Three stacked tiers of bronze lattice announce the National Museum of African American History and Culture as a statement of intent.
The bronze-latticed corona rising in three stacked tiers was designed by architect David Adjaye, a British-Ghanaian architect, inspired by the Yoruba crown of West Africa. The lattice pattern is drawn from ironwork created by enslaved African American craftsmen in the antebellum South. The building looks as though it is growing upward from the earth — an architectural representation of what it means to emerge from history rather than stand apart from it.
This was the last major Smithsonian museum to be built, opened in 2016 after decades of lobbying by African American veterans, historians, and members of Congress. The collection spans the history of African Americans from the Middle Passage through the present: shackles from slave ships, a segregated railcar, Muhammad Ali's boxing gloves, a piece of the Edmund Pettus Bridge from Selma.
The museum has five floors below ground level. The underground levels are the historical floors, beginning with slavery and moving forward through time. As you descend, the walls press closer and the light dims. As you ascend through the decades, the building opens and brightens.
One of the most quietly devastating objects in the collection is a small iron box used to transport the last will and testament of an enslaved woman. She could not inherit. She could not own property. She could not be free. But someone thought to save the document that recorded what she wanted.
The museum's exterior corona glows copper-gold in certain light. From the Mall, you understand that something extraordinary has been placed here.