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Boeing Gives Nat'l Black Museum $5 Mil. Boost

WASHINGTON, D. C.—Boeing recently donated $5 million to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
   The largest gift to date will be used to fund a listening tour for Lonnie G. Bunch III, the founding director of the museum, who is traveling nationwide to hear what scholars and the general public want to see in the museum. The donation was announced at a recent luncheon in the Smithsonian Castle, not far from the site on the National Mall at 14th Street and Constitution Avenue NW where the museum will be built. It is scheduled to open in 2015.
   “Boeing will fund efforts to bring together representatives from existing African American history museums and community leaders throughout the country to share ideas about what this new museum will represent and what it will contain,” said Todd Hullin, Boeing’s senior vice president for public policy.
    At the luncheon, artifacts, which will be in the new museum, were exhibited on tables. On one table was a white pullman porter’s hat.

Posted May 7, 2008

   On another table there was the Congressional Gold Medal, which was awarded to the Tuskegee Airmen as the first black aviators.  

  There was also a 1950s sign from the Nashville City Transit System that read: This Part of Bus for Colored Race. There was a beige patterned skirt, made in the 1860s by a slave in Leesburg, Va.
   “I am strongly committed to making sure we meet our side of the agreement, said Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), the chairman of the House subcommittee that funds the Smithsonian, pledging his support. The congressional legislation that authorized the museum set up a 50/50 public-private partnership.
   “This museum will serve to enrich the lives of all Americans in telling the history of one of the most dynamic communities in our country’s history,” Dicks said.

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