“A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws, and corrects them.”
Former President George W. Bush, in remarks dedicating the Museum of African-American History
Indeed, they dedicated a museum this weekend that pays tribute to the contributions African-Americans gave to this country’s rich history and culture.
It also revisits the grim aspects of that experience. Slavery, life under Jim Crow laws, the street battles that ensued as the civil rights movement gained traction.
It was a bipartisan affair this weekend, with Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama on hand to welcome the opening of this exhibit.
I wanted to share the quote from President Bush and put it in another context.
My wife and I returned recently from two weeks in Germany and The Netherlands. It was in Germany where I saw how another great nation treats a grim portion of its otherwise glorious past.
Nuremberg became the site where Nazi Germany’s high command was put on trial for committing the most hideous crimes against humanity one ever could imagine. The Germans have erected a museum there to remember that dark chapter. They do not honor it. They don’t celebrate it. They put it out there for all the world to see.
That’s how they remind the world — and themselves — that they cannot allow the persecution, intimidation and murder of their fellow citizens simply because of their religious faith. That, of course, is what happened in Europe prior to and during the Second World War.
The African-American museum that’s now open in Washington, of course, also honors the extraordinary contributions that African-Americans have given to this nation. It also remembers the terrible times brought on by the enslavement of human beings and the struggles they endured as they fought for the equality the nation’s founders had declared had been granted to them by their “Creator.”
President Bush is right. Great nations do not sweep their darker chapters away. They don’t ignore them. They don’t wish them away.
They stare those chapters down and declare never again will we allow ourselves to repeat these tragic mistakes.