that. It's a classic sociological example explained by Berger and Luckman in “The Social Construction of Reality” (1966). I understood for the first time, being born and raised on the south side of Chicago and being at the University of Chicago, that what surrounded the university—the Black communities—were largely disregarded. I realized that what those communities thought had no impact. I saw them in ways that they did not see themselves. And then, by going into anthropology, I realized I disagreed with most of the anthropological narrative as it was taught at that time.
However, I felt it was a useful tool. In some ways it provided me with a third eye wherever I was, even when I was in an African American community situation. Now, I've done so much within anthropological practice in multiple communities that I can view it as both an insider and outsider. That has shaped a lot of my practice. I don't think I was fully aware that Lonnie Bunch (Secretary at the Smithsonian Institution) could see that I brought forward this perspective when he asked me to work at the Smithsonian. I don't think I was even aware of it in that way, but part of it is my anthropological training.
Tania Sammons
What about art?
Dr. Mack
My first year at the University of Chicago, we were required to take an introductory Western art course, and I refused to do that. I ended up taking a photography course as a substitute. I was aware that they [art professors] would frame the way I would see things. I was very aware that a European art instruction, which is what the United States has inherited and continues in, was one way of seeing things and one way of approaching art. I knew instinctively that I disagreed with that, and I didn't want them to warp my point of view. I was very intentional. I couldn't articulate that very well at the time, but now, after doing a lot of museum work, I can articulate what we've inherited as “mainstream.” There's a mainstream view of what museums are and what they do, but it’s not one thing. There are alternative approaches, alternative languages, and alternative scopes that we can explore, and I really respect.
One of our program partners is the National Museum of Mexican Art. The founding director, Carlos Tortolero, was considered blasphemous for the first 25 years for saying, “we're going to do what we do, and we don't care if you recognize it, don't agree with it, and it's not accredited. You do your thing. We will do ours, because we have a completely different worldview of why we build these institutions, who they serve, how we serve, what we will do.”
Tania Sammons
How are Tortolero’s ideas viewed today?
Dr. Mack
Now everything that they were doing is considered “best practice” in museums. I'm proud to say that we're still working with them.
Tania Sammons
What was it that they were doing that was so different?
Dr. Mack
The communities the museum serves, what is presented as art, what the scope of art is, what art training means, how they bring that to their audiences, what their audiences are interested in, and who their audiences are. They had a radio station. There was a young intern who was 16 years old, and she became their senior vice president. They built a pipeline of young professionals and developed their own cultural strategies to broaden the reach and serve folks. It's very inventive and creative. I’m a member. I've admired them institutionally, but even on the ground level I admire how the staff work with each other and with their stakeholders. It was exceptionally different at that time. There are other places like that.
Because the scope of my work is organizational, I look at structuring institutions for the long term, to take the long view and look at what an institution needs, how it might grow, and how these institutions approach sustainability. I don’t approach the work with one model, but support development through an institution’s own cultural values, depending on where you are. American museums are largely colonial creations, and very few of them have been able to break out of that. They are hampered in many ways by their governance structures, what they do, who controls them, who their audiences are.
In the last 10 years there are other options. There's a significant number of new, independent, private institutions, grassroots museums that have opened. Many of them are more informal than what we would call a museum, but they have the same function in the work that I do, and we include them. We might call these institutions cultural centers or libraries. I do a lot of work now with various indigenous, tribal museums and libraries. They may not use the term “library;” they may refer to them as “places of knowledge”. They may not use the term “librarian;” they may reference “knowledge keepers,” because there's an entire constellation, a social universe, a social construct for that.
I also do international work. Most museums in Africa do not serve African nationals. They are intended for foreigners: that is the audience; that's where the money is coming from and so that is the expectation. They can get tourism dollars from museums for outsiders.
Tania Sammons
How has your work with so many different museums nationally and internationally informed your perspective?
Dr. Mack
It broadens my appreciation and understanding of the commonalities. I can see where it's shared and I can see where differences originate by understanding how culture is formed, how communities form, etc., and why some issues and topics are prioritized in some places and less in others. This is something my team at the Smithsonian began to do with our international work. We're in the Caribbean, for example, St. Lucia, Panama, you name it, and early on Smithsonian staff might say, “structurally, this would really help this museum if their staff approached the issue in this way.” I would counter, “Step back. I want you to initially listen for two, three days.” At the end of that, our team comes away with “Aha, here are their priorities. Maybe we can help with approaches that strengthen the strategies that they want to use.” If we can find the 1, 2, 3 things that we can do that supports our colleagues and peers in the work they do, then we have done our job. Our job is not to make them like an American museum. And this is a culturally informed approach that is not a mainstream American museum approach.
Tania Sammons
Not one-size fits all.
