More than 30,000 people visited the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture (NMAAHC) during its opening weekend in September. Tickets to the museum are sold out for the remainder of the year, and a new batch of recently released tickets are nearly sold out for the first three months of 2017.
The museum opening comes a century after the idea of creating a museum dedicated to black history was first proposed and a decade after Congress authorized its development.
"Today, as so many generations have before, we gather on our National Mall to tell an essential part of our American story — one that has at times been overlooked — we come not just for today, but for all time," President Barack Obama said at the opening ceremony of the NMAAHC.
Museums focusing on African-American history are increasingly popular attractions, highlighting a growing trend of tourism aimed at black tourists. Washington, D.C., is already coming off a record-breaking year in tourism in 2015, and the opening of the NMAAHC has many expecting the number grow even more for 2016, especially among African-American tourists.
"This is an untapped market to great extent," John Gerner of Leisure Business Advisors told Marketplace.
Research shows that 17 percent of African-Americans take one or more international trips per year and spend $48 billion in travel in the U.S.
"We're underrepresented in presentations on the Mall. We have the MLK memorial and this. We have very little going on down here," said Dr. Frank Smith, co-chair of the DC Host Committee in a news conference on Sept. 7. "We're glad to have the new museum because it will raise the profile that various African-Americans are making and will be beneficial to us."
Washington, D.C., is not the first city that has attempted to both bring awareness to black history through its attractions and also build rapport to gain black tourists. In the South, where the laws of segregation played a pivotal role in the rise of the Civil Rights Movement, there is a notable trend in the rise of Civil Rights Museums.
This exhibit at the NMAAHC represents the Black Power salute given by African-American medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.
In Memphis, Tennessee, the National Civil Rights Museum attracted more than 250,000 visitors in 2015 — up 27 percent from 2014 — and generated more than $4 million in income last year. Opening in 1991 at the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, the museum went through renovations in 2013 and 2014.
"It's a sign of the times," Faith Morris, the museum’s chief marketing and external affairs officer, told Skift. "Folks are still fighting for voting rights, that's in the news right now. We've got modern-day slavery going on right now."
Atlanta is already home to the Martin Luther King Jr. Historic Site, which includes King's birth home, the original Ebenezer Baptist Church where King and his father preached, and his grave site. But it is also home to the National Center for Civil and Human Rights.
"It became really clear that they believed ... it was important to connect it to the current issues of the world and the United States," Shirley Franklin, the board chairwoman of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights told CNN.
Opened in 2014, the National Center for Civil and Human Rights is located next to the Georgia Aquarium and the World of Coca-Cola. The location helps to advertise Atlanta's other tourist attractions.
"If someone goes to one [attraction] and they're inspired, it makes them more likely to go to another. Civil rights and human rights should be Atlanta's signature, destination topic, like New Orleans and jazz," center CEO Doug Shipman said.
Both Memphis and Atlanta have helped paved the way for other cities looking to expand their African-American tourist attractions. In December 2017, the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum is expected to open. It will be the first state-constructed-and-operated civil rights museum.
"This is going to make a powerful statement, I think, not only to the state but to the country,'' said William Winter, a Democrat who was governor from 1980 to 1984, told Al Jazeera America. "That in Mississippi, we now understand the importance of the participation of both races, of black folks and white folks working together, to build a state. And out of that come the mutual respect and understanding of our common humanity, at the same time that we understand the differences of the history that go into our respective backgrounds.''
This exhibit at the NMAAHC highlights a carving of a priest by Nigerian sculptor Olowe of Ise.
South Carolina, where racial tensions have been high in recent years, will open the International African American Museum in 2019. The museum couldn't come at a better time as the Palmetto State has seen a 5 percent increase among African-American tourists since the removal of the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds.
"We need to recognize that the fear of racial discrimination is real," Simon Hudson, director of the SmartState Center of Economic Excellence in Tourism, told The Root.
"As tourism providers, we need to better understand travelers from a diverse array of backgrounds and be able to cater to their particular interests and needs."
Moving up to the North in New Hampshire, instead of a museum to civil rights, a black heritage trail is being proposed to highlight the accomplishments of black history in the state. Black heritage trails have been created in other Northeast places such as Boston, Portland, Maine and Vermont.
"Black history in the state remains invisible and unheralded," JerriAnne Boggis, director of the Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail, told Skift. "It speaks to the invisibility of a culture and the importance that it plays. If we don't recognize a culture, then we aren't recognizing what it means to be American."
As crowds continue to grow at the NMAAHC, so will the curiosity surrounding African-American history.
"Museums, monuments, and other spaces for public history have been particularly proactive recently in highlighting the central role of African-American history in the national story. The National Museum of African American History and Culture is only the largest and most recent example of a broader trend," said Ben Wright, historian of African-American history at the University of Texas at Dallas.
"Working black histories into our national narratives is essential if we want to understand contemporary racial tensions."
