When entrepreneur Dawn V. Carr decided to donate tens of thousands of dollars to the then-forthcoming National Museum of African American History and Culture in the 2010s, she did so with the hope that within its walls she would see the stories of people who looked like her told in their totality, pulled from the sidelines and given the space they deserve.
"When you don't see yourself in these places, in these spaces, that often, you can feel like you're not part of it. You are on the side. You are relegated," she told Salon in a phone interview, adding: "It's just the point where you have a space where you can do that — that was always really important to me."
