The African-American Experience @ New Museum on National Mall

The Smithsonian's new Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) will be a place for all Americans to discover history - including art - via programs and exhibitions featuring objects ranging from Michael Jackson's hat to a vintage airplane used to train the Tuskagee Airmen to the "green books" black people used to need to find places to eat and sleep when they traveled through the United States.

An exterior architectural rendering of the forthcoming Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., expected to open in 2015. (c) Image: Freelon Adjaye Bond/SmithGroup

The museum, which is due to open near the Washington Monument in 2015, was inaugurated  via a groundbreaking ceremony attended by President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama on February 22, 2012 in Washington.

NMAAHC Director Lonnie G. Bunch III told the PBS Newshour that, although the museum will feature many items from famous African Americans, it will primarily be made up of the treasure trove of objects still waiting to be discovered across America in family homes. Items languishing in basements and attics - the purposes of which are often no longer recognizable to younger generations - must be documented, curated, and treasured for future generations, according to Bunch.

Lonnie Bunch, director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, speaks at the museum's groundbreaking ceremony on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 22, 2012, flanked by Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough, First Lady Michelle Obama and President Barack Obama. (c) Photo: John Gibbons, Smithsonian

Given that African-American history and culture are obviously inextricably interlinked with the American experience, these objects and stories are also part and parcel of American history in the broadest sense - a history that all Americans share and should be informed about.

"We will have stories that will make you smile and stories that will make you cry," Bunch told The Associated Press.

"What this museum can do is if we tell the unvarnished truth in a way that's engaging and not preachy, what I think will happen is that by illuminating all the dark corners of the American experience, we will help people find reconciliation and healing," he added.

President Barack Obama speaks at the groundbreaking ceremony for the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 22, 2012, flanked by former First Lady Laura Bush, Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough, First Lady Michelle Obama and Lonnie Bunch, director of the museum. (c) Photo: John Gibbons, Smithsonian

The museum promises to be the jewel in the crown of many existing related museums - some 300 and counting located across the country - devoted to specific aspects of this African-American experience. New museums are, for instance, also planned for the southern cities of Atlanta, Charleston and Jackson.

Although curators of some of these other museums have voiced concerns that the new Smithsonian museum in Washington will detract from their efforts - siphoning off objects and/or funding they could also use - Bunch and everyone else involved with the NMAAHC have expressed confidence that they will all benefit, in the long run, from the new musuem.

The writer Isabel Wilkerson was also interviewed for the February 22 broadcast of the PBS Newshour about the new museum. Her book "The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration" sounds like an interesting read.

Smithsonian senior staff and members of the National Museum of African American History and Culture Council break ground for the new museum in a ceremony held Feb. 22, 2012. From left to right: Richard Parsons, co-chair, museum council; Patty Stonesifer, Smithsonian Board of Regents member and former chair; Laura Bush, former First Lady and museum council member; Wayne Clough, Secretary, Smithsonian Institution; Lonnie Bunch, director, National Museum of African American History and Culture; Richard Kurin, Under Secretary for History, Art, and Culture, Smithsonian; France Córdova, chair, Smithsonian Board of Regents; and Linda Johnson Rice, co-chair, museum council. (c) Photo: Michael Barnes, Smithsonian