National Museum of African American History and Culture

The Museum of African American History, in Washington

The National Museum of African American History and Culture retraces, with respect, the history and the heritage of the African Americans, on the National Mall. The Washington audio-guided tour stops here to evoke this place of memory and celebration, witness of the painful pages of slavery as of the richness of a culture.

The African American memory and heritage

Here is the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is divided into three great parts. This museum, the most recent of the Smithsonian on the National Mall, is entirely devoted, with gravity and pride, to the history, the culture and the contributions of the African Americans. Its singular architecture, a building with a bronze hue evoking an inverted crown inspired by African art, distinguishes it immediately from the classical buildings around. The course retraces first the darkest and most painful pages of this history: the slave trade, the slavery undergone by millions of men, women and children deported from Africa, then the segregation and the long struggle for civil rights. These sections, addressed with respect and emotion, are an essential duty of memory. But the museum also celebrates, in its other parts, the extraordinary contribution of the African Americans to American and world culture: music, from jazz to gospel, literature, sport, the arts, as well as the figures and the struggles that changed the nation. A place of history and transmission, the museum invites to understand and to honour this past. A place of memory and celebration, the Museum of African American History is discovered with respect.

What to see

Here you discover, with respect, the museum devoted to African American history and culture, with a singular architecture in a bronze hue evoking African art, which retraces the painful pages of the slave trade, slavery, segregation and the struggle for civil rights, and celebrates the extraordinary contribution of the African Americans to music, the arts and the nation. The Museum of African American History is a place of memory in Washington. It is a stop to be discovered with respect.

Practical information

The National Museum of African American History and Culture lies on the National Mall, in Washington, reachable on foot and by public transport. Entry is generally free, but a booking is often necessary because of the affluence; the visit follows its own hours and conditions. It is best to check them before coming and to approach this place of memory with respect.

What is the Museum of African American History of Washington devoted to?

To the history, the culture and the contributions of the African Americans: it retraces, with respect, the painful pages of the slave trade, slavery, segregation and the struggle for civil rights, and celebrates their extraordinary contribution to music, from jazz to gospel, the arts, sport and the nation, in a building with a singular architecture inspired by African art.