Full Circle

Before the National Museum of African American History & Culture opened its doors in Washington, D.C., four women helped bring the project to fruition. Theirs is a little-known story of power, politics and persistence. Prayer too.

- Donna M. Owens

From points near and far, four women have journeyed to the nation’s capital on a collective pilgrimage, one that’s taken more than a decade to fulfill. La Rochelle Young has flown in from Kansas. Kerri Speight Watson traveled from Oklahoma. Donnice Turner made her way from Maryland, while Tammy Boyd, a D.C. resident, zipped across town in an Uber.

These friends have arrived at the National Museum of African American History & Culture, which was gloriously unveiled on the National Mallback in September. The structure, with its copper penny color and slanted tiers that stream sunlight, has an architectural design that evokes an intricate African crown. That symbolism is fitting because the $540 million museum represents a crowning achievement—a fulfillment of an idea first proposed by Black Civil War veterans more than a century ago.

“It’s exciting, thrilling in a sense, to be here,” says Turner, an Atlanta-raised attorney who is a nationally recognized policy adviser. “I’m glad that I’m seeing it for the first time with these ladies. We were told none of this would happen. It’s beautiful.”

Back in 2000, they were all young, idealistic congressional aides who had embarked on a seemingly uphill battle to enact legislation that would establish the museum. “My boss, Senator Sam Brownback, loved to run past all the beautiful monuments and museums along the National Mall,” recalls Young, now a deputy director at the Kansas Department of Children and Families. “He wondered why there wasn’t anything special to commemorate African-Americans.”