The African American story, Obama said,\u00a0\u201cperhaps needs to be told now more than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
This\u00a0long-awaited<\/a> moment is being heralded by a weekend of celebrations across the city, in what the museum director Lonnie Bunch has called a \u201cmini inauguration.\u201d The most anticipated event was the opening ceremony, which included speeches from\u00a0Oprah Winfrey, Will Smith, Supreme Court\u00a0Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.\u00a0and former president George W. Bush, who signed the 2003 bill that authorized the museum.<\/p>\n Bush called the finished product\u00a0\u201cfabulous,\u201d saying: \u201cIt shows our commitment to truth. A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.\u201d<\/p>\n He gave credit to\u00a0Rep. John Lewis\u00a0(D-Ga.), who\u00a0spent 15 years<\/a>\u00a0fighting in Congress to make the museum a reality. When Lewis, a veteran of the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, took the stage Saturday, he had to take long pauses to contain his emotion.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were some who said it couldn\u2019t happen, who said \u2018you can\u2019t do it,\u2019 but we did it,\u201d Lewis said.\u00a0\u201cThis place is more than a building. It is a dream come true.\u201d<\/p>\n The building itself is striking: its\u00a0bronze-hued exterior and unusual shape stand in stark contrast to the buildings surrounding\u00a0it, and purposefully so<\/a>. Inside, visitors walk the path from slavery to civil rights to the Black Lives Matter movement, and everything in between. The familiar and the untold stories of history are shared through meaningful objects: from the shawl of Harriet Tubman to a candy-red Cadillac driven by Chuck Berry<\/a>, to the uneven-bar grips used by Gabby Douglas in the 2012 Olympics.<\/p>\n The objects, the museum\u2019s director told the audience, are \u201ca clarion call to remember.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot just the well known,\u201d Bunch said, \u201cbut also those famous only to their families, whose lives in quiet ways shaped this nation.\u201d<\/p>\n People traveled to the grounds of the Washington Monument from around the country to see the festivities \u2014 or at least watch\u00a0them on the Jumbotrons nearby. The Mall filled with tour groups, church congregations, fraternities and the occasional celebrities, including Samuel L. Jackson, Dave Chappelle and Rashida Jones. Black Civil War reenactors came as reminders of history; parents brought their children to witness the historic moment.<\/p>\n The day was especially emotional for Beulah Stowe Cary, 92,\u00a0who recalled how her parents\u00a0sent her to live with relatives when she was just three weeks old, because they feared the South was not a safe place for a biracial baby.\u00a0David Hudson, 63, spoke of the time he was chased out of a restaurant when he was just 8 years old.<\/p>\n Now, black children like him were in the crowd, listening to a black president say:\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re not a burden on America, or a stain on America, or an object of pity or charity for America. We are America.\u201d<\/p>\n Only a limited number of people were able to gain entry to the museum on its first day; pre-reserved timed tickets are currently required to enter the museum. They are sold out through the end of the year. (For those who want to visit\u00a0in 2016,\u00a0individuals can obtain up to four same-day passes from the visitor services staff each day\u00a0at 9:15 a.m., starting Monday. Tickets for 2017 have not yet been made available.)<\/p>\n Once visitors with the coveted first-day tickets navigated the long lines and sometimes-confused crowds, they had the chance to experience the power of the museum\u00a0that the opening day speakers had been trying to put into words.<\/p>\n In a back room on the museum\u2019s second floor, Samuel L. Wright Sr.\u00a0muttered to himself, \u201cJesus. Oh, man.\u201d There was the casket of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old boy who was murdered in 1955 for reportedly whistling at a white woman while visiting relatives in Mississippi.<\/p>\n Wright sang along to the old gospel song playing nearby:\u00a0\u201cPrecious Lord, take my hand.\u201d He looked at the bronze-colored casket and stood still as if he were paying his last respects. When he bent forward, he saw that behind the glass in the coffin lay a picture of Till\u2019s disfigured face.