President Obama said Friday that he hopes the opening of the African American History and Culture Museum on the National Mall will help people deal with the racial turmoil embroiling Charlotte, N.C., and Tulsa, Okla., and other cities besieged by violence after deadly confrontations involving the police.
“The timing of this is fascinating because in so many ways, it is the best of times but in many ways, these are also troubled times,” Obama said Friday during a White House reception honoring the celebrities, politicians and advocates who donated to the museum’s creation.
“History does not always move in a straight line and without vigilance, we can go backwards and as well as forward,” Obama said.
The museum opening “allows all of us as Americans to put our current circumstances in a historical context,” he said. “My hope is that as people are seeing what’s happening in Tulsa, or Charlotte, on television and perhaps are less familiar” with black American’s history, they “may step back and say, ‘I understand. I sympathize empathize. I can see why folks might feel angry and I want to be part of the solution as opposed to resisting change.'”
“My hope is that black folks seeing those same images on television and then visiting the museum will see the struggles of the past are connected,” but say to themselves, “‘I cannot and will not sink into despair.’ Because if we join hands, if we do things right, if we maintain our dignity, if we appeal to the better angels of this nation, progress will be made.”
Obama derided pundits and radio commentators who talk about the country’s racial problems in terms “bereft of context” and which ignore “history so people are just responding as if none of what is represented in this museum ever happened,” Obama said.
“And that’s true for all of us. So when I imagine children … wandering through that museum and sitting at the that lunch counter and imagining what it would be like to stand on that auction block, and then also look into Shaq’s shoes, and Chuck Berry’s red Cadillac, my hope is that this complicated, difficult, sometimes harrowing but, I believe ultimately, triumphant story will help us talk to each other,” he said.
He was referring to a civil rights era diner counter at the museum, as well as retired NBA center Shaquille O’Neal’s basketball shoes, and legendary musician Chuck Berry’s iconic car.
“And more important, listen to each other. And even more important, see each other and recognize the common humanity that makes America what it is,” Obama said.
