“The U.S. Senate recently authorized the start-up of a national museum of African-American history and culture that would be part of the Smithsonian Institution and located on the Mall. This seems a very good thing for our nation, although no one has mentioned that a separate museum might seem to replicate the very segregation that the museum is meant to decry. Wouldn’t matters be better served in providing a ‘true’ picture of American history and in understanding African-American ‘contributions’ to American culture, as the official cant goes, if the story was fused with the main national narrative?”