I was six years old the first time I visited Washington, DC. We had an aunt who lived nearby in Maryland and family was the focus of our visit, but we did a lot of tourist activities on that visit. We went to the Capitol, and the monuments on the national Mall. We climbed the steps to the top of the Washington Memorial. We gazed at the giant Statue of Lincoln and read the quotes on the walls of the Lincoln Memorial. We stood in front of the bronze statue in the Thomas Jefferson memorial chamber. We visited several of the museums of the Smithsonian Institution, including the history museum where we saw the displays of dresses of First Ladies of the United States and walked by rows and rows of antique farm machines.

Our family returned to Washington, DC again when I was a teenager and we repeated visits to many of the places we had earlier visited. This time we had an extensive tour of the capitol building where my aunt was then a congressional secretary. The capitol was undergoing some remodeling that year and our personalized tour included a glimpse from afar of the plans for the building that were hand drawn on linen cloth.

On neither trip, however, did we visit the National Air and Space Museum. It isn’t that our family would ever pass up a display of airplanes. Both of my parents were pilots and we all were interested in aviation. Rather, the National Air and Space Museum had not yet opened. The first time I got to visit that museum was when we took our Children to Washington, DC many years later. On that same trip we got to visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum which was fairly new at the time. We don’t get to Washington, DC very often, so we have not been to the National Museum of the American Indian. There always be more to see.

Museums have always been one of the things we have done as a family, both in the family in which I grew up and the family we formed after my wife and I were married. Susan and I continue to visit museums from time to time when we travel. We’ve been to museums in many different locations around the world. As a result, I pay attention to the opening of new museums and the changes in which museum displays and educational opportunities have changed over time.

With a daughter who lives in South Carolina, I’ve been considering a visit to one of our nation’s newest and long-awaited museums. The museum is located in Charleston, a little over 100 miles from where our daughter lives. We’ve never been to the coast of South Carolina so if we go, I think we’d plan a multi-day excursion from the home of our daughter and her family, but that isn’t out of the question. After all we are going to retire again this summer and we may well make a visit during the time between jobs.

There have been years of delays, but the International African American Museum has set its opening date for June 27, just after the Juneteenth holiday. The museum is situated in a $100 million building at Gladsden’s Wharf, which was once one of the most prolific slave-trading ports in the US. The building is constructed atop 18 stilts and is designed to not touch the ground as a sign of respect for the enslaved people who once walked the land below. The art and historic artifacts within the museum tell the story of the Middle Passage, in which millions of Africans were captured and forcibly brought across the Atlantic Ocean.

Despite the efforts of media personalities and politicians to stir up what has been labeled culture wars, and despite efforts to place limits on the teaching of the history of racism in this country, it is important for us as citizens to learn as much truth about our past as possible. The famous quote attributed to writer and philosopher Georg Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” rings true. And sometimes remembering the past involves being made uncomfortable by what is remembered. Learning to venture into areas of discomfort is part of developing critical thinking skills and developing true maturity. Discomfort, like pain, is an effective teacher.

I remember the dis-ease with which our family toured the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. For me personally it brought back memories of walking on the gravel pathways of Dachau Concentration Camp during a visit to Germany. Stepping out of comfort zones is a part of travel that results in growth in understanding and wisdom.

I expect that part of the process of visiting the International African American Museum will be to be made uncomfortable. As a white person who has enjoyed privilege that came in part from the history of exploitation of Africans, the museum may invoke feelings of guilt even though there is no recored of my family members having participated in slavery. Nonetheless I have needed to be educated about my own racism, often implicit racism. So while I don’t expect a visit to the museum to be comfortable, I do expect it to be a valuable education.

I am grateful for those who have preserved artifacts and curated collections and created museums where members of the public can come for learning and growing. I’ll continue to visit museums when the opportunity presents itself. Of course institutional museums are only one source of information and education, but they are an important source. They are accessible to all people. Museums are usually free or inexpensive to visit. And museums have come a long ways since the days of rows of glass cases of carefully labeled artifacts. Modern museums are filled with interactive experiences and multi-media and multi-sensory displays.

I’ll continue to pay attention to the opening of new museums and compile my own personal lists of museums visited and museums I hope to one day visit. I’ve still got a lot to learn.