The Opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Closing of a Wound
President Barack Obama gave a powerful and emotionally stirring speech Saturday, September 24, 2016, as he proclaimed the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington, D.C. The museum, located on Constitution Avenue NW between 14th and 15th Streets, was the fruit of more than 100 years of planning, debate, and resolve, starting with the establishment by President Herbert Hoover in 1929 of a special commission to study the creation of what would become the NMAAHC, the members of whom included activist Mary Bethune McLeod.
The President was joined on the dais by First Lady Michelle Obama, the direct descendant of southern slaves, President George W. Bush, who signed legislation in 2003 that created the mechanism for the $540 million museum to be constructed and First Lady Laura Bush, President Bill Clinton, often referred in jest as America’s first Black President and Congressman John Lewis of Georgia who carried forward the cause for the NMAAHC after the tragic death of Texas Congressman Mickey Leland in 1989 who was leading a codel to the Ethiopian-Sudanese border when fate interceded and stole this bright political star. Lewis in his own right could have a wing within the NMAAHC for his work as student leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and for the many times he was beaten by police in the south during the Freedom Rides of 1964 and during his participation in the March to Selma, AL over the Pettus Bridge.
Also present on the stage were members of the Bonner family, notably 90-year-old matriarch Ruth Odom Bonner. Ruth’s father, Dr. Elijah B. Odom, was a slave who escaped north from Mississippi in a bid for his freedom (One wonders if he ever crossed paths with Harriet Tubman, the famed first lady of freedom who risked her life in order to give new life to those enslaved brethren held in bondage during the height of slavery in the 1830s and 40s). Bonner would go on to graduate from medical school and become a doctor, successful raising a family of eight children (including a son, Vernon Odom, who would become a classmate of future civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. while attending Morehouse College and have a road in Akron, OH named after him), many of whom would bear witness to the enormity of Saturday’s event and the ringing of the bell from the historic First Baptist Church of Williamsburg, VA signifying the ringing in of this historic monument to achievement in the face of overwhelming odds.
In his speech, Obama said, “This national museum helps to tell a richer and fuller story of who we are. It helps us better understand the lives, yes, of the president, but also the slave. The industrialist, but also the porter, the keeper of the status quo, but also of the activist seeking to overthrow that status quo; the teacher or the cook, alongside the statesman. And by knowing this other story, we better understand ourselves and each other.”
These words are not lost in their meaning, particularly to those who argue against the very need for an NMAAHC or special recognition based solely on one’s race or gender. Having been fortunate enough to tour the museum a week in advance of its actual opening along with a good friend, that argument is quick to debunk. The museum’s footprint stands in the shadow of the Washington Monument but was designed architecturally to complement the structure in perfect symmetry. It is a stone’s throw from the South Lawn of the White House, a building whose own legacy is tied to the histories of the slaves who laid the bricks and mortar of this historic residence for free.
The layout and design can be daunting but was designed with a purpose and on purpose. As a visitor, you can quickly become overwhelmed by the images you see and encounter, but you are unable to run from them, from our past, that might shock or disturb you. It is this type of “in you face” stark reality that is needed to awaken our collective sensibilities and challenge us to think differently about the past and this country’s own inhumanity toward one another. Our trials and tribulations, our triumph over tragedy, our anger and anguish is tempered by an ability to reconcile, renew and reinvent ourselves. All of these emotional arcs are on full display in this the newest addition to America’s attic.
Our history is a shared history, principled, profound, and poignant. The diversity of this shared history is uniquely American as no country may boast the rich hues and vibrant tones that paint the events of our heritage and its people. The turning of the tide at Bunker Hill in Charlestown, MA is balanced with the tragedy of the colonial slave auctions in Baltimore; the Amistad decision is marred by the carnage at the Battles of Shiloh Creek and Antietam during the Civil War; the “Indian Wars” contradict our resolve that all men are created equal but the thirteenth (end to slavery), fourteenth (equal protection), fifteenth (African American right to vote) and nineteenth (Women’s right to vote) amendments to the U.S. Constitution fulfill a promise of hope that not only women and blacks but all Americans can secure the freedoms of liberty and participate in this country’s political experience.
The museum should not be viewed as the black history museum. Even though named the National Museum of African American History and Culture, it is, at its heart, a celebration of that shared history that binds our experience. Slavery is America’s original sin. There is no denying this fact or running from that truth, which is the very essence of our existence. Imagine the anguish and horror of having a loved one ripped from your arms, taken from the womb of the land that gave them birth, and transported thousands of miles over a brutal, unforgiving ocean only to be bound in chains, whipped, prodded and sold as cattle for the purpose of agrarian commerce. If you could look upon the face of the ones you love the most in this world and feel that pain of loss, you may only slightly come close to understanding the painful legacy of American slavery. It is this pain we must face and pledge to never again allow forces of wealth, influence, and power to divide and conquer us solely on racial, gender-specific, or religious lines in order to simply advance their interests at the expense of our moral foundation.
That we have never fully come to terms with this part of our history and, moreover, further victimize its descendants whenever they lift their voices in protest to brutality (“Black Lives Matter”), unjust and unfair conditions (“segregation” and “Jim Crow”), and the systematic murdering of children (“16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, AL, 1963” and “the lynching of Emmett Till in Money, MS, 1955”) is a further indication of the work still left to ensure that all generations of Americans present and future learn these important lessons of the past in order to better guide our decision making process and increase inclusion.
The opening of the NMAAHC should be celebrated for what it is, a chronicle of the American experience for all Americans, not just for some or for those believed to have a particular interest in the museum’s story because we all are vested in that story. The museum may not close all wounds but if it can help us begin a healing process and all important, long overdue dialogue, let it begin. For as Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
