DC’s African American history museum surpasses 1M visitors

WASHINGTON — The National Museum of African American History and Culture has been among the hardest tickets to get in D.C., and the museum announced on Monday that it had passed an attendance milestone and received an honor.

The museum announced that it has more than 1 million visitors in the four months since it opened Sept. 24, 2016.

In addition, the museum’s restaurant, the Sweet Home Café, has been nominated for a James Beard Award. The cafe, whose culinary ambassador is celebrity chef Carla Hall, is one of 20 nominees in the category of Best New Restaurant.

The Smithsonian Institution’s numbers indicate the museum ranked 10th among the Smithsonian’s 20 museums in attendance for 2016, despite only having been open since late September. The African American history museum ranks fourth this year through the end of January, racking up 169,000 visitors, behind only the National Air and Space Museum, the National Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of American History.

The museum added that the average visitor to the museum stays six hours on weekends — well over the two hours or so they say is common at most museums.