Across Europe, Museums Rethink What To Do With Their African Art Collections

Early in the movie Black Panther, a black visitor played by Michael B. Jordan confronts a white curator over African artifacts in a fictional British museum.

"How do you think your ancestors got these?" the visitor asks. "You think they paid a fair price? Or did they take it — like they took everything else?"

The visitor turns out to be the villain of the movie. But a similar (if less ultimately violent) discussion is happening in museums around the world over the volume of African art in their collections. Officials in Germany and The Netherlands have announced plans to return art and artifacts taken from Africa during the colonial period. And more museum staff are meeting on the topic across Europe.

In 2006, France's Quai Branly museum lent a set of wooden statues and carved furniture to the country of Benin. Originally seized from the region by a French military expedition in 1892, they were housed in a Beninese museum called the Fondation Zinsou.

Marie-Cécile Zinsou, founder of the museum, says people lined up for 3 to 4 hours, and that visitors to the exhibition left lots of messages of gratitude in the visitors' book.