First Lady Michelle Obama and Former President George W Bush shared a sweet embrace at the opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of ...
First Lady Michelle Obama and Former President George W Bush shared a sweet embrace at the opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture on Saturday.
Michelle grasped Bush’s hand as they both smiled before Obama took the stage to deliver the final speech to officially open the museum, which has been in the works since 2003.
From the 3,000 objects now on display at the museum, it was a simple block of stone that Obama focused on as he began his lengthy and powerful address to a crowd filled with the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Will Smith.
The slave block, where thousands of men and women had been bought and sold, had a plaque next to it, commemorating the speeches of General Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay in 1830.
‘Consider what this artifact tells us about history, about how its told, about what can be cast aside,’ Obama began.
On a stone where, for years, men and women were torn from their spouse, shackled and bound….the singular thing we once chose to commemorate as history, were the unmemorable speeches of two powerful men.’
‘That block I think explains why this museum is so necessary,’ he continued. ‘Because that same object reframed, put in context, tells us so much more.’
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