Fulfilling a Dream: Breaking Ground on the National Museum of African American History and Culture

On Wednesday, February 22^nd, President Obama spoke at a ground-breaking ceremony for the Smithsonian's latest building on the national mall, the National Museum of African-American History and Culture.

This museum has been a long time coming and has met many roadblocks along the way. The first proposal for a such a museum came from black veterans of the Civil War, but their efforts faced the obstacles of the Depression and two World Wars. In the wake of the Civil Rights movement, a number of powerful politicians from the South also opposed the idea of such a museum and quietly moved to thwart any attempts to make it a reality. In fact, it was not until 2003, that bipartisan support in the Congress reached a point where an act to establish the museum could not only pass both houses but also receive the enthusiastic support of President George W. Bush.

Since that authorization, the museum's director, Dr. Lonnie Bunch, has been working on a herculean set of tasks. First, he had to raise the money for the museum, since Congress had authorized very little funding; then he had to find an architect to design the museum and embody its vision; and finally, he had to gather the materials together and create exhibits that would address both the painful history of the African-American experience under slavery and the incredible richness of African-American culture.

I had the privilege of listening to Dr. Bunch describe this endeavor at a Stanford lecture last May. He is a born story-teller, and his audience was rapt with attention as he talked about making a visit to Philadelphia to meet a man who claimed to have Harriet Tubman's shawl. Dr. Bunch admitted to having a lot of skepticism about these claims, but he was amazed to find that the shawl was an inheritance from Harriet Tubman's great niece and that underneath it, her descendants had also discovered her hymnal.

More recent artifacts that will appear in the museum include a Louis Armstrong trumpet, a James Brown suit, and the entire Parliament Funkadelic Mothership stage set, which was found in Tallahassee, Florida. But the real sense of history comes from more than 8,000 oral interviews which museum staff have conducted as they toured the country and encouraged people to bring forward their personal family treasures for evaluation and conservation. Many of these items have been donated to local museums around the country, but a few treasures will make their way to the Smithsonian as part of this new museum.

It is easy for some to dismiss a museum of African-American history and culture as an institution that only addresses the experiences of one group of American, that it really only speaks to them and not to us. It can and should be uncomfortable for many of us to acknowledge the history of those who were not allowed to be full participants in our democratic republican. In fact, one could argue that a majority of Americans did not enjoy this full participation until the beginning of the 20^th century.

But we miss the opportunity to fully understand our own history if we fail to include the experience of those whose voices are not at the forefront of most historical narratives, and who were excluded from positions of power because of their race, ethnicity, or gender.

When I visited Washington, D.C. some years ago, I spent several hours in the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, marveling at the beauty of so many Native American art forms and feeling a tremendous sense of sadness and loss at the suffering of so many tribes and how close many came to losing their identity as their numbers dwindled.

I left with a deeper sense not just of Native American history but also with a better understanding of my own history as an American and the ongoing struggle we have as a nation that is still coming to terms with its treatment of indigenous people, the thousands of Africans brought here under slavery, and the other racial and ethnic groups who at one time or another were denied the rights of full citizens.

As Dr. Bunch stated in an interview he gave as part of his visit to Stanford, “The truth is that America’s expansion of the idea of liberty itself is tied to the history of African Americans. Our optimism, spirituality, resiliency…these are the contributions that have African Americanized American culture as a whole.” Dr. Bunch' s vision for this museum is certainly not one that sees it as a place for African-Americans alone but where he hopes all Americans will come to learn, to grieve, and to celebrate.

President Obama echoed these sentiments at the ground-breaking ceremonies alluding to his hopes for his own daughters and for all American children who might visit and learn from such an institution.

I think about my daughters and I think about your children, the millions of visitors who will stand where we stand long after we're gone. When our children look at Harriet Tubman Shaw or Nat Turner's bible or the plane flown by Tuskegee Airmen, I don’t want them to be seen as figures somehow larger than life. I want them to see how ordinary Americans could do extraordinary things; how men and women just like them had the courage and determination to right a wrong, to make it right.

So when this extraordinary museum opens its doors in 2015, I hope that many of you will take the opportunity to see what Dr. Bunch, the Smithsonian staff, and countless donors and contributors have achieved. I plan to be there to witness the tragic history of slavery, the indomitable spirit of Harriet Tubman, and the joyous music of Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, and so many others. And I certainly plan to bring my kids.