What an inspiring debut for the Museum of African American History. We watched it via the Internet, including the remarks of President George W. Bush, who signed the legislation for the museum, and President Obama, who embodies so many of the triumphs of the African American story. The opening of the museum would have been a mesmerizing marker in any event, but it was especially so against the backdrop of race riots at Charlotte, when our country hungers for a reckoning with history.

Mr. Bush opened the presidential remarks by saying that he hoped all Americans would visit the museum. His wife Laura, he noted, serves on the museum’s board. The 43rd president spoke about the rareness of the bipartisan support for the museum; he spoke of how he was alerted to the impending legislation for the museum by Congressman John Lewis (hero of the civil rights movement) and Sam Brownback (most conservative of senators). It was long overdue.

The museum, Mr. Bush said, is a “national treasure.” He said it shows America’s “commitment to truth,” adding: “A great nation does not hide its history; it faces its flaws and corrects them.” The museum, he said, “tells the truth,” that a “country founded on liberty held millions in chains.” He spoke of how from the beginning “some spoke the truth.” He named one of his predecessors, John Adams, as calling slavery “an evil of colossal magnitude.” He said that such voices were not heeded and often not heard.

Yet, Mr. Bush said, the voices of abolition were “always known to a power greater than any on earth, one who loves His children and meant for them to be free.” It was wonderful to hear Mr. Bush’s remarks during a campaign season in which the Republican Party is being branded as narrow and racist. And to hear Mr. Bush describe himself as a “fledgling painter, a struggling artist” who has a new appreciation for the painters whose works are in the museum; he named Robert Duncanson, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Charles Henry Alston.

President Obama spoke with the kind of eloquence and grace that few but him can bring to an occasion. To underline the necessity of the museum he spoke of a block of stone, exhibited inside. He spoke of how on the stone “men and women were torn from their spouse or their child, shackled and bound, and bought and sold, and bid like cattle; on a stone worn down by the tragedy of over a thousand bare feet.” Yet all the plaque on it had said for years was that from it General Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay had spoken.

It happens that we have been supporting the idea for this kind of museum for decades, including since the controversy arose over the Holocaust Museum that is not far away. It was ignited by the writer Jonathan Rosen, first in 1991 in the Jewish Forward, of which he was then cultural editor, and then in the Times. Mr. Rosen had been troubled by a comment of one of the museum’s early directors, who’d said the museum was about “the Americanization of the Holocaust,” which was, after all, a war against the Jews perpetrated by Europeans in Europe.

One doesn’t have to gainsay the many important and powerful exhibits in the Holocaust museum to say that no one will have any doubts about the Museum of African American History. It is about a particular American story, one that needs to be taught to every American. Its importance will only grow over time. It belongs on the national mall, where it will be welcoming visitors from all communities in the American mosaic for generations to come, including right now when an un-blinkered look at our history couldn’t be at more of a premium.