Black history finds home on National Mall

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Black history officially has a new, prominent place in America’s story.

With hugs, tears and the ringing of church bells, the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture opened its doors Saturday to help this nation understand, reconcile and celebrate African-Americans’ often-ignored contributions toward making this country what it is today.

President Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president, wiped away a tear as he formally opened the Smithsonian’s 19th museum with an impassioned 31-minute speech on the National Mall. His audience included two former presidents, leaders from all branches of the federal government, and first lady Michelle Obama, whose lineage has been traced back to slaves in the South. She, too, shed a tear as her husband spoke.

Obama noted one artifact in the museum: a stone marker from a slave block where Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay spoke in 1830. This item, Obama said, chronicles not just the fact that two powerful men spoke, but also that multitudes of slaves were “bought and sold, and bid like cattle.”

“This national museum helps to tell a richer and fuller story of who we are,” Obama said. “It helps us better understand the lives, yes, of the president, but also the slave. The industrialist, but also the porter; the keeper of the status quo, but also of the activist seeking to overthrow that status quo; the teacher or the cook, alongside the statesman. And by knowing this other story, we better understand ourselves and each other.”

Ground for the $540 million museum was broken in 2012 on a 5-acre tract near the Washington Monument, and construction was completed earlier this year. Millions of donors, known and unknown, contributed $315 million in private funds ahead of the opening.