" Usually Americans have traditionally viewed questions of race as ancillary episodes, interesting but often exotic eddies outside the mainstream of the American experience. Thus, it was important for the [Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture] to demonstrate through its interpretive frameworks that issue of race shaped all aspects of American life: from political discourse to foreign affairs to western expansion to cultural production.... It was also essential that the stories of the museum featured reflect the tension between moments of pain and episodes of resiliency. This must not be a museum of tragedy, but a site where a nation's history is told with all its contradictions and complexity. "
― , A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump
![quote : Usually Americans have traditionally viewed questions of race as ancillary episodes, interesting but often exotic eddies outside the mainstream of the American experience. Thus, it was important for the [Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture] to demonstrate through its interpretive frameworks that issue of race shaped all aspects of American life: from political discourse to foreign affairs to western expansion to cultural production.... It was also essential that the stories of the museum featured reflect the tension between moments of pain and episodes of resiliency. This must not be a museum of tragedy, but a site where a nation's history is told with all its contradictions and complexity.](/image/2853514.jpg)