But in 2016, Kinard got his way. The massive African American History and Culture Museum opened on the National Mall. Now, the people who complained about the lack of that museum also complain about the predictable result of its opening: the smaller museum's likely shuttering.
Congress's Committee on House Administration, which oversees the Smithsonian, didn't return a request for comment.
According to the Smithsonian's official statistics, in 2019, after the larger museum was in full swing, the Anacostia museum saw only 8,034 visitors, or five per day. In 2021, the figure was still five per day (COVID affected the attendance of all museums that year, but the Smithsonian's American Art Museum nonetheless saw 420,000 visitors).
For 2024, the official statistics claimed 14,076, or about 38 a day. But, its website includes the caveat,
"the counts sometimes include staff." Its federal budget provides 17 full-time employees (the 18th employee we identified was a Metropolitan Police officer). The Daily Wire's experience suggests that the official numbers are either inflated or count all employees. Even counting the bathroom user and the nursing home aides, the number I saw over three hours would work out to 18 over the seven hours the museum is open.
In the end, the museum seems to exist as a multi-million dollar jobs program and not much else - and its oversized staff may have actually obscured the fact that there is little demand for its offerings. But visitors may learn at least one thing, thanks to the fact that it has persisted for nearly a decade even after it was replaced by a larger museum: There is no such thing as a temporary government program.
poll#201
