In a review for "The New York Times", art critic Holland Cotter wrote, "The extremely complex narrative, with uplift and tragedy seemingly on a fixed collision course, spreads over five floors of galleries", and that it "holds some of the oldest and most disturbing material." Cotter added that "It's great that the museum mixes everything together: It means you can't just select a comfortable version of history." He concluded, " hope, actually — that the museum will never be finished, or consider itself so; that its take on African-American history, which is American history, stays fluid, critical and richly confused: real, in other words."