visiting the National Museum of African American History and Culture and Mount Vernon

quick warning: i may be biting off more than i can chew talking about something like this but i am going to try my best. i hesitate to talk about more “real” topics online because so much can be misconstrued, but this was impactful, and i want to try to share it as best as i can.

the National Museum of African American History and Culture opened in DC in 2016 and being one of the more modern museums on the National Mall, it’s absolutely breathtaking. it’s a few stories tall and packed floor to ceiling with thousands of artifacts, quotes, and other pieces of history. we were there for a few hours, but i have a feeling you can go a few times and still never see it all.

some of the things that stick out in my mind are seeing Emmett Till’s casket and Nat Turner’s Bible - both left me actually speechless and you can’t help but feel shocked and ashamed at the ugliness of this part of our nation’s history.

when you’re in DC, you walk around and in and out of museums, seeing tons of things from centuries and centuries ago - things from our very first President or wars that were fought decades before i was even born. seeing how pieces in this museum are much more ‘recent'ly’ dated than you’d expect is just.. there are honestly no words. and we are still dealing with inequality and racism on this level. things have not changed. inequality on any level is just so wrong. there are no excuses, but there must be changes.

the museum does include celebratory artifacts and mementos, but it’s still so difficult to see when you know they’ve faced unethical and unimaginable discrimination for generations. out of all of the museums we went to in DC, this one definitely had the most somber tone - you could tell people were really taking in everything, and thinking about it, too. but i still have to say: we have to do better. we must do better.

the next set of photos may seem a bit random or out of place because they were taken at Mt. Vernon, not the museum, but while we were there, we learned that George Washington released his slaves once he died (it was in his will). it was the first time i had learned that he had these deeper reservations about slavery; to think he believed slavery needed to end for the nation to survive was just.. wow. imagine how different things would have been had he freed them while he was still alive. his wife did not make the same choice to free her slaves.

Mount Vernon travel tips:

don’t eat in the food court! go to the inn which is right next door. it might look fancy, but the prices are super reasonable and the food is amazing (not to mention it’s a lot quieter - there are usually a lot of field trips that stop at the food court).
don’t skip the interactive centers! they may seem geared towards children at first but there’s a lot of content and education there, especially the videos. and you can see George Washington’s teeth.
you could honestly make a full day out of this because the grounds are so expansive, and there’s room to just sit and enjoy being outside. but if you’re looking to focus just on historical stuff, you could also plan for about half a day.