A century after it was first proposed, a museum devoted to centuries of African-American history opened Saturday on the National Mall.
President Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and a 99-year-old woman who is a descendant of slaves rang a bell to open the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History.
“This national museum helps to tell a richer and fuller story of who we are,” the president said in an impassioned speech.
“Hopefully, this museum can help us to talk to each other. And more importantly, listen to each other. And most importantly, see each other. Black and white and Latino and Native American and Asian American — see how our stories are bound together,” Obama said.
The museum contains 36,000 items that trace the journey of African-Americans from slavery in the 1800s to the civil-rights movement in the 20th century.
Its exhibits include a Tuskegee Airmen training plane and the casket of Emmett Till, whose murder in 1955 helped rally the civil-rights movement.
Ruth Bonner, 99, and her family helped the Obamas signal the museum’s opening by ringing a bell from the historic First Baptist Church of Williamsburg, Va.
The church, believed to be among the first Baptist churches organized by black people, acquired its Freedom Bell in 1886.
Former President George W. Bush, who signed the law authorizing the museum in 2003, said the museum tells the unvarnished truth, that a country founded on the promise of liberty once held millions of people in chains.
A great nation does not hide from its history, Bush said — “it faces its flaws and corrects them.”
Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), the civil-rights icon who co-sponsored the law calling for its construction, called the museum “a dream come true.”
“It’s like walking across the desert and finally getting to a fountain of water to quench your thirst,” said Verna Eggleston, 61, of Brooklyn, who toured the museum. “It’s absolutely breathtaking for me.”
With Post Wire Services