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New D.C. museum draws out emotions

Levar Williams (left) and Jaden Hill, students from My Brother's Keeper Boston, toured the National Museum of African American History in Washington on Tuesday.Molly Riley/Associated Press

WASHINGTON — A group of Boston teenagers, all bound in solemn reflection, stared at the photograph of a mob surrounding three dismembered black men, murdered in Duluth, Minn., in 1920, and strung up on a light pole.

“Look at the white people,” said 15-year-old Levar Williams, a sophomore at the Jeremiah E. Burke High School in Dorchester.

His words broke the silence that had overtaken the black and Latino boys who gathered Tuesday at the newly opened National Museum of African American History and Culture

“The white people. They’re smiling,” Williams said as his friends reacted in awe. “Oh my God.”

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Moments like these, when nonwhite students gained a deeper appreciation for the struggles of their ancestors, are what prompted the Boston branch of President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper Initiative to travel to Washington, D.C. The program, started by Obama in 2014, strives to empower black and Latino boys through mentoring, educational support, and job training.

At the new Smithsonian museum dedicated to black history, the group of about 10 teens, five young professionals, and a handful of their mentors gaped at the reminders of black tragedy and triumph, including a slave auction block from Maryland, a tattered Ku Klux Klan hood, and the neatly pressed dress of billionaire Oprah Winfrey.

Later in the day, students also toured the White House, which, at least for another month, is home to the nation’s first black president and first lady.

“Our mission was to give our black and brown boys an educational experience about them,” said Conan Harris, the director of the My Brother’s Keeper chapter in Boston. “We need to tell them a story about themselves, so that they know where they come from and where they are going.”

During the group’s tour of the museum, an uncompromising and expertly curated collection of artifacts dating back to the 1400s, some students seemed overwhelmed as they confronted the inconvenient truths of American discrimination.

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Jacob Varona of Dorchester, a 14-year-old freshman at Burke, said he felt that the Founding Fathers were “hypocrites” for fighting for freedom while maintaining slavery.

At one exhibit in the museum, where a statue of Thomas Jefferson also shows the names of his slaves, Varona shared his discomfort aloud.

“How are they going to say that this was a country of freedom but the ones who wrote the Constitution held slaves themselves?” Varona asked.

Other students, like Isaiah Pena and Ritchy Rinchet, both 15, said they felt inspired to make use of the privileges that were made possible by the sacrifices of prior generations.

“We can’t do anything about the past and all those people who gave their lives, but we can keep them in our hearts,” Pena, of Dorchester, said.

“I knew slavery was bad, but I didn’t know it was this bad,” said Rinchet, also of Dorchester. “It reminds me that our ancestors were strong.”

Williams (left) and Devante Jamison sat at the Greensboro Lunch Counter, an interactive exhibit in the newly opened museum.Molly Riley/Associated Press/Associated Press

The Mayor’s Office of Public Safety coordinates the local iteration of My Brother’s Keeper. The goal, according to Harris, is to connect existing programs with city resources and give them new exposure.

“We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel,” Harris said. “We want to support and advance people who have been doing this work already.”

That philosophy was on display Tuesday, as Harris enlisted advisers and mentors from across different city and state public agencies to chaperone the daylong trip.

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“They needed to know where we came from and what we’ve overcome,” said Ed Powell, vice president for community engagement at the Justice Resource Center and one of the trip’s chaperones.

In conversations with each other, several students promised to make certain lifestyle changes inspired by the museum. Hanging out at street corners will no longer be called “on the block,” the boys said, because it reminded them of the slave auctions. Some promised to be more appreciative of their current situation, while others reaffirmed their commitment to push civil rights forward.

“My story ends in freedom,” said Jaden Hill, a 13-year-old at the Heath School in Brookline, reading a Henry Jacob quote mounted on the wall of a Civil War exhibit.

“It was cool to see our struggles and how they overcame,” Hill said later. “But at times, I felt angry. It hasn’t been fair in this country.”

For the boys, the most emotional exhibit was the memorial to 14-year-old Emmett Till, a black Chicago teen who was similar in age to many in the group. Till was accused of whistling at a white woman in Money, Miss., and on an early morning in September 1955, a group of men dragged him into the back of a pickup truck and he was never seen alive again.

When found in the Tallahatchie River, his body showed signs of a brutal pistol-whipping and murder.

“Devastating,” said Derek Tripp, a 14-year-old from Dorchester, after he walked through the exhibit, which recreates Till’s open-coffin funeral. “That was crazy.”

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Just as shocking, they learned — no one was ever held legally responsible for Till’s death.

Students from My Brother's Keeper Boston looked at an exhibit on slavery.Molly Riley/Associated Press/Associated Press

Astead W. Herndon can be reached at astead.herndon@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @AsteadWH.