Pain and progress
Bam opens African-American museum
THE NATION’S first black President christened the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture on Saturday — urging visitors to confront the hard truths of the country’s past.
The exhibits inside the walls of the museum showcase not only the hard truths, but they also celebrate black heritage.
President Obama spoke at the emotional opening ceremony on Washington’s National Mall. He said the museum tells “an essential part of our American story.”
Shackles and auction blocks where humans were sold as property present the story of slavery in dramatic and straightforward terms alongside exhibits on African-American culture.
“A clear-eyed view of history can make us uncomfortable, but it is precisely because of this discomfort that we grow,” Obama said. “The truth strengthens us.”
The President was joined by Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), former President George W. Bush and hundreds of dignitaries, celebrities and civil rights leaders.
Ruth Bonner, the 99-year-old daughter of a man born a slave in Mississippi, helped Obama ring a bell to signify the museum’s offical opening.
The massive bronze and glass building holds thousands of items related to America’s black heritage inside its 85,000 square feet of exhibition space.
Items on display range from whips used to punish enslaved Africans, a segregated railway car from the 1920s, Chuck Berry’s red Cadillac Eldorado, and the coffin of Emmett Till, a teenager whose 1955 murder helped spark the civil rights movement.
“While the journey has been long, today the history of African Americans will finally take its place on the National Mall next to the monuments to Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson — exactly where it belongs,” Lewis said.