One million visitors: Smithsonian's new black history museum hits milestone

Response to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture has exceeded all expectations.

More than 1 million visitors have passed through the doors of the Smithsonian's newest museum since it opened almost five months ago, and that number is expected to top 6 million in the first year.

The museum announced Monday that the milestone it reached last week not only revealed extraordinary crowds but also extraordinary stays. Visitors lingered for an average of six hours or more on weekends compared to the one or two hours most museum directors expect to hold visitor interest.

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“The best part is that the museum has struck a chord because people really wanted to see this story, to understand this story, to see the collections,” says Lonnie Bunch, the museum director. “And that’s what’s been happening.” Among the latest visitors: President Trump, accompanied Tuesday by his daughter Ivanka and Ben Carson, whose groundbreaking work as a neurosurgeon is featured in an exhibit.

Visitors want to stay all day, and they also want to eat a good meal. The Sweet Home Cafe is one of 20 Best New Restaurant semifinalists nominated for the 2017 James Beard Foundation Awards, one of the few museum restaurants ever to receive this honor. 

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The new museum opened last September with much fanfare. Then-President Barack Obama was joined at the ceremony by former President George W. Bush, who had signed the legislation authorizing the museum and urged that it be built on the National Mall, and by members of Congress and a host of celebrities.

There are other museums focusing on African-American history, including the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum scheduled to open in December in Jackson, but few are likely to attract as much attention as the new 400,000-square foot museum on the National Mall.

Civil rights activist Dorie Ladner, who grew up in Mississippi during the 1950s and 1960s, says a national museum of black history was beyond her “wildest dreams.”

“I was really in awe that all our history was under one roof,” says Ladner, who donated a sweatshirt from the Million Man March of 1995. “The continuity of the history was so profound.”

The museum, however, has faced challenges, from long lines to scrambles to get tickets, which are free but required. Some visitors say the exhibits don’t show a wide enough array of contributions, particularly from scientists and inventors.

“The museum has done a tremendous job of illustrating our plight from slavery through Jim Crow through present day,” says Deanne Adams of Owings, Md. “It’s a very emotional journey, and at the end you see all the contributions that we’ve made to entertainment and sports and it’s amazing.’’

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Still, Adams, a mother of four, had hoped for more exhibits on African-American inventors to inspire her three sons. “Where we’ve missed the mark is highlighting the hundreds of contributions that we have made to science and technology,” she says. “We could have highlighted that better for our young generations. I’m hoping that this museum is going to be evolving and that more exhibits like that are to come.”

The museum traces the history of African Americans from slavery to the present with its 11 inaugural exhibits, which pay homage to African-Americans in music, sports and history, especially the civil rights movement.

With nearly 40,000 items in its collection, officials plan to rotate artifacts. There are no plans yet to change exhibits.

“Let the public engage with these exhibitions that were years in the making,” Bunch says. “It’s premature to talk about change because there’s still so many millions of people who want to get in to see what we’ve done.”

That interest has produced huge crowds. Lines for the history galleries, which are underground, are sometimes so long that the wait can take hours.

Sharlene Kranz of Washington, D.C., called the galleries dark, narrow and “scary crowded.”

There’s “so many people so intent on absorbing this experience that everything moves very slowly,” says Kranz, who has visited three times. “People come, and they stay for hours and hours ... They’re not breezing through and getting an overview. They really want to take in everything the museum has to offer.”

Bunch says: “What long lines tell us is that the public cares about this in large and record numbers. ... We will do everything we can to mitigate (the lines).”

Museum officials are working to better use the entire building by directing visitors to exhibits on upper floors.

Early in January, advance online passes for April were being snapped up within hours. Scalpers have jumped on the demand for tickets, and Bunch says there’s little officials can do about it.

But distribution of same-day timed entry passes recently changed to let visitors get tickets online or come after 1 p.m. In the past, some have lined up as early as 7 a.m. only to learn that there were no more passes.

“I (didn’t) want all those people standing in line outside the building especially as winter came,” Bunch said. “Our goal is to help the visitor have the best customer experience they can.”

The museum plans to continue timed passes for a year and then evaluate the system.

Plans are also in the works for more educational programs. The museum is training more volunteers as docents to offer tours once visitor numbers level off.

“It’s important that the African-American experience be documented like this,” says Trey Baker of Grenada, Miss., who visited in September. “It’s truly amazing to see that we can go from that King Cotton exhibit, where people were picking cotton by hand to ... the ascension of black people in this country. I don’t think any single group has come as far in as little time.”