Museums
African American Civil War Memorial Freedom Foundation and Museum
The African American Civil War Memorial, at the corner of Vermont Avