As Trump administration runs roughshod over Smithsonian, even Mark Twain would get canceled

Mark Twain once said of the praise he’d received: “I do love compliments, yet I’m often embarrassed to say what I think to the person when I get a compliment, I so often feel that they somehow, have not gone far enough.”

Twain just may be correct. Earnest Hemingway once said of Twain that “all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called ‘Huckleberry Finn.’” Twain created the nation’s plainspoken, irreverent, and quintessential voice.

Critics consider “Huckleberry Finn” one of the most resounding antiracist novels by an American, and as such, Twain poses a conundrum for people trying to hide elements of the nation’s racial past and present. Namely, will they have to cancel this archetypal American?

Earlier this month, Lonnie Bunch, who has led the Smithsonian Museum Institution since 2019, announced his retirement. His exit follows White House accusations the National Museum of African American History and Culture was “divisive and race-centered.”

Uh, yeah. It is a Black museum detailing the Black experience. Were they shocked to find Black history there?

Interestingly, the accuracy of the exhibitions wasn’t challenged.

News of Bunch’s departure landed hard on those of us who have met him. He is revered in and beyond the museum world, and he served with honor and warmth.

The Trump administration has argued that museum content should be told “in a way that is inspiring, unifying, and worthy of our great republic,” according to the Associated Press.

The Smithsonian system operates outside the executive branch. A board of regents that included Vice President J.D. Vance and Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, exercised oversight of Bunch. The Trump administration has scrutinized Smithsonian museums since last year, seemingly pushing a whitewashed version of American history and culture.

President Trump also recently stripped Confederate criticism from a memorial.

Given these encroachments, a classic line from Twain comes to mind: “Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.”

The question again becomes, what happens to the author of one of the most powerful American antiracist novels? What happens to the man who confronted slavery, brutality and moral hypocrisy in his work?

Really, who is more American than Mark Twain?

Consider how Twain loaded down many of his white characters with horrible character flaws. Huck’s father was a violent alcoholic who beat Huck. Twain describes him as, “a fish-belly white, a tree toad white, a sick white.”

Jim, the lead Black character, served as a kind of moral compass in the novel. He was Huck’s only role model.

Readers follow Huck deep into his own psyche as the boy wrestled with the internal work necessary for human growth and transformation. Huck remained in constant conversation with his conscience.

Twain helped shaped American literature, American humor and America’s understanding of itself. The speech of everyday Americans bloomed as he lifted their vernacular in his work.

Controversy has followed “Huckleberry Finn” in recent decades. Twain uses the N-word some 200 times in the book, and that fact has caused some school districts to avoid teaching it in classes, despite its antiracist aims.

This issue surfaced back in the late 1990s, while I worked at the Louisville Courier-Journal. My editor learned that the great novelist Earnest Gaines was speaking at public library and sent me there to ask Gaines his thoughts about Twain, Huck Finn, and use of the N-word.

Gaines grew up in rural Louisiana plantation quarters. His upbringing found its way into his novels that included “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” “A Gathering of Old Men” and “A Lesson Before Dying.”

Gaines considered Twain important to understanding America and said Twain’s investigations of race placed him at least 100 years ahead of his time.

We’re left wondering what Twain might say about contemporary race relations, about politicians clinging to power into their 80s and 90s, about the current administration.

I’m guessing here, but maybe something like: “Some people bring joy wherever they go, and some people bring joy whenever they go.”

Mark McCormick is the former executive director of the Kansas African American Museum, a member of the Kansas African American Affairs Commission and former deputy executive director at the ACLU of Kansas. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.