Национальный музей афроамериканской истории и культуры в Вашингтоне

Museum in Washington, DC

The National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), colloquially known as the Blacksonian, is a Smithsonian Institution museum located on the National Mall in Washington, D. C., in the United States. It was established in 2003 and opened its permanent home in 2016 with a ceremony led by President Barack Obama. Early efforts to establish a federally owned museum featuring African American history and culture can be traced to 1915 and the National Memorial Association, although the modern push for such an organization did not begin until the 1970s. After years of little success, a legislative push began in 1988 that led to authorization of the museum in 2003. A site was selected in 2006, and a design submitted by Freelon Group/Adjaye Associates/Davis Brody Bond was chosen in 2009. Construction began in 2012 and the museum completed in 2016. The NMAAHC is the world's largest museum dedicated to African American history and culture. In 2022 it welcomed 1,092,552 visitors, and was second most visited Smithsonian Museum, and eighth in the List of most visited museums in the United States. The museum has more than 40,000 objects in its collection, although only about 3,500 items are on display. The , 10 story building (five above and five below ground) and its exhibits have won critical praise.

The concept of a national museum dedicated to African American history and culture can be traced back to the second decade of the 20th century. In 1915, African American veterans of the Union Army met at the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in Washington, D. C., for a reunion and parade. Frustrated with the racial discrimination they still faced, the veterans formed a committee to build a memorial to various African American achievements. Their efforts paid off in 1929, when President Herbert Hoover appointed Mary Church Terrell, Mary McLeod Bethune, and 10 others to a commission charged with building a "National Memorial Building" showcasing African American achievements in the arts and sciences. But Congress did not back the project, and private fundraising also failed. Although proposals for an African American history and culture museum would be floated in Congress for the next 40 years, none gained more than minimal support. Proposals for a museum began circulating again in Congress in the early 1970s. In 1981, Congress approved a federal charter for a National Afro American Museum in Wilberforce, Ohio. The museum, built and funded with private money, opened in 1987. In the early 1980s, Tom Mack (the African American chairman of Tourmobile, a tourist bus company) founded the National Council of Education and Economic Development (NCEED). Mack's intention was to use the non profit group to advance his ideas about economic development, education, and the arts in the black community. Emboldened by Congress's action in 1981, Mack began using the NCEED to press for a stand alone African American museum in D. C. in 1985. Mack did not collaborate with other black led cultural foundations that were working to improve the representation of African Americans by Smithsonian and other federal institutions. Mack contacted Representative Mickey Leland about his idea for a national museum focusing on African Americans, and won his support for federal legislation in 1985. Leland sponsored a non binding resolution (H. R. 666) advocating an African American museum on the National Mall, which passed the House of Representatives in 1986. The congressional attention motivated the Smithsonian to improve its presentation of African American history. In 1987, the National Museum of American History sponsored a major exhibit, "Field to Factory", which focused on the black diaspora out of the Deep South in the 1950s. "Field to Factory" encouraged Mack to continue pursuing a museum. In 1987 and 1988, NCEED began lining up support among black members of Congress for legislation that would establish an independent African American national history museum in Washington, D. C. But NCEED ran into opposition from the African American Museum Association (AAMA), an umbrella group that represented small local African American art, cultural, and history museums across the United States. John Kinard, president of the AAMA and co founder of the Anacostia Community Museum (which became part of the Smithsonian in 1967), opposed NCEED's effort. Kinard argued that a national museum would consume donor dollars and out bid local museums for artifacts and trained staff. Kinard and the AAMA instead advocated that Congress establish a $50 million fund to create a national foundation to support local black history museums as a means of mitigating these problems. Others, pointing to the Smithsonian's long history of discrimination against black employees, questioned whether the white dominated Smithsonian could properly administer an African American history museum. Efn|A 1989 internal report by the Smithsonian's cultural equity committee released in January 1989 bluntly observed that the Smithsonian had a "shocking absence of minorities in senior level administrative and professional positions." Lewis and Leland introduced another bill in 1989. Once more, cost considerations killed the bill. The Smithsonian Institution, however, was moving toward support for a museum. In 1988, an ad hoc group of African American scholars—most from within the Smithsonian, but some from other museums as well—began debating what an African American history museum might look like. While the group discussed the issue informally, Smithsonian Secretary Robert McCormick Adams, Jr. publicly suggested in October 1989 that "just a wing" of the National Museum of American History should be devoted to black culture, a pronouncement that generated extensive controversy. The discussions by the ad hoc group prompted the Smithsonian to take a more formal approach to the idea of an African American heritage museum. In December 1989 the Smithsonian hired nationally respected museum administrator Claudine BrownEfn|Brown was assistant director for government and community relations at the Brooklyn Museum in New York City. Brown's group reported six months later that the Smithsonian should form a high level advisory board to conduct a more thorough study of the issue. The Brown study was blunt in its discussion of the divisions within the African American community about the advisability of a stand alone national museum of African American culture and history, but also forceful in its advocacy of a national museum of national prominence and national visibility with a broad mandate to document the vast sweep of the African American experience in the United States. The study was also highly critical of the Smithsonian's ability to adequately represent African American culture and history within an existing institution, and its willingness to appoint African American staff to high ranking positions within the museum. The Smithsonian formed a 22 member advisory board, chaired by Mary Schmidt Campbell,Efn|At the time, Campbell was the commissioner of cultural affairs for New York City, and the highest ranking African American public arts administrator in the United States. The creation of the advisory board was an important step for the Smithsonian. There were many on the Smithsonian's Board of Regents who believed that "African American culture and history" was indefinable and that not enough artifacts and art of national significance could be found to build a museum. On May 6, 1991, after a year of study, the advisory board issued a report in favor of a national museum, and the Smithsonian Board of Regents voted unanimously to support the idea. However, the proposal the regents adopted only called not for a stand alone institution but a "museum" housed in the East Hall of the existing Arts and Industries Building. The regents also agreed to keep the Anacostia Community Museum a separate facility; to give the new museum its own governing board, independent of existing museums; and to support the proposal for a grant making program to help local African American museums build their collections and train their staff. The regents also approved a "collections identification project" to identify donors who might be willing to donate, sell, or loan their items to the proposed new Smithsonian museum.

