The opening date for the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, has been announced. The museum, which has been 20 years in the making, will open the weekend of January 21, 2023.

According to CNN, Tonya Matthews, the museum's president and CEO, said in a statement, "Committed reckoning with history is a necessary stop on the road to healing and reconciliation.”

Former Mayor of Charleston Joseph P. Riley, Jr., announcing the constriction of the museum in 2000, said in a statement, "Our journey has been long because it took time to secure the optimal site," the former mayor said in a statement. It took time to raise the resources, assemble the team, and plan every detail that would enhance the experience of being here. And it took time because we have been committed to excellence."

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The 150,000-square-foot museum will be located at Gadsden's Wharf, which was built by Revolutionary War patriot Christopher Gadsden. The museum, which cost $75 million, will include nine exhibition galleries, an "African Ancestors Memorial Garden" and will have a view of the ocean.

According to the Associated Press, it is estimated that 40 percent of enslaved people transported to the United States in the late 18th and early 19th century walked across Gadsden's Wharf. During the final years of the international slave trade from 1803 to 1807, more than 70,000 enslaved Africans were transported to Gadsden's Wharf.