Museum-goers on the National Mall to witness the grand opening ceremony of the National Museum of African American History & Culture on Sept. 24. (AFRO/ Photos by Rob Roberts)
A steady flowing wave of attendees converged on Constitution and 14th Street NW Sept. 24 to the staging areas surrounding the National Museum of African American History & Culture. The eager well mannered crowd was pushing or carrying those who could not manage the walk, and engaging in light banter about what they expected to witness at the dedication ceremony for a museum that had taken more than 100 years to build.
For many, like nonagenarian Mary Saunders, the trip was their first to the nation’s capital, and one that resulted from a culmination of prayer, hope, and hard work. Moving through the crowd, pushing a collapsible chair/walker, Saunders said the atmosphere on the two-mile hike from L’Enfant Plaza to the museum was lit with emotion.
“There were several of us who had a little weep once we saw the building come into view because we remember the indignities of being little Black girls and rearing little Black
President Obama addresses the masses at the grand opening celebration of the National Museum of African American History & Culture on Sept. 24. (AFRO/ Photos by Rob Roberts)
children who were being told we were inferior animals,” the retired school teacher told the AFRO. “I taught my students all about the revolutionary idea of constructing a monument or memorial to Black Civil War veterans, so being able to see this building – and it is beautiful – dedicated to the world by our Black president, is so marvelous I can hardly contain myself.”
President Barack Obama pronounced that the museum was a prophetic space, where scriptural promises of the oppressed were being lifted out of the darkness of others’ minds. An assessment that dedication-goers such as Ashley Graham and Michael Smith said they found brilliant and poignant.
Museum-goers on the National Mall to witness the grand opening ceremony of the National Museum of African American History & Culture on Sept. 24.
(AFRO/ Photos by Rob Roberts)
“So many young Black people cannot find their footing in the education system or in society because they cannot see themselves represented as part of the nation.,” Graham, a Ward 8 resident, who works as an IT engineer, told the AFRO. “Obama is right that it is complicated and can be painful to examine Black history, but we did our part in the making of this country and deserve to be recognized for every defeat, challenge, and success.”
Obama encouraged the crowd of thousands, which also included large groups of Australian and British tourists, to embrace the ‘glorious story’ of African-American accomplishments as the American story.
Lonnie Bunch, founding director of the National Museum of African American History & Culture addresses thousands on the National Mall on Sept. 24. (AFRO/ Photos by Rob Roberts)
“I, too, am America. It is a glorious story, the one that’s told here. It is complicated, and it is messy, and it is full of contradictions, as all great stories are, as Shakespeare is, as Scripture is,” Obama said. “And it’s a story that perhaps needs to be told now more than ever.”
At a time when tensions of the present filled the minds of museum-goers as much as the successes of the past, some found it impossible to dislodge the two. Dallas native Diamond Esperanza told the AFRO that she felt overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of looking back, while contemplating the future.
Representing the 3rd Regiment of the United States Colored Troops of 1863 at the opening ceremony of the National Museum of African American History & Culture on Sept. 24.
(AFRO/Photo by Lauren Reynolds)
“There are people out here selling Black Lives Matter t-shirts alongside reusable bags with the First Family on them, even as a historic church bell is being rang to open the doors of this wonderful new treasure. Past and present are comingling in a way that, I think, is making everyone out here, take pause,” she told the AFRO. “We are celebrating our defiant assimilation into the social fabric of this nation, even as we fight to not be gunned down by police during traffic stops. It’s heavy… just really, very heavy.”
