Hutzell: I went to the Smithsonian to catch up on woke history. Outrage was free.

Walking through the darkened shrine to The Star-Spangled Banner on a summer afternoon, three schoolgirls started singing the national anthem.

It wasn’t Jennifer Hudson’s soulful rendition at the World Cup final, or José Feliciano’s 1968 Latin-jazz version.

Just three kids. Spontaneously inspired by a tattered, 213-year-old flag that once flew over Baltimore and now occupies a hallowed space in the National Museum of American History.

O say ...

can you ...

see?

There’s been a lot to see at this museum lately.

The White House issued a scathing, 162-page critique called “Saving America’s Story” on Independence Day. It accused the Smithsonian Institution of perverting the museum into a breeding ground for “anti-White,” “illegal alien” and “transgender” activism.

Republican-led House committees spent two days harping on those findings this week, grilling museum Director Anthea M. Hartig about all that’s woke on Constitution Avenue.

The report mentions her more than 200 times, accusing her of trying to “problematize” the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

“In the museum’s current telling, history is just an ongoing power struggle between oppressors and the oppressed,” said Tennessee Republican Rep. Tim Burchett.

On Friday, President Donald Trump doubled down, ordering the National Park Service to put signs up around the museum warning the public about the dangerous ideas inside.

“The museum exhibits should be renovated consistent with the findings in the report and direct visitors to locations and resources for accurate information regarding America’s history,” Trump’s executive order reads.

Hartig politely disagreed, telling Congress the report was wrong on many counts. She invited critics to walk the museum with her.

“I believe what you will find, mesdames and messieurs, is not an institution that has forgotten its country,” she said, “but one that loves it enough to tell the full sweep of history, our triumphs and our struggles.”

So, I went.

Almost everyone from Maryland has made this trip. The Smithsonian Institution’s 11 museums on the National Mall are places for middle school field trips and idle Saturday afternoons.

We marvel at the Wright Flyer at the National Air and Space Museum, peer into the Hope Diamond at the National Museum of Natural History and strain to understand the Sculpture Garden at the Hirshhorn.

This time, though, I went in search of woke history and hate-America propaganda. I stepped onto the Metro at New Carrollton to see “In Pursuit of Life, Liberty, and Happiness,” 250 objects on display through December to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary.

I went to experience the outrage.

Into the valley of woke I went, crossing Constitution Avenue to the museum doors. I didn’t have to look far for trans activism. There was Horatio Greenough’s 12-ton marble sculpture of a bare-chested George Washington in a dress.

Oh, you might call it a toga. Half-naked outrage, right there, mesdames and messieurs, if you had any doubts.

The White House’s “Saving America’s Story” complains that treasures from the Revolution weren’t moved to locations that highlight their importance at this moment.

“NMAH has only affixed a couple small bilingual stickers to each display case, indicating that the pieces belong to its broader ‘In Pursuit’ list of objects,” the authors seethe.

Except for the ones that were moved for special attention.

I looked for the portable desk Thomas Jefferson used to write the Declaration of Independence, only to have Google find it for me at the Smithsonian Castle’s semiquincentennial exhibit, “American Aspirations.”

Activist historians. Outrageous. They should have informed the White House before it published its criticism.

“There is always room for improvement,” Hartig told Congress, “but I also know the beauty and the inspiration and the expertise that lies in our collections, our exhibits, and our programming.”

Anyway, all those stickers and “en busca” bilingualism surely reframe the traditional narrative of our history. ¿Comprende, señores y señoritas?

“When historians talk about reframing a traditional narrative, we don’t mean erasing it,” Hartig told Congress. “We mean adding the evidence, the voices, the objects that earlier tellings left out so that more Americans can see themselves reflected in the national story.”

What about the Founding Fathers’ work?

“We honor the declaration, the Revolution, the Constitution, our national symbols, and we tell the truth about the times that the country fell short of its own founding ideals.”

So, Miss Smartypants Historian, where are they?

The National Archives, Google informed me.

Never mind, too far to walk.

Across all three floors of “In Pursuit,” I found plenty of woke “facts.”

“Within These Walls,” a 2 1/2-story Georgian timber-framed home transplanted after 200 years in Ipswich, Massachusetts, impressed me. Yet woke historians couldn’t resist pointing out that Chance Bradstreet, a 14-year-old boy, was enslaved there in 1777.

Mariano Martinez invented the frozen margarita machine in 1971 — in Texas! That’s America, folks. Did anyone ask for proof that he was born here? Because that’s American, too.

I was comforted by the display of trains, planes and automobiles and even reading about Black Pullman porters. Then I got to the part about them leading the struggle for equality. Just had to include that, didn’t they?

“Museum leaders have commandeered the world’s largest museum complex and admit that they intend to use it as a tool of societal transformation,” Mike Gonzalez, senior Heritage Foundation fellow, told Congress.

Just look. Artist Kat Rodriguez’s “Immokalee Statue of Liberty” was on display, shining light on marginalized immigrant farm workers.

We already have one Statue of Liberty welcoming huddled masses. Must we have two?

The Smithsonian has entire museums — the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the National Museum of the American Indian — for other-than-white perspectives.

If the president follows through on cutting their funds, would anyone object?

“As a Black man who grew up in segregation, who wasn’t allowed to go certain places, who drank from a water fountain that said colored, who found his mother and his father unable to do anything other than basic day work,” U.S. Rep. Kweisi Mfume said during Tuesday’s hearing, “if you erase it, we will replace it. It’s that damn simple.”

I left “In Pursuit” wondering.

I wondered if The Star-Spangled Banner kids were outraged. I wondered if the White House critics and congressional worrywarts saw the same exhibit I did.

And I wondered if they know the real lesson of history is how easy it is to be wrong.