Black History Month 2026: The National African American History & Culture Museum


I have wanted to go to the National African American History Museum since it opened in 2016. I wanted to learn more about the contributions of African American's to our country's history and what they have endured to make them. Our country isn't the clear cut beacon of democracy that we like to portray it. 


Given the current administration, I decided I needed to go there soon while the museum was still open and intact. I planned a trip from February 21-25, 2026.


I wanted to get this post up while it was still February, Black History Month, which it barely is. This post will mainly consist of pictures I took with my iphone in the Museum and around D.C. The Museum is huge. It starts underground with our--I'm trying to think of an adjective, but I can't--history of slavery. I'm mainly going to let the photos speak for themselves. But as the words in the above photo admit: it's not like they didn't know how what they were doing with slavery, but they wanted their sugar and rum.


Manacle


The Middle Passage





Iniquitous scheme




Built by slaves.
 


Fighting to save a union that recognized them as three fifths human.











Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, third president of the United States, and world class hypocrite. He knew slavery was wrong, but he didn't want to give up his lifestyle.





Above is from the Museum of the Bible, another museum I went to in D.C.

 

Above, the Martin Luther King Memorial


Above and below: from St. Dominic's Catholic Church, St. Martin de Porres, a black Dominican friar, the patron saint of social justice.



Jesse Jackson: Rest in Power and in Peace. 


Megdar Evers: an American and civil rights hero



Race Discrimination Breeds Fascism: ripped from today's headlines.


From an exhibit at the Library of Congress: the contents of Abraham Lincoln's pockets on the night he was shot.




A nighttime tour of the monuments on Tuesday, February 24, 2026, the evening of the State of the Union. I had the better view.








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