On Sept. 24, the newest addition to the Smithsonian opened its doors beside the towering Washington Monument on the National Mall. The National Museum of African American History and Culture served up a flurry of appearances and speeches from notable people in the United States, including President Obama and Oprah Winfrey.

And while the museum represents a significant and — perhaps now more than ever — important addition to our national history, it is a symbol of a battle still raging. After all, the original proposal to create a museum commemorating African-American history was proposed more than 100 years ago.

According to NPR, such a museum was first suggested by black Civil War veterans in 1915. The cause was then taken up by Leonidas Dyer, R-Mo., the next year with a plan for a memorial to black individuals who fought in wars for the United States. Decades passed with numerous attempts and failures at creating the museum. Finally, in 2003, Congress passed a bill making the National Museum of African American History and Culture part of the Smithsonian Institute.

The story of the roughly half-dozen attempts at creating this museum is an unfortunate microcosm of American past. For so long, the United States has been content to formulate a history based on the positive things that have occurred while plastering over the atrocities committed by its people and leaders.

It took the United States nearly 250 years to create a memorial and a concrete showcase of the darkest chapter in its history. For too long, our country has hidden from its past. And while the construction of this museum and that it now lies at the head of the National Mall alongside every other fathomable aspect of U.S. history is a huge step in the right direction, it is not enough to right the wrongs of our whitewashed history.

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” the American philosopher George Santayana once famously said. Engrained in our minds as Americans — and indeed as citizens of the world — is the phrase “Never Forget.”

Whether in reference to the attacks on 9/11 to the horrific events of the Holocaust, or simply to the memory of a loved one, the idea that we must never forget our past, for better or for worse, is important.

Growing up, the story of slavery was always taught in U.S. history class but only tangentially to the progress of a “free” nation, a nation that opposed “taxation without representation,” and that was founded by good men (who just so happened to own slaves). We were taught that George Washington, the only unanimously elected president in U.S. history and undoubtedly the last, treated his slaves “well,” but we brushed over the fact that, according to the New York Times, he may have had as many as 150 of them.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture is a symbol of the fight for African American equality, yes. But what it ought to be a symbol of is the ongoing fight for America to no longer hide from its past, to no longer pretend that we are infallible.