Dr. Mack
Right. These are things that I can appreciate, but there are things I definitely know I'm not interested in. For instance, the Smithsonian has a whole division called Smithsonian Journeys, which does hundreds and hundreds of annual travel land programs and cruises, you name it, around the world. I've served as a lecturer for a number of them in Africa, but on one occasion I was asked to be a Smithsonian representative for a Viking cruise. The small ship tour program was “From Paris to Provence,” although the itinerary originated in Marseilles, traveled through the region, and ended in Paris. A superbly executed tour program with a fabulous crew and amenities. I enjoyed it. There were maybe 110 people on the ship. I loved the navigation. I loved working with the crew. But when our incoming flight initially landed in Marseille, we were taken from Marseille airport directly to a bus to leave the city. I asked “Why aren't we spending any time here in Marseille as an orientation or something? There's a new, fabulous museum.” The local French guide, not one of our Smithsonian staff, but a local professional used regularly, said, “Oh, no, no, we can't be here. It's not safe.”
Tania Sammons
I've heard that about Marseille.
Dr. Mack
That language is code for it's a “very Brown and Black city.” I saw that instantly and was insulted by it. When I returned home, I gave excellent ratings about the program—I said it was great, but that statement stood out to me. It deeply bothered me because racial and class prejudice feeds into a lot of museum programs. The entire structure of so much of this is very classist. In Europe, class is a first priority; race is second. Here it is race first; class second. It is not openly referenced here like in western Europe, but it is a very strong factor, and in particular in France.
Tania Sammons
What is the museum that opened recently in Marseille?
Dr. Mack
The Mucem: the Museum of Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean.
Two years ago, I spent two days there and met with museum staff. They have extraordinary public programs around food, including a lot of partnerships and collaborations with restaurants, and other kinds of organizations that feed the public. It's not only an environmental museum, it addresses multiple aspects around housing, agronomy, ethnicity, etc. Its exhibits call out the French wine industry and the environmental degradation across France. It's interesting and multifaceted. It's a museum of the circum-Mediterranean, and reflects not only southern France, but also North Africa, Senegal, Greece, Egypt and beyond. Marseille has the highest population of non-Whites in France, and it's the largest city after Paris. I found it to be wonderful.
Tania Sammons
I've heard other people say that it’s the most interesting city in France. Let’s pivot. What are you working on now?

Dr. Mack
I'm currently co-curating, with a team of colleagues, an exhibition about museums and archives at HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). And I have a pretty strong sense of the historiography of Black museums. We now understand how radical a concept that was at a time when these schools were designed for people who were not considered people.
Tania Sammons
Yes, that makes sense. Please elaborate.
Dr. Mack
The evidence is they've been chronically underfunded. The best funded is probably Howard University, and even there it's marginal. There were years where there's no staff, so there was no access. We're working with five of them, and when you look at their individual histories it's not what they've done, it's the multi-generational intentionality, focus, and drive to collect and preserve. It was considered radical and subversive, and much of the work had to be done in secret, because it would have defunded the university. The governor of Florida, back in 1923, fired the president of Florida A & M, an agricultural and mechanical school and HBCU because the university president introduced more academic subject matter. The Florida governor and state board of directors were like, “no, no, no, no, these Negroes only need to know these things.” The FAMU students staged protests. These are the first student protests that we have been able to document in the nation. The students burned buildings. We have newspaper coverage of it from 1923-24.
The topical categories referencing African Americans that we now take for granted at the Library of Congress, or at any university or local library, were created in the 1970s by Black archivists at HBCUs and community-based libraries. There were all these gaps around the Black experience and history that were not recognized, so they collectively created them, and now they are standard reference categories used globally. No one thinks about that. Arturo Schomburg and other book collectors and manuscript collectors and scrapbook makers created personal collections that went into museums and archives and have provided us with evidence. Because in the U.S. for so long the thinking was that if White presses didn’t cover a topic, it didn't exist. There are congressional bills saying we don't need schools, segregated schools, because “those people” have no interest in learning to read and write.
We see a pattern at these historically Black places of higher learning. They are working in collaboration with each other, sharing expenses and resources, and funding people like artists and writers and poets who circulated among the universities. It’s surprising, and not surprising. I know that I certainly did not realize how they got to where we are today with these outstanding collections in museums and archives. They were bucking the odds.
Tania Sammons
Why do you say it's surprising and not surprising?
Dr. Mack
It's not surprising that Black archives, libraries, museums have been historically defunded, underfunded, ignored, etc. What is surprising is the focused intentionality and the consistency of really savvy, strategic thinking that was collaborative. This approach wasn’t developed by a single institution, but more like the United Negro College Fund, which exists today and was an idea created in 1943 by the President of Tuskegee University. He said, “we're all collectively requiring this fundraising. We need to do something that supports all of our schools.” This is 1943 in the middle of World War II, and the majority of these HBCUs were in the South. None of them were well-funded. A critical number of them were situated in the poorest counties in their states, and today they still are there. One of the strategies used, as in the creation of Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, was to merge underfunded or low attendance colleges with other more stable ones. Even now, Spellman, Morehouse, and Clark Atlanta share certain facilities on a main campus to make those resources better and to share expenses instead of everybody having their own thing.
Tania Sammons
Of course this is what happened with African American colleges, because this is what happened in African American communities. The Black people were ignored on every level, and survival meant you had to work together, and you had to collaborate. Here we're talking about a high intellectual level.
Dr. Mack
Yes, a very high intellectual level. Remember, the HBCU system was both by and for people who were formerly enslaved. We have a long history of independent institution building, Black presses, Black schools, Black churches, Black businesses, Black professional associations—you name it. Tuskegee University for instance, is a campus on the National Register because the first 12 buildings were built by the students. The students made the bricks; the students chopped down the trees; the students learned blacksmithing; the students built three, four story architecturally designed buildings that still stand. I've collected some of the bricks for the upcoming exhibition. Students would trace what was called a “smile” line into the bricks before they were fired. Talk about paying it forward: students were building buildings that they would never sit in. They grew their own food. They had to, because most students could not pay tuition in cash, so they paid in-kind. They worked on the campus. Tuskegee University is in Macon County, Alabama. Have you been there?
Tania Sammons
I've driven through the campus.
Dr. Mack
Just look at that campus. In 1900, it must have looked like paradise. The first accredited African American architect, Robert Taylor, designed numerous campus buildings, and campus landscaping was created by the first professionally registered African American landscaper, David Augustus Williston.
Tania Sammons
Is Tuskegee one of the HBCUs featured in your upcoming exhibition?
Dr. Mack
Yes. Tuskegee University Archive is an extraordinary resource. The university is also a very Black diasporic one from its inception, with students arriving from West Africa and the Caribbean in the 1880s. Tuskegee became a model for accessible higher learning, borrowing in part from the example of Hampton University in Virginia. Booker T. Washington was recruited from Hampton to Tuskegee to establish that model, which was build it yourself, because there was little money. Spelman College was renamed after Rockefeller's wife Laura Spelman because of her significant philanthropy in supporting the women’s college. The original college name was that of a White missionary donor.
Tania Sammons
You know Mary Haskell, whom I'm writing a biography about, she and her girls—students at her all-girls’ school in Boston in the early 20th century, fundraised for Hampton University.
Dr. Mack
There were a number of White philanthropists in the north and in the south who did. There were at the time no Black philanthropists with that kind of money. These donors were exceptionally affluent and largely industrialists like Carnegie, Rockefeller or Rosenwald, although there were several philanthropists that came from old money or were missionaries. A significant number of HBCUs schools were founded by and led under the direction of White missionary organizations. They brought with them a model of what these schools should be, and over the first half of the 20th century that model changes under Black leadership. Booker T. Washington, the founding principal at Tuskegee, never hired a White faculty member. He stated that he did not believe in White leadership of a Black institution and from the beginning brought in a significant number of women faculty and administrators. This was in the early 1880s.
Tania Sammons
Interesting. Will you please talk more about this exhibition? It’s a Smithsonian-led project, right? Besides Tuskegee, what other schools are involved?
Dr. Mack
Yes. The National Museum of African American History and Culture is the lead museum for this exhibition, which is only one component of an initiative focused on HBCUs. The five institutions highlighted are Clark Atlanta, Jackson State University, Texas Southern University, and Florida A & M University, in addition to Tuskegee University.
The enabling federal legislation for the National Museum of African American History and Culture charges us with supporting Black museums and comparable institutions and specifically calls out HBCUs. I came on board as staff in 2012, and by 2013 we began a series of small focused convenings as well as a national survey over four years. Whenever we had conferences, we would convene a small group of HBCUs to listen to and hone in on their needs. University museums and galleries are in a different position structurally than other independent ones. That’s true for all university museums. Funding for a museum is generally not a high strategic priority in the university system. That is exaggerated even more so for HBCUs where fundamental funding has always historically been a critical need. Our research informed us as to some of the best ways in which we could support them. We asked directors and university development personnel about the challenges. Collections staffing was and remains a major challenge. Numerous archives and museums have never had more than one person on board at any given time.
In 2018, we began working on a proposal to solidify our findings and convened 10 HBCU presidents for discussion. In 2019, we wrote several proposals and received funding for project staffing for the 5 pilot institutions: project managers; research fellows; 2-3 interns who were trained to digitize collections; equipment; and additional professional development opportunities. Funding allowed us to work with the university presidents, their development offices and their chief academic officers.
This is a five-year project, and we're in year four. We're about to enter our 5th and final project year. The exhibition will open in fall 2025, and the companion, open-access website will launch with some 60,000 items that have never been seen or accessible before. For that work, we’re working with George Mason University. Are you familiar with the Roy Rosenzweig Center for Public History?
…to be continued…
Look for the continuation of our conversation in Tania Talks Museums with Smithsonian’s Dr. Deborah Lynn Mack, Part 2.
Thank you for bringing Dr. Mack to our collective attention, Tania! She is a powerhouse. I am impressed with her approach to a new museum and how she insists on listening to the community for two to three days before her team begins their design process. Museums should represent the communities they serve. What treasures you both are!