Most powerful, and coolest, artifacts at new black history museum | McClatchy Washington Bureau

Sen. Tim Scott teamed up with Instagram on Wednesday to preview the new National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, which opens to the public Sept. 24.

“It’s a joyous and uplifting experience, and it’s a sad and ugly experience at the same time,” the South Carolina Republican said after walking through parts of the collection, which includes more than 55 artifacts from his home state.

Most objects from South Carolina are from the 19th century, including slave badges from Charleston, wooden drums from the Sea Islands and the traveling trunk used by abolitionist George Thompson Garrison in the Civil War.

Scott, who in 2014 became the first black senator elected in the South since Reconstruction, said that focus made sense. He pointed out that during the transatlantic slave trade, about 40 percent of enslaved Africans entered through Charleston Harbor.

“Thinking about African-American history, it’s hard to start anywhere other than South Carolina,” he said.

Scott shared previews of various objects in the museum with his 11,000 Instagram followers using the new Stories feature, which strings together photos into a single video to be shared with friends.

For Scott, the most powerful artifact at the museum is a reconstructed slave cabin from Point of Pines plantation on Edisto Island in Charleston County.

“It’s hard to take a look at the slave cabin from Edisto Island and not be moved, not to be frozen in time and journey back to what life must have been like for folks who were forced to leave their homeland, forced to separate from their loved ones and forced to work,” he said. “All day every day, sunup and sundown, oftentimes beaten.”

As for the coolest exhibit Scott saw, that’s more recent.

“Being a Cowboys fan, seeing Emmitt Smith up there is not a bad deal,” he joked about an exhibit of the Dallas football player. “And they have a section on Muhammad Ali, which is phenomenal.”

The museum will be dedicated Sept. 24 at a ceremony attended by President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama. When it opens to the general public that week it will own close to 37,000 objects.