What we want to do today is give you an opportunity to see the museum as a work in progress. About 40 of all the exhibitions are now complete and we are working to make sure we will be very ready on september 24. The reality of this is simple. 11 years ago we began with a staff of two. We had no idea where the building would be, no sense at all of any of the collections. Not a single object in the collection. We knew we had to raise a lot of money. We had no money in the bank. Now, as a result of some the gifted staff you will meet and thousands of people, we have raised enough money to complete the building and by september, we will be over our target number. We have collected nearly 40,000 artifacts of which 4000 will be in this museum. Instead of two people, there are 200 people working to build this museum. Let me ask my staff to introduce themselves. I am the associate director. Can afternoon. My name is mary elliott and i am a museum specialist. Had the pleasure of cochairing the
It is a central organizing and some ways spiritual concept of for africanamerican history and culture. This exhibition focuses on improvementor through education. Throughes for equality politics and protest. Integration in some respect. It looks that religion, community, it looks at politics and it looks at individuals and communities. That is the skin of what were looking at. Now you are in my exhibition called the power of place. Sydow, he will talk for an hour sit down, he will talk for an hour [laughter] what do we mean by place . For our museum it is crucially important that we let people know that africanamerican history is broad and wide. We need to find a way to in all of its geographic diversity. Places more than that. Place is something we all feel and have it laces emotional and places of memory. What we have done here is we have identified 10 unique places across time, across regions. Ant we give people into immersive way. Rocks in the 1970s looking at the development of th