For Years, the Smithsonian Strove to Bring the African American History and Culture Museum to the National Mall. Now, It Celebrates a Decade as a Beacon of Understanding, Community and Resilience

On a visit to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, Elizabeth Beckett stands proudly in front of a uniform worn by one of the thousands of Black men who worked aboard segregated trains, in palace cars built by industrialist George Pullman. They were called Pullman porters, and Beckett’s grandfather was among them. He died when he was 90 or 91,” Beckett recalls.

The first porters were recently emancipated men hired by Pullman starting around 1867 to staff the luxury sleeping cars. They did everything from serving gourmet meals to shining shoes to carrying baggage. Some were even forced to sing and dance.

The porters formed the backbone of the Black middle class, following the path of their wealthier white passengers to save money to send their children and grandchildren to college. That opened the door to opportunities they never had, and many descendants of porters went on to become influential figures in American society, including Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Just around the corner in the “Defending Freedom, Defining Freedom” exhibition is a gorgeous pump organ bought by Pullman porter Henry L.

Museum curator Mary Elliott, whose uncle was a Pullman porter based in Denver, says the organ is a symbol of the importance of the men who formed the first predominantly Black labor union, which was later crucial to the civil rights movement. In their everyday lives, Elliott notes, the job allowed porters like Long “to celebrate their being a community, being Black, being middle-class, even to acknowledge how far they had come, just gathering around an organ and singing.” Elliott says these are the connections she hopes visitors consider when they peruse the thousands of objects on view at the museum as it celebrates its tenth anniversary. It would serve as a living symbol of the importance of the nation’s shared history and the joy of celebrating a journey begun by African American Civil War veterans in 1915 who sought to get a museum built on the National Mall.

The decades-long effort got its final push with the bipartisan efforts of Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, a stalwart of the civil rights movement, and Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas; the bill establishing the museum was signed by President George W. During a recent visit, throngs of visitors wandered transfixed through the galleries at the museum known colloquially to some as the “Blacksonian,” a few crouching down to read the dense signage and panels that crowd the walls and exhibitions. Carolyn Harris came with her husband, Shawn, from Mount Vernon, New York, and says this museum is crucial to teaching young Black people about their history.

She also thinks the museum is important for those who aren’t African American, to understand “where we came from.” Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III, the founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, will commemorate the tenth anniversary on September 25 with a conversation moderated by the journalist Laura Coates. Founding deputy museum director Kinshasha Holman Conwill feels the occasion is more like the museum’s 20th anniversary because of all the longtime legwork the staff put in.