The Smithsonian Opens a Museum of African American History

On 24 September 2016, the Smithsonian Institution opened the National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The inaugural ceremony, led by President Barack Obama, marked the realization of an aspiration dating back more than a century. In 1915, African American veterans of the Union Army, in the capital for a 50th anniversary parade, formed a committee whose funds later passed to a National Memorial Association that sought a building honoring Black contributions to American life. President Calvin Coolidge signed a law in 1929 creating a commission for the project, but after the stock market crash later that year the commission could not raise funds, and the planned building never materialized.

The civil rights movement and the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. revived interest. An initiative by Tom Mack, president of the Washington tour company Tourmobile Sightseeing, led to a 1986 joint resolution sponsored by Representatives Mickey Leland and John Lewis and Senator Paul Simon encouraging private efforts to build a memorial and museum. Yet the idea also raised apprehension among existing African American museums around the country, a concern the new museum's founding director would later work to ease by showing how all such institutions could benefit.