President Obama invites the stars to toast museum opening

12:00 PMBy the time President Barack Obama took to the podium Friday, the White House floor had been studded with more black stars than ever. Samuel L. Jackson had accidentally photobombed a convo between Kobe Bryant and Rep. John Lewis. Dick Gregory had made his rounds, along with Harry Belafonte. Oprah and Gayle King had graced the room, and Phylicia Rashad had displayed her regal presence. Bob Johnson had done a little glad-handing and Fonzworth Bentley proved why he still is one of the best dressed men in America with his cream jacket-eggplant tie combo. David Adjaye had fielded quite a few compliments for his design work and Jesse Jackson had been moving around so much that he had to take respite on a baby stroller for a bit.

“This is easily the blackest I’ve ever seen this place,” DeRay McKesson joked, in town for a bit before heading to Charlotte, North Carolina. “I love it.”

The afternoon reception at the White House to commemorate the opening of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall was a celebration of blackness that’s rarely been inside the walls of the presidential edifice built by slaves. So much so that the Obamas invited Tennessee State University’s Aristocrat of Bands to play on the lawn to kick things off.

Tennessee State is no stranger to big stages. But I doubt we’ll ever see an HBCU’s band transition from Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together to Chance The Rapper’s No Problem and on into Snoop Dogg’s Gin and Juice just a half-hour or so after a White House press briefing ended across the way.

https://twitter.com/Kenzieisom/status/779373697379471360

TSU’s Aristocrat of Bands performs at White House. Part of celebration for new African American Museum. https://t.co/A4H63h4ryb pic.twitter.com/zHeCHvTu5l

— Tennessee State Univ (@TSUedu) September 23, 2016

Tennessee State University's band rocking at the White House pic.twitter.com/x0L0a4W7ga

— Fungo Velo (@clintonyates) September 23, 2016

The day before, Obama and the first lady sat down with Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts after touring the new museum ahead of its opening. On Friday at the White House, he talked about how important the facility was, as a landmark and a storytelling tool. He noted the team effort it was to get this put together over the years. But while all that black excellence occupied that room, the volatile situations unfolding across the country were not forgotten.

“The timing of this is fascinating,” Obama said. “Because in so many ways, it is the best of times. But in many ways, these are also troubled times. History doesn’t always move in a straight line. And without vigilance, we can go backwards as well as forward. And so part of the reason that I’m so happy the museum is opening this weekend is because it allows all of us as Americans to put our current circumstances in a historical context.”

Earlier this week, the officer who shot and killed Terence Crutcher was charged with first-degree manslaughter. On Friday, a video shot by the wife of Keith Lamont Scott was released, unfurling a host of new questions. The president said he hopes the museum can help people in a tangible way.

“My hope is that, as people are seeing what’s happened in Tulsa or Charlotte on television, and perhaps are less
familiar with not only the history of the African-American experience, but also how recent some of these challenges have been, upon visiting the museum, may step back and say, ‘I understand. I sympathize. I empathize,’ ” Obama said. “I can see why folks might feel angry and I want to be part of the solution as opposed to resisting change …

“When I imagine children — white, black, Latino, Asian, Native American — wandering through that museum and sitting at that lunch counter and imagining what it would be like to stand on that auction block, and then also looking at Shaq’s shoes and Chuck Berry’s red Cadillac, my hope is that this complicated, difficult, sometimes harrowing, but I believe ultimately triumphant story will help us talk to each other, and more important, listen to each other, and even more important, see each other and recognize the common humanity that makes America what it is.”