The Smithsonian Board of Regents agreed in September 1991 to draft museum legislation, The bill was criticized by Tom Mack and others for putting the museum in a building that was too small and old to properly house the intended collection, and despite winning approval in both House and Senate committees the bill died once more. In 1994, Senator Jesse Helms refused to allow the legislation to come to the Senate floor (voicing both fiscal and philosophical concerns) despite bipartisan support. In 1995, citing funding issues, the Smithsonian abandoned its support for a new museum and instead proposed a new Center for African American History and Culture within organization. The Smithsonian's new Secretary, Ira Michael Heyman, openly questioned the need for "ethnic" museums on the National Mall. Many, including Mary Campbell Schmidt, saw this as a step backward, a characterization Smithsonian officials strongly disputed. By the end of 2018, the museum had received just under 5 million visitors since it opened, 1.9 million of whom visited in 2018. It was the organization's sixth most visited museum, behind the National Portrait Gallery (2.3 million) and ahead of the National Zoo (1.8 million). The site was also designed to encourage collaboration between scholars and the public. The main feature of the web based initiative was the Memory Book application, which allowed individuals to contribute to the web site pictures, a story, or an audio application to spotlight unique experiences in African American culture.

In mid July 2020, the museum removed a controversial chart from their website titled "Aspects and Assumptions of Whiteness & White Culture in the United States" that had been put up on March 31. Some examples that were claimed to be part of white culture were objectivity; rational, linear thinking; emphasis on the scientific method; hard work being the key to success; delayed gratification; the nuclear family; self reliance; and being polite. After criticism, museum officials apologized and removed the chart, explaining that it did not contribute to the discussion as planned.