Before the official opening on Thursday, December 6^th, 2018, a number of events were organized over the last two years for the pre-figuration and configuration of the Museum of Black Civilizations recently erected in Dakar.

The West African Research Center (WARC) contributed to those events by teaming up with the staff of the Museum and helping identify resource persons to be involved in the process, chiefly from museums and other institutions in the United States.

The Museum was officlally inaugurated on Thursday December 6^th by the President of Senegal and the event took place in the premises of the structure and at the neigboring Grand Theatre which, for the occasion, was full to capacity.

The various speakers of the day, including the President himself and the Vice Chancellor of University Cheikh Anta Diop, Professor Ibrahima Thioub, while reminding the audience that the idea of such a museum dated back to the first days of independence with President L.S. Senghor,  insisted on the fact that the Museum was created to promote and vindicate the active presence of Africa and the black man in world history while stressing the necessary interactions with other continents and other human groups in the past, the present and the future.

The opening was followed, on Saturday December 8^th, by an inaugural colloquium on the topic “Reclaiming Black Civilizations. Finishing the Decolonization Process”. Many specialists from the United States, Europe and the African continent attended and made insightful contributions to the colloquium.