I was going to roll-out this article in May, but because of the president’s unparalleled attack on the National Museum African American History and Culture on Friday in an Executive Order I thought it might be good to look at this museum now, before it can be changed. I am only going to highlight the museum’s treatment of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Just so you know, the museum does an extensive treatment of slavery before the war and it provides a very good recap of what went on after Reconstruction. It has exhibits on Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and the effort in the courts to have the government give full effect to the rights obtained under the 14th and 15th Amendments.
The African American Museum is located on the Washington Mall at 1400 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20560. Many of the landmarks on the mall are built according to Neo-Classical designs, but this museum sticks out. The museum was established in 2003 at a ceremony presided over by President George W. Bush. It was opened in 2016 by President Barack Obama. The architectural firm that was awarded the project Freelon Group/Adjaye Associates/Davis Brody Bond created a modern building that combined an inverted pyramid and a Yuruba crown, images closely associated with Africa.
As soon as the museum opened it was flooded with visitors, and high visitation numbers have continued to the present day. In 2024, a total of 1.6 million people visited it. Unlike other Smithsonian sites, you need an entry ticket to get into the museum. The tickets are free. Here is what the Smithsonian says about the tickets: “Visitors can reserve timed-entry passes online. All visitors, regardless of age, must have a timed-entry pass to enter the museum. The museum cannot always accommodate walk-up visitors.” When the museum first opened, you needed to reserve your ticket months in advance. However, today you should try to reserve two weeks in advance. Here is where you reserve a ticket.
When you are on the Mall, it is easy to recognize the building. If you have a ticket walk up to the entry. I have gone to the museum three times and there is always a line. The entry way passes you through quickly.
While the museum has been open for nearly ten years now, on the inside you may find crowds for some of the most visited exhibits which include slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. Please be patient.
The museum is next to the Smithsonian’s American History Museum and across from the Washington Monument. If you are bringing kids to the museum, you may want to combine visits to all three sites on the same day. Both the American History Museum and the National Museum of African American History and Culture have “unique” fast-food restaurants. Not to say the food is outstanding, but for children it will hold more pleasure than stopping at a McDonald’s.
While the visitation is quite large, the entry lobby is relaxed and uncrowded.
I will only discuss the exhibits on the Civil War and Reconstruction. However, if you are short on time, you should combine those two exhibits with the large exhibit on slavery. Some of the sources are from very old former slaves who were interviewed by WPA workers during the Depression.
When I was a boy, there were no African American museums, or exhibits in American history museums that dealt with the lives of Black people. Most white Americans knew something about George Washington Carve and the peanut, but most knew almost nothing about slavery and even less about Reconstruction. By the late 1960s, modern historians in response to calls to document Black history from the Civil Rights Movement, began researching that history and publishing more books on the African American past than ever before. However, while the literature was accumulating I can tell you as a man who went to dozens of historic sites every year, it was not until I went to Petersburg in 1980 that I saw anything about Black participation in the Civil War. Many of the battlefields did not have any exhibits connecting the war to slavery until almost the 21st Century! The National Museum of African American History and Culture does give a good reflection on our African American past and it also points us to a future where people of color, women, LGBT+, immigrants, and working class people can have their stories told in historically accurate museums.
From Kevin Levin
You may recall that Trump visited the museum during his first term. At first he requested a private tour, with founding museum director Lonnie Bunch, on Martin Luther King Day that would require the museum to close its doors to the public. Bunch refused to do so. When the tour was scheduled for the following month, Bunch was told that the president “was in a foul mood and that he did not want to see anything ‘difficult.’”
Bunch recalls the tour in his book, A Fool’s Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump.
Follow Reconstruction Blog on Social Media:As we descended into via elevator into the History Galleries, I tried to find ways to engage President Trump by explaining that the slave trade was the first global business and how its impact reshaped the world in ways that still resonate today As we continued through the gallery, we approached a section that examined how nations like Portugal, England, and the Netherlands profited immensely from transporting and selling millions of Africans. The president paused in front of the exhibit that discussed the role of the Dutch in the slave trade. As he pondered the label I felt that maybe he was paying attention to the work of the museum. He quickly proved me wrong. As he turned from the display, he said to me, ‘You know, they love me in the Netherlands.’ All I could say was let’s continue walking. (149)
