By: Tye Dennis, Staff Reporter
On Labor Day, the National Museum of African-American History and Culture opened its doors for the first of the Walk-Up Weekdays, a pilot program for no pass entry to the museum. Every weekday in September, visitors can enter the museum without pre-registering for a timed pass.
The museum entrance is surrounded by serene scenery. It faces the Washington monument as a fountain runs along the entry and exit points accompanied by marbled benches where you can hear the chatter and anxious excitement of those who have yet to enter and see the transformed expressions of those exiting who had experienced the enormous brown building.
Floretha Loftan, a 75-year-old African American woman says the museum is a part of her legacy and its points her to the way of how to think for the next revolution because it’s coming.
Particularly, if you are white the museum is a must-see because whites need to see that it is a privilege to even have black people in the country and how without them they wouldn’t have been able to survive,” Ellen Smith, a 56-year-old Caucasian visitor.
“What sets this museum apart is the amount of time and dedication that went into the museum. The fact that it’s all for us reminds me of Howard,” said Leah Scott, a sophomore at Howard University.
Though the museum opened at 10 a.m., the entry into the museum was still speedy. Visitors passed through the metal detector, and then were free to explore the airy, light-filled museum.
A feeling of comfort seems to have overwhelmed visitors inside the museum. It had a peculiar taste for brown, with almost every corner of the museum decorated with various shades from the lightest of tans to the darkest of cocoas.
The deliberate usage of the color brown in a peaceful sense fights the world’s view of the color brown as a threat. This museum truly caters to the black individual reminding you your skin is a color of peace while educating you on those with the same melanin production who have done what you think is impossible, who have been where you are, who have felt what you feel. In that, you leave stronger knowing that you can do anything because it has been done, yet you also leave more aware knowing there is much, much more to do.
