“I cherish my own freedom dearly, but I care even more for your freedom,” reads a 1991 quote from former South African president and anti-apartheid revolutionary Nelson Mandela. The Contemplative Court shares some characteristics with similar spaces at other museums dealing with equally emotional content, such as the National September 11 Memorial & Museum and the United States Holocaust Museum. She finds the room to be both quiet and noisy, because of what she calls the waterfalls, but she is impressed and inspired by the quotes that adorn walls that look like they could warm you like a fire. “I think also when you’ve seen the whole museum you can come here, and think about what you saw. Slavery, and then it goes up and you can see the difference in the years and the changes that happen,” says Anna Pijffers, visiting from the Netherlands. “The scene down there-is pretty strong stuff. It is a space for deep thoughts and meditation. Others sit quietly, staring into the constantly shifting liquid pool. The water creates a sound that conveys something in the midst between a feeling of white noise, and calming relaxation. Lee Hing and Carey call it a great place to decompress.Ī cylindrical fountain rains into a pool in the center of the room, coming from a skylight above. They have a core of luminous mesh, striking a balance somewhere between opacity and translucency, and look as if a subtle light shines within them. It’s a gorgeous room, with caramel-bronze walls of Bendheim glass. The two were standing in a very special place within the museum, called the Contemplative Court. “Most of our visitors, by the time they come to the Contemplative Court," says Esther Washington, director of education, "will have visited the history gallery and that is a very emotional place.” We don’t want them to turn back the clock. You know what you don’t want them to go through, so this is a way to educate them. “You have to think of the future of our kids.
“This is a good way to remember, and to kind of keep your eyes on the prize,” Carey explains. On September 24, 2016, massive crowds filled the National Mall as President Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president, officially dedicated the new museum with the ringing of a bell to signal the official opening, after nearly a century of fitful planning.
“You want people to understand the struggles that African Americans went through, and the fact that this country was built on their backs literally,” Lee Hing says.īoth she and her sister, Nadine Carey, were focused on the positive as the museum celebrates its first birthday.
“īut Lee Hing says visitors shouldn’t want to deny the things that they see here. But when you see it, it comes back to the forefront of your thoughts. She’s from Jamaica, but now lives in Arlington, Virginia, and was on her second visit. “I was really angry with what I saw downstairs,” says Shelley Lee Hing. It can be a lot to take-especially the “Slavery and Freedom” exhibition that begins in the bowels of the museum, three stories below ground. The museum explores everything from the horrors of segregation to triumphs in music, the arts and the ongoing battle for civil rights. Visitors to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture are often overwhelmed by its heart-wrenching exhibitions.
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