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The NMAAHC as seen from Constitution Avenue, NW.
Note the gap in the ornamental screen at the upper right,
which, from the interior, affords views toward the
White House grounds.

A Dream
A Dream

Deferred No More
Deferred No More
Photo © Alan Karchmer/NMAAHC

Long-Awaited African American Museum

Opens on Mall

by G. Martin Moeller, Jr., Assoc. AIA

In the early 1940s, African American artist Jacob Lawrence produced Migration Series, the museum is greater than the sum of its parts,
a remarkable group of 60 paintings now known as the Migration and it serves as a lens through which the myriad stories of African
Series. The stark yet lively images depict the mass movement of Americans—and of Americans in general—may be freshly interpreted.
African Americans from the rural south toward northern cities in the
early 20th century. Virtually every painting in the series is a great An Evocative Design
work of art in its own right, but taken together, they constitute a
powerful, multifaceted narrative of discrimination and hard-won The building itself is the work of a consortium of four architecture
advancement, of continuing struggle and perpetual hope. For many firms—Adjaye Associates, The Freelon Group, Davis Brody Bond,
viewers, this sequence of paintings captures the essence of the and SmithGroupJJR—which jointly won a design competition for
broader African American experience. the project in 2009. Its location, between the National Museum of
So it is with the recently opened National Museum of African American History and the Washington Monument, is both auspicious
American History and Culture (NMAAHC), the newest branch of in its public visibility and evocative in its proximity to many of
the Smithsonian Institution and the most striking addition to the the nation’s most hallowed landmarks. The site is not, however,
National Mall since the completion of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial especially large by Mall standards, defined as it is by the relatively
in 1982. The museum is more than just a building—it is a collection short block between 14th and 15th streets, NW, and further con-
of extraordinary artifacts arranged and presented in a way that tells strained by the curve of the latter as it swerves deferentially around
a complex, often difficult, yet ultimately uplifting story. Like the the base of the Monument Grounds. Fitting a large new museum

20 A DREAM DEFERRED NO MORE