By Denise W., February 25, 2021 — My daughter and I were seeking tickets to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. This museum was a part of the Smithsonian institutions. It was established in 2003 and opened its doors in September 2016 with a ceremony led by President Barack Obama. This museum was free but obtaining access to this historical monument was challenging and frustrating. So I called the museum hoping to be on a long waiting list but that was to no avail. I wrote a letter requesting tickets far in advance; it didn’t happen. I researched group trips to go into the museum only to find that several were full and there were no guarantees for waiting lists. Entry into the museum required a time entry pass. Time entry tickets were available three months in advance, and same-day passes were available online starting at 6:30 am.
We were in Washington visiting my brother Don, and we were unsuccessful in securing tickets online, so I asked my brother to please pull some strings and allow my daughter and me to go to this museum. And his attitude was a little nonchalant, he basically told me that he was able to go the first night, but I had a feeling he wasn’t on a quest to finding our tickets. So, of course, I didn’t give up. On a subsequent visit to visit Donny in Washington, we decided to go to the museum and ask, “How can we get a ticket to get in? We have tried for two years with no luck.” The usher outside of the museum giggled and said, “Oh, do you want to go in today?” We anxiously said yes. He told us that all we needed to do was go to the back of the building, wait for maybe about 30 minutes and we would have access to the museum because they have a policy that the first 400 people standing in line will be able to just walk in. We couldn’t believe it.
So we waited for 20 minutes, to our surprise we were in and did the same thing the next day. I think it takes about two or three days to really visit the museum. And special points of interest were, Harriet Tubman’s shawl, Oprah Winfrey’s studio couch, a South Carolina slave cabinet, Chuck Berry’s Cadillac from 1973, and the Emancipation Proclamation was there. There were 37,000 rare artifacts on three floors. Muhammad Ali’s headgear, a Jim Crow railroad, Emmett Till’s casket, Nat Turner’s bible, the Green Barrell lunch counter that was a part of the protests, and Michel Jackson’s fedora were just a few of the fascinating things that we saw. And of course, there was another floor with the achievements of African Americans in every field — sports, history, scientists, etc. It was just amazing, and I am so happy, and one thing I did see was a hat shop. The hat shop was here in the Philadelphia area and that lady was featured in an exhibit because hats were very important and still are important to many people, particularly the Black churches. So, I was just so glad that we walked up and got in immediately after so many tries and that’s the end of my story.