“The great force of history,” James Baldwin once wrote, “comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do. It could scarcely be otherwise, since it is to history that we owe our frames of reference, our identities, and our aspirations.”
Though written long ago, Baldwin’s words about the power and complexity of history certainly inform an understanding of the new National Museum of African American History and Culture that opened in Washington just last weekend. The museum is a testament to the significance and weight of African-American culture, life and history; it is also, as the museum’s director, Lonnie Bunch, has argued, a “clarion call to remember” the histories and voices of people, both known and unknown, who helped shape the nation.
At this weekend’s opening ceremony, the mood resonated to that clarion call, as speakers emphasized the museum’s mission to explore the “resiliency, optimism and spirituality” of African-Americans while helping to shape the public conversation on African-American history. Standing in front of the striking museum building (400,000 square feet clad in dark bronze filigree and located among the other historic icons of the National Mall), President Barack Obama opened his speech by locating power in the story of how African-Americans have “wrested triumph from tragedy” in the service of American values and ideals of democracy. Explicit in the president’s remarks was the weight of this historical moment; explicit in the president’s presence was the transformative power of history. That was also evident in the museum’s very creation: the steadfastness of museum staffers and supporters in the face of consistent political opposition, the dedication to the grueling work of assembling the collection and the painstaking curation of more than 36,000 ephemera and artifacts related to African-American life and culture.
[For more of this story, written by Leah Wright Rigueur, go to http://billmoyers.com/story/mu...erican-history-past/]
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