African American History Act of 2026
Summary
What This Bill Does
The African American History Act of 2026 authorizes the Director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture to use federal funds for African American history resources, public programs, technical support, content creation, scholarship, curricula, exhibitions, publications, language translation, collection acquisition, conservation, processing, digitization, teacher professional development, and website resources for educators, students, and families.
The bill allows the Museum to convene experts, provide public discourse, engage audiences through programming and social media, expand online and in-person access, and support African American history education through workshops, teacher trainings, local educational agency engagement, early childhood through secondary school engagement, teacher fellowships, and curriculum adoption work with State and local education leaders. It also permits the Museum to continue already-existing activities.
The Director must submit an annual public report to Congress by February 1 and provide briefings to the House Administration and Senate Rules committees after funding is first distributed and annually afterward, with those reporting requirements ending September 30, 2030. The bill states a sense of Congress supporting accurate education on minority-group history and authorizes $4 million for fiscal year 2027 and each of the next four fiscal years.
Who Benefits and How
The National Museum of African American History and Culture benefits from dedicated authority and funding for educational materials, digital resources, collections work, translation, exhibitions, programming, and teacher support. Teachers, local educational agencies, students, families, and State and local education leaders benefit from curricula, professional development, online resources, and programming. Audiences seeking African American history resources benefit from expanded collections access, translation, traveling exhibitions, publications, and public programming.
Who Bears the Burden and How
The Museum Director and staff must design, continue, and report on funded programs, manage collections and digital work, brief congressional committees, and answer public inquiries. Federal cultural appropriations bear $4 million per year from fiscal years 2027 through 2031. Congressional administration committees must review annual briefings and public reports through September 30, 2030.
Key Provisions
- Allows the Museum to create accessible African American history resources, including digital, print, and traveling-exhibition materials.
- Supports social-justice and anti-bias programming, expert convenings, public discourse, technical support, and content creation.
- Funds scholarship, curricula, exhibitions, publications, translation, collections acquisition, conservation, processing, and digitization.
- Supports teacher professional development, workshops, teacher fellowships, and engagement with local educational agencies and schools.
- Requires annual public reports and congressional briefings, with reporting duties ending September 30, 2030.
- States congressional support for accurate minority-history education across Smithsonian museums.
- Authorizes $4 million for fiscal year 2027 and each of the next four fiscal years.
Evidence Chain:
This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
At a Glance
What This Bill Does
Authorizes the National Museum of African American History and Culture to expand African American history educational resources, public programming, collections access, teacher support, reporting, and related activities using specified federal funding.
Key Policy Areas
Museums, Education, Civil Rights History, Federal Cultural Funding
Primary Purpose
Authorizes the National Museum of African American History and Culture to expand African American history educational resources, public programming, collections access, teacher support, reporting, and related activities using specified federal funding.
Policy Domains
Sections 3 through 6 African American history education and funding
Identified Gains
- National Museum of African American History and Culture
- Teachers using African American history resources
- Students and families using Museum education resources
- State and local education leaders
- Museum audiences seeking African American history materials
Identified Costs
- Museum Director and program staff
- Federal cultural appropriations accounts
- House Administration Committee staff
- Senate Rules Committee staff
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
In CommitteeReferred to the House Committee on House Administration.
Introduced in House
Mr. Mfume (for himself, Ms. Norton, Mr. Nadler, Mr. Bishop, …
Stakeholder Effects
cui bono?How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.
Federal cultural appropriations accounts, House Administration Committee staff, Museum Director and program staff
Positive-direction: National Museum of African American History and Culture
Negative-direction: Federal cultural appropriations accounts, House Administration Committee staff, Museum Director and program staff, Senate Rules Committee staff
Museum audiences seeking African American history materials
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
- "museum"
- → National Museum of African American History and Culture
- "congress"
- → Congress and congressional administration committees
- "director"
- → Director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture
Key Definitions
Terms defined in this bill
African American history education, public programming, collections, translation, digital, teacher-development, and related activities the Director may carry out with funds appropriated under the Act.
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology