The Nation­al Muse­um of African Amer­i­can His­to­ry and Cul­ture is the only nation­al muse­um devot­ed exclu­sive­ly to the doc­u­men­ta­tion of African Amer­i­can life, his­to­ry, and cul­ture. It was estab­lished by an Act of Con­gress in 2003, fol­low­ing decades of efforts to pro­mote and high­light the con­tri­bu­tions of African Amer­i­cans. To date, the Muse­um has col­lect­ed more than 40,000 arti­facts and near­ly 100,000 indi­vid­u­als have become mem­bers. The Muse­um opened to the pub­lic on Sep­tem­ber 24, 2016, as the 19th muse­um of the Smith­son­ian Insti­tu­tion.