2017 Surratt Conference

[L Verge]

It must be poetic justice that a museum is what is holding up the works in getting out the 2017 Surratt Conference packet!

As announced earlier, our Friday, off-site bus tour is hoped to be to the brand-new National Museum of African American History and Culture on the Mall in D.C. We have been attempting to reach someone/anyone at that facility since early June. Nobody answers the three phone numbers that you are told to call. Jazz music plays in your ears with the pleasant voice (that you would like to strangle) popping in every two minutes to "thank you for your patience." I deliberately put my phone on speaker and went about my work one day for over an hour just to see what would happen - nothing. Email and online assistance? There is none. An automatic response tells you that someone will respond. We're now going into our fifth month with no response.

We have contacted anyone and everyone that might have a connection, and everyone laughs about the same problem. To us, it is no laughing matter. This is no way to run a museum! The Washington Post doesn't think so either and carried an article on this situation. The free museum is supposedly "sold out" of timed tickets through March of 2017. No one seems to have considered the thousands upon thousands of school groups that will descend on D.C. in March with good intentions of visiting this highly-touted museum. Unless things change drastically, there are going to be some rude awakenings - and rude language, no doubt.

This is a HUGE museum, so space is not an issue. Without knowing what is going on in the administrative offices, my guess is that management is lacking. For our conference, we are now pulling together Plan B, which will include some local museums that welcome visitation.