SIGHTSEEING
Perseverance and Place:
A Review of the National
Museum of African
American History and
Culture
Zina Precht-Rodriguez
Columbia University student and
EUROM fellow at EUROM (2017)
T
he arduous struggle throughout history between the legal recognition of equal rights Herein lies a key design component of the museum— verticality— that informs the content
for African Americans and the actual implementation of these rights ironically as well as the visitor experience. Though verticality dictates the chronological display of
resembles the timeline of the National Museum of African American History African-American history by instructing visitors to walk forward through history, the
and Culture, otherwise known as NMAAH. Since 1915, the United States government has museum insists that “progress” cannot be understood through the same vertical means.
suggested the need for a educational center specifically dedicated to the experience of Progress is rather a churning of cycles; for every two steps forward there will always be at
African Americans. From then on, government advocates have mobilized legislation for the least one step back.
museum but have faced a series of barriers preventing its ultimate commission. In the face
of these barriers, black activists have seen the delay of the museum as a delegitimization of This complication of progress can be understood when contextualizing African-American
black history and culture— an affront to the distinct historical and contemporary realities history within the inception of a constitutional America. After the visitors pass through
faced by African Americans, and an aversion towards investing in the memorialization of an the claustrophobic and low-ceilinged exhibition area of pre-constitutional America, which
undivulged history. displays the history of the Atlantic Slave Trade-- from the capture of African peoples
illustrated through the display of small shackles used on children, to the commercialization
This drawn out history behind the making of the museum highlights the monumentality as well as the racialization of slavery illustrated through legal documents-- they then walk
of its successful commissioning in 2001 and opening in September of 2016, and explains into a drastically different space. The ceilings are suddenly raised at least five stories higher
why visitors are invited into the museum’s own history before they are instructed to enter and there is more space to walk around.
an elevator in order to drop down about 600 years in African-American history to the 15th
century. In this vein, the visitors gradually make their way from the basement that begins
the story with the Atlantic Slave Trade to the highest levels that celebrate black culture.
PICTURE 1: Visitors reach the beginning of the history exhibition, and are
depicted as they wait to depart the elevator | Zina Precht-Rodíguez
Observing Memories
ISSUE 1
50
Observing Memories
ISSUE 1
PICTURE 2: A statue of Thomas Jefferson hovers over the illuminated
phrase, while a black figure hovers in the background | | Zina Precht-
Rodíguez
51