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was something terrible,\u201d he said, thinking of his own two children, and of the decision that Till\u2019s mother made to have an open-casket funeral for her son, to show the brutality that had been inflicted.<\/p>\n The funds for the Till exhibit were provided by the family foundation of philanthropist Peter Kovler, who was in the audience at the opening ceremony.<\/p>\n \u201cHow can you fail to see the links between current events \u2013 Charlotte, Tulsa, Black Lives Matter \u2013 and the brutal death of Emmett Till all those years ago?\u201d asked Kovler, who is white and Jewish. \u201cYou have to be deliberately not looking at things to not see that there are things from that era that apply to our era.\u201d<\/p>\n Inside, two visitors were discussing that very connection, near an exhibit that showcases the famous 1960 lunch counter sit-in in\u00a0Greensboro, N.C.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was dangerous for them,\u201d an older woman said of the young people\u00a0who were protesting.<\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately,\u201d the woman next to her said, \u201cIt still is.\u201d<\/p>\n As visitors made their way from the lower floors \u2013 which showcase slavery and\u00a0segregation\u00a0\u2013 to the upper galleries,\u00a0the mood\u00a0began to shift, just as the museum planners had hoped. There, moments of pride and progress are displayed in every corner. Visitors snapped photos of themselves next to a statue of Michael Jordan and Berry\u2019s cadillac.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, a few pieces of living history were\u00a0milling around the rooms.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re George Clinton? Get out of here!\u201d a woman squealed as she grabbed her phone to take a picture with the musician.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like a child in a candy factory,\u201d Clinton said. \u201cIt took so long, but I\u2019m glad it happened in my lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n He stood in front of the\u00a0Mothership, arguably the most iconic stage prop in all of American music, an object that added to the legend of Clinton\u2019s otherworldly concerts as leader of Parliament-Funkadelic.<\/p>\n \u201cAs President Obama said, this country is our country too. We\u2019re Americans. If this doesn\u2019t uplift you, nothing will,\u201d he said. \u201cThis should uplift everyone, not just African Americans but all Americans.\u00a0To get to the heights we have, with a black president. I\u2019m so proud.\u201d<\/p>\n The celebrations will roll on through\u00a0Saturday evening, with an invite-only gala at the Smithsonian\u2019s Arts\u00a0and Industries building and a free, public concert featuring Living Colour, Public Enemy and the Roots on the Mall. On Sunday, the cultural festival outside the museum will continue until 9 p.m., with music, spoken word performances and food tents. In an effort to fit in more visitors, the museum\u2019s hours are extended from 7 a.m. to midnight, for those with timed tickets.<\/p>\n Stephanie Hall, a 39-year-old teacher who scored Saturday tickets, felt that even if she could come back on Sunday, it wouldn\u2019t be enough. She wishes she could stay for\u00a0a week, to spend a day on each level of the complex museum.<\/p>\n \u201cI wish every curriculum writer in this country could take a tour of this museum to understand that you don\u2019t have to wait until Black History Month to talk about the contributions of African Americans,\u201d Hall said.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: Washington Post<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In a speech\u00a0filled with reminders of America\u2019s dark and not-so-distant past, and hopes for a brighter future, President Obama helped to inaugurate the\u00a0National Museum of African American History and Culture today in Washington. The\u00a0country\u2019s first black\u00a0chief executive stood\u00a0before a crowd of more than 7,000 official guests \u2014\u00a0and thousands more gathered on the National Mall \u2014\u00a0and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":252067,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[107],"tags":[12049,4030,1760],"yoast_head":"\n![](\"https:\/\/img.washingtonpost.com\/wp-apps\/imrs.php?src=https:\/\/img.washingtonpost.com\/rf\/image_960w\/2010-2019\/WashingtonPost\/2016\/09\/24\/Style\/Images\/bama_Smithsonian_African_American_Museum-1a18f.jpg&w=1484\")
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