The Museum Turns Ten

Stand on the National Mall and look for the building that does not look like the others. Every museum around it is white marble and columns. One of them is bronze, three tiers of latticework rising like a crown, glowing gold when the sun gets low. That is the National Museum of African American History and Culture. On September 24, 2026, it turns ten years old.

I want to tell you why that number matters, and then I want to tell you how to be there.

The idea is a hundred years older than the building. Black veterans of the Civil War asked for a national memorial in 1915. Congress said no, then said maybe, then said nothing, for decades. It took until 2003 for the law to pass, and until 2016 for the doors to open. The founding director, Lonnie G. Bunch III, started with no collection, no site, and no building. He built all three. Today he runs the entire Smithsonian.

On opening day, President Barack Obama rang a bell from a church founded by freed people. That bell, the museum said, was a signal to the whole country. Ten years later, the signal is still ringing.

Here is the museum by the numbers, and every one of them is a person who chose to show up.