2012年9月翻譯考試高級(jí)口譯上半場(chǎng)閱讀理解MC第一篇

　本文內(nèi)容為2012秋季高口閱讀上半場(chǎng)MC第一篇，原文出自The independent，原文標(biāo)題為T(mén)he museum for black America: a force for unity – or division?

　　The museum for black America: a force for unity – or division?

　　出自：http://www.independent.co.uk

　　Barack Obama marked its launch, but not everyone welcomes the new addition to the Smithsonian family.

　　To paraphrase Martin Luther King – here at last, here at last, here at last. Almost a century after the idea was first mooted by black veterans of the Civil War and almost half a century after the leader of the civil rights movement delivered his immortal "I have a Dream" speech, an African American museum is finally about to rise in the heart of Washington.

　　The National Mall, stretching from the US Capitol to the steps of the white marble Lincoln Memorial where King spoke in 1963, is perhaps the capital city's most special place, a two-mile vista lined by monuments to the country's greatest leaders and heroes, and by wonderful museums celebrating America's history and achievements. But there have been some notable omissions.

　　Last year one was corrected with the dedication of a memorial to King – even though the event has been somewhat marred by a controversy over the inscription on his statue, a version of lines from one of his final sermons that, according to the poet Maya Angelou, makes King sound "like an arrogant twit".

　　And on Wednesday another omission was corrected. In a moment of perfect historical symmetry, Barack Obama, America's first black President, led the ceremony for the future National Museum of African American History and Culture, devoted to the miseries, tribulations and triumphs of black America, scheduled to open its doors in late 2015.

　　The site is one of the last available on the ever more cluttered Mall. But it is also one of the best: close to the Washington Monument and across the street from the recently re-opened Museum of American History.

　　The long and laboured story of the 19th member of the Smithsonian complex has itself been a small slice of US history. The idea of a memorial to African Americans on America's national space was first put forward in 1915 by a group of black Civil War veterans, but went nowhere. Then in 1929, Congress did approve such a project, but failed to provide funding. wｗw.ExamＷ.CoM

　　After the great civil-rights breakthroughs of the 1960s, pressure grew for a full-scale museum. Again though, nothing happened – not least because of the ferocious opposition of the late Jesse Helms, the powerful Senator from North Carolina and a last bastion in Washington of the bigoted "Old South", who insisted that a museum was "unnecessary", and a waste of taxpayers' money.

　　At this point, one may wonder how it was that the Holocaust Museum here – on the sacred National Mall – was approved and completed in barely a decade. And it deals with an event that does not belong to the US national experience.