What began as an institution that embodied some of our nation’s best ideals, has now transformed into a radical leftist propaganda machine. For decades, the Smithsonian Institution gifted America with knowledge of the humanities, sciences, and arts through its extensive research and numerous museums. Funded by philanthropist James Smithson, who left his estate to the United States to build “at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge,” the Smithsonian museums became an American staple.  

Rather than educating people as its founder intended, the Smithsonian has featured the radical anti-American propaganda created by socialist Nikole Hannah-Jones. The current leaders have decided to push the imagined history of the 1619 Project rather than present the hard truths about slavery, and the United States’ eventual triumph over slavery. Using the false facts of the 1619 Project, the Smithsonian Institute has created exhibits, adopted Nikole Hannah-Jones’s talking points on critical race theory, and even featured her for a speech at the museum. 

With this adoption of a “project,” that according to the author has nothing to do with history, they are actively assisting Nikole Hannah-Jones with her goal to make the idea of American exceptionalism be seen as “nonsense.” This perverse view of the world has caused the institute to recently feature a blatantly racist poster.

When you look at the ideological radicals that the Smithsonian Institute employs and has employed, it is easy to understand how radical this American institution has become. One such former employee, Rosalie Reyes, is the current Teaching for Change Coordinator of Teacher Engagement and Professional Development. (Teaching for Change is one of the collaborators on the Zinn Education Project.)

Before joining the radical organization, Teaching for Change, Reyes was employed by the Smithsonian Institute’s Early Enrichment Center. She had the key position of “museum educator, curriculum designer, and movement and mindfulness instructor.” This means that the curriculums and educational materials coming out of the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center were being overseen and created by someone who frequently retweets and likes content from Haymarket Books, a radical publisher who wants “America” to be “abolished.” 

The Smithsonian Institute’s National Portrait Gallery has a piece dedicated to the radical Marxist Angela Davis. The artwork on display, Love Letter, 1971, was created by artist Charles W. White out of “his admiration for the activist.”  While the Smithsonian describes her as a “luminary… [with] her lifelong impassioned advocacy for those without a voice,” she is a self-proclaimed devout communist who has supported and praised mass murderers, including Josef Stalin, and has made several anti-Semitic remarks. The Smithsonian takes no concern mentioning her being “drawn into the civil rights movement through the Black Panther Party and eventually [becoming] a leader of the Communist Party.” It is wrong to honor someone who has tried to destroy America’s values, and continues trying to do so, in one of our most esteemed museums located in the U.S. capitol. 

Still, the most outrageous part of the Smithsonian Institution’s radicalism is that it is largely funded by the American taxpayer.

The Smithsonian’s budget for this year was around 1 billion dollars, and 62% of the funding came from the “federal government.” This is just another example of an organization, just like Teach For America, that was created with the best of intentions but now is being utilized by a group of radical leftists who hate America.