The National Museum of African American History and Culture opens in Washington on Friday with a wealth of objects reflecting black life in the United States.
About 37,000 objects have been collected for the $135 million museum, mostly through donations.
Here are five with Chicago connections:
1. Emmett Till's casket
The casket of Emmett Till is one of the more controversial of the museum's artifacts. Director Lonnie Bunch wondered if it wasn't "too goulish." Visiting Mississippi from Chicago in 1955, Till was 14 when he was killed for whistling at a white woman. No one was convicted of the murder.
Till's mother allowed the press to photograph his open casket at the time of his funeral, saying "Let the world see what I've seen." The teen's body was buried in Burr Oak Cemetery in south suburban Alsip and exhumed for an autopsy in 2005 during another criminal investigation into his murder. Till was reburied in another coffin.
His original casket at the museum is part of the “Defending Freedom, Defining Freedom” exhibition.
2. Wayne F. Miller photographs
Chicago-born photographer Wayne F. Miller spent two years in the early 1940s documenting the South Side for a collection entitled "The Way of the Northern Negro." The effort was "to introduce black Chicago to white Chicago and to white America," as one art historian described it.
Miller, who died in 2013, once said his mission was "to photograph mankind and explain man to man."
3. Harold Washington campaign button
Harold Washington, a former U.S. congressman, became the first black mayor of Chicago when he was elected in 1983, first beating then-Mayor Jane Byrne and then-Cook County State's Attorney Richard M. Daley in the Democratic primary. He then defeated Bernard Epton in the general election.
"My election was the result of the greatest grassroots effort in the history of the city of Chicago," Washington said in his inaugural speech. "My election was made possible by thousands and thousands of people who demanded that the burdens of mismanagement, unfairness and inequity [end] so that the city could be saved."
4. Althea Gibson tennis racket
Sometimes likened to Jackie Robinson, Althea Gibson was a pioneer in women's tennis, becoming the first African-American to win Wimbledon, in 1957, and rank No. 1. She grew up in New York but used Apollo rackets made by Chicago-based Wilson Sporting Goods.
Gibson, who died in 2003, also golfed professionally, sang blues music and acted. A frequent visitor to Chicago, she was honored at the 1962 Bud Billiken parade.
5. Badge from Madam C.J. Walker convention
Madam C.J. Walker was a turn-of-the-century African-American entrepreneur whose company made hair care products for black women. Described as the first female self-made millionaire in the country, she also established beauty schools across the country that trained women to work as “hair culturists.”
In 1917, she opened a salon at 4656 S. State St., the same year she held a convention here where badges were awarded to successful agents.
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here:
