A 100-year journey: The National Museum of African American History and Culture

[Cigar]

After a journey spanning more than 100 years, on Saturday, Sept. 24, the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), our country’s first national museum celebrating the history, culture, and contributions of black Americans, will open on the mall in Washington D.C.


In the words of the immortal Sam Cooke, “...it’s been a long time coming.”

The museum’s mouthful of a name—and its inelegant initialism, N.M.A.A.H.C.—testifies to a bureaucratic slog that began in 1915, when black veterans of the Union Army, together in Washington to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the war’s end, and fed up with the discrimination they found in the capital city, organized a “colored citizens’ committee” to build a monument to the civic contributions of their recently emancipated people. In 1929, Herbert Hoover appointed a commission, which included the civil-rights leader and educator Mary McLeod Bethune and the N.A.A.C.P. co-founder Mary Church Terrell, to come up with a plan. Unfunded and largely ignored, the commission languished, and was eventually dissolved by Franklin D. Roosevelt. The effort began again in the nineteen-seventies, with several abortive attempts at legislation and much controversy within the Smithsonian Institution, under whose aegis each national museum is administered. Finally, in 2003, George W. Bush signed the National Museum of African American History and Culture Act, which had been sponsored in the Senate by Sam Brownback and in the House by John Lewis, the project’s most consistent contemporary champion.


The NMAAHC is not the only museum dedicated to black history in the United States, of course. The oldest is located on the campus of Virginia’s historically black Hampton University:

Founded in 1868, the Hampton University Museum is the nation's oldest African American museum. With galleries dedicated to African American, African, American Indian and Asian and Pacific art and artifacts, the museum contains more than 9,000 objects representing cultures and people from around the world. Within its fine arts collection is the largest existing collection of works in any museum by the artists John Biggers, Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence and Samella Lewis.

In “Making a Home for Black History,” Vinson Cunningham gives a brief synopsis of that journey from idea to realization:


http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016...at-his-rallies

I give the Racist 30 Minutes ... Tops

[Peter1469]

I drive past that on the way to work every day. It is supposed to get hooked up with video on the outside (I saw stuff like that in Rome at Caesar's forum. Cool.

There was an African American Museum a couple of blocks east of this new one but one street off the Mall to the south, right behind the Smithsonian Castle (their HQ). It was smaller, but cool. Maybe it was not designated a national museum..., don't know. I wonder what they are going to do with that building now that the new one is up....

I will check out the new one soon. All of the Smithsonian museums are free. But their cafes are way over priced.....

[Chris]

That would be interesting to see.

I'm curious, is there something symbolic in the architecture of the building?

[Peter1469]

I haven't heard.

[Chris]

From one perspective, the building’s architecture follows classical Greco-Roman form in its use of a base and shaft, topped by a capital or corona. In this case, the corona is inspired by the three-tiered crowns used in Yoruban art from West Africa. Moreover, the building’s main entrance is a welcoming porch, which has architectural roots in Africa and throughout the African Diaspora, especially the American South and Caribbean. Finally, by wrapping the entire building in an ornamental bronze-colored metal lattice, Adjaye the architects pays homage to the intricate ironwork that was crafted by enslaved African Americans in Louisiana, South Carolina, and elsewhere.

More here: https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/building

[Standing Wolf]

In this case, the corona is inspired by the three-tiered crowns used in Yoruban art from West Africa.

Funny, I know nothing whatever about architecture and not that much about African headgear, but a picture of one of those crowns just flashed into my mind when I saw the photo of the building. Very evocative.

[jimmyz]

Funny, I know nothing whatever about architecture and not that much about African headgear, but a picture of one of those crowns just flashed into my mind when I saw the photo of the building. Very evocative.

[zelmo1234]

I think that it is Very Cool Looking. I will have to add that to the Bucket list.

[Cigar]

That would be interesting to see.

I'm curious, is there something symbolic in the architecture of the building?

Looks kinda scary to me ...

[Chris]

Powerful, not scary.