African-American museum tells ‘story of all of us,’ Obama says
WASHINGTON >> President Barack Obama on Friday celebrated the pending opening of the Smithsonian’s new African-American museum and said the institution, decades in the making, is a powerful place because it tells “the story of all of us,” not just the famous.
Obama also said he hoped the museum would help people bridge divides that were re-exposed by the latest fatal, police-involved shootings of black men.
The country’s first black president, Obama was scheduled to preside over an outdoor ribbon-cutting ceremony Saturday morning for the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which was built on the National Mall in the shadow of the Washington Monument.
“The thing about this museum is that it’s ... more than just telling stories about the famous. It’s not just about the icons,” Obama said at a White House reception celebrating the museum. He added that the museum has plenty of space to feature black icons like Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali and others.
“What makes the museum so powerful and so visceral is that it’s the story of all of us, the folks whose names you never heard of, but whose contributions, day after day, decade after decade, combined to push us forward and the entire nation forward,” Obama said, mentioning maids, porters and others who stood up for themselves despite daily assaults on their dignity.
Obama pointed out that the hundreds of people who were invited to the reception in the Grand Foyer included artists Quincy Jones and Phylicia Rashad, astronaut Mae Jemison and Oprah Winfrey, “the woman who owns the universe.” Civil rights legends like Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., and Jesse Jackson attended, along with representatives of a new generation of activists, including DeRay Mckesson of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Everyone in the room can think of an unsung hero, Obama said. “But the point is that all of us cannot forget that the only reason that we’re standing here is because somebody, somewhere stood up for us,” he said. “Stood up when it was risky. Stood up when it was not popular. And somehow, standing up together, managed to change the world.”