The National Museum of African American History and Culture will open September 24 in Washington, but wherever you are, you can take a look now.
The newest addition to the Smithsonian Institution has nearly 3,000 objects and 12 exhibitions, along with 183 videos, to tell the story of America through the African-American lens.
President Obama will deliver remarks at the dedication ceremony. He and the first family got a preview of the museum September 14. Check it out yourself:
The museum contains about 7,900 square meters of exhibition space on five floors. It is located on the National Mall, where many of the other Smithsonian museums are located and not far from the towering Washington monument.
The museum is designed to take visitors through African-American history in the United States from slavery, on the lower level, to a reproduction of Oprah Winfrey’s television set upstairs and artifacts from Obama’s first presidential campaign.
History can be seen even from the shape of the museum, said Lonnie Bunch, the museum’s founding director. The bronze exterior of the building is actually a latticework based on historic ironwork created by African-American slaves and freedmen in the South, which fits into the goal of emphasizing the hidden history of African Americans, he said.
