This weekend, Washington is the place to be - to see and be seen - at the opening of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. Twenty-five years from now, there will be no African American in the United States who was not in this city on Saturday, Sept. 24, 2016. Just as 53 years after the event, there are no African Americans who did not participate in the 1963 March on Washington. And, yes, there is no adult African-American male alive who was not on hand for the Million Man March in 1995.
Of such stuff history, legacy and myth are made.
There are, to be sure, other galleries with exhibitions, programs and collections that document African-American life, history and culture. But the African American Museum's opening will go down as a seminal moment, not only for its more than 100-year journey to the historic Mall but also for its achievements in architectural building design, collections and artful presentations.
The story of slavery and freedom told so movingly inside the museum, however, is also a painful and shameful narrative heard beyond the building's grounds.