![Barack Obama President Barack Obama speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Sept. 22, 2016.](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/obama_national_endowment_arts_african_american_museum.jpg?quality=85&w=2400)
President Obama thinks Donald Trump could learn a thing or two from the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.
“What we have to do is use our history to propel us to make even more progress in the future,” Obama said in an ABC interview from the new museum, encouraging Trump to visit after it opens on Saturday.
Obama also criticized Trump for saying that “African-American communities are absolutely in the worst shape than they’ve ever been in before, ever, ever, ever.”
“I think even most 8-year-olds would tell you that whole slavery thing wasn’t very good for black people. Jim Crow wasn’t very good for black people,” the President said.
Trump has been making a controversial pitch to black voters, and his comments this week came amid clashes between protesters and police after two shootings of black men in Charlotte and Tulsa.
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Write to Tessa Berenson Rogers at tessa.Rogers@time.com