Winfrey's $12M gift to museum

WASHINGTON - Philanthropist and media mogul Oprah Winfrey is donating $12 million to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, officials announced Tuesday.

Combined with the $1 million she gave in 2007, it is the museum's largest donation. In recognition, Winfrey's name will go on a 350-seat theater. The chairwoman and chief executive of the Oprah Winfrey Network has been a member of the museum's advisory council since 2004.

"I am so proud of African American history and its contributions to our nation as a whole," Winfrey said in a statement. "I am deeply appreciative of those who paved the path for me and all who follow in their footsteps."

"Every donation," says the museum's founding director, Lonnie G. Bunch, "whether $25 or a $10 million corporate donation, is important. But truly, there's only one Oprah Winfrey."

Ground was broken on the five-acre site, adjacent to the Washington Monument, in February 2012. Congressional funding accounts for half of the museum's $500 million design, construction, and exhibition costs. The museum is raising the remaining $250 million.

The Museum of African American History and Culture, which hosts a gallery at the National Museum of American History, is scheduled to open in 2015.