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Kevin is the Andrew W. Mellon Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. He is also well-accredited as a poet, essayist, editor, and professor. He has written 13 books of poetry and prose and is the poetry editor of The New Yorker. He is also the editor of nine volumes, most recently the anthology African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song. Kevin previously served as Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a research division of the New York Public Library.
We at Medley have long admired how Kevin is a master of words and how he uses his experiences and stories to advance and broaden people's perspectives. He has inspired us to take a more expansive lens on how we look at leadership, and how great leaders recognize it's not only about the stories from our own past history that are important to understand, but also in valuing our present moments that add up to what stories are told in our future.
A: Thanks so much for having me, Edith. I think my bio captures some of what I do, but maybe not the "why" behind it. I get a lot of questions — how does a poet run a museum? Why? For me, there’s some background that might help. My family is from rural Louisiana on both sides. My parents were among the first in their families to go to college; they went from the segregated South to attending Southern University, an HBCU. My father became a doctor, and my mother a chemist. So, there was always this blend of science and culture around me growing up.
When I got to college and started writing in earnest, I realized I had never seen my grandparents in a poem. I had never heard their voices in that way, and for me, writing poems became a calling — to capture how they understood the world and told their own history. They often told their stories indirectly, leaving things out, but there was joy and laughter in them too. Sometimes we focus only on tragedy, but I wanted to capture that complexity, like the blues — laughing to keep from crying.
On my father’s side, they played music, and on my mother’s side, they preached, so somewhere between the two, there’s poetry. For me, poetry has provided a base from which I’ve been able to leap into history, archives, and museums. Poets often make connections between seemingly unrelated things, drawing metaphors. Museums do the same — they make meaning, bringing us into contact with objects and images that tell stories and demonstrate our humanity.
Especially as a Black writer, I want to capture voices — whether they are family members or historical figures — and show that these Black individuals lived, breathed, thought, dreamed, cried, and laughed. The museum does this incredibly well, and leading it is a joy because it’s about truth-telling and showing people the fullness of those stories.
The museum connects people to history but also creates community and fosters connection.
A: We call it "living history," and that’s essential because we’re capturing not only the past but also the present and the now. It’s important for people to understand that they’re living through history and that history lives through them. We want young people to know that they, too, can make history. We don’t just tell stories of famous figures; we highlight communities and the ways they’ve shaped culture and history. It’s also important for us to tell unknown or lesser-known stories.
The digital world has become critical in this, especially during the pandemic. Our initiative, the Searchable Museum, allows people to explore exhibits like Slavery and Freedom or Afrofuturism online. It’s a way to hold history in their hands, and it’s part of the digital present that is here to stay.
Afrofuturism is an example of how we interpret both the present and the past. It connects the dreams of enslaved people to today’s futuristic visions in art, music, and culture. Whether it’s through the mothership from Parliament Funkadelic or science fiction, we’re always interpreting history and looking forward. The museum is alive, constantly evolving.
A: We interpret the American story through an African American lens, and that allows us to see familiar figures like Thomas Jefferson or Washington from a new perspective. For example, we show how Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people on his property. We have a powerful section in the museum with the names of every enslaved person he owned.
This history helps us understand the present and the future. We’re all intertwined, and understanding this helps us see where we’ve come from as a nation.
The museum is built for everyone, and people feel a sense of ownership when they visit. They connect with the objects and with each other. Whether they’re standing in line for hours or breaking bread in our café, it’s clear that people want to make connections with history and with one another.
A: I’ve had many of those moments, both with everyday visitors and families who have donated objects to the museum. When we first reopened after COVID in May 2021, I remember standing outside greeting people. One of the first groups to arrive was a family who had donated objects related to the first woman killed in combat. They had clearly waited years to visit. It was a pilgrimage for them. It reminded me how personal and intimate the museum is — people feel that it’s theirs.
Another powerful moment was when I toured Emmett Till’s family through the museum. We have Emmett Till’s casket on display, and the care we took to make that space sacred resonates deeply with visitors. Till’s story connects with more recent events, and that ongoing relevance is powerful.
A: We’re constantly growing and evolving. We currently have 40,000 objects, with about 3,000 on view at any given time, and we rotate them regularly. One recent addition is the Johnson Publishing Company Archive, which we co-own with the Getty Research Institute. It includes four and a half million items, including photographs and audiovisual materials from Ebony and Jet magazines. These publications were essential to Black culture, celebrating Blackness and telling important stories. The archive will provide new insights into the 20th century, and we’re in the process of digitizing it.
We’re also exploring new stories, like Black fashion and hip-hop, as hip-hop turns 50. We’re planning a hip-hop block party in August, which will be another way to connect history with the present.
A: The blank page is daunting for all of us.
My advice is to write what you need to write, even when it’s difficult. Sometimes you have to push aside the internal editor and let the words flow. You have to be willing to end up somewhere unexpected.
Writing is about discovery, and sometimes you’ll find yourself writing about things you never intended — family, grief, joy. Music often inspires me, and that sense of improvisation in Black culture, from the blues to hip-hop, helps me let go and see where the story takes me.
You need to have stick-to-itiveness. Be generous to your first drafts and your early self. Later, you can bring in the editor, but you have to keep that editor at bay at first. Ultimately, it’s about allowing the story to emerge, whether through poetry or the objects in a museum. You have to let it come to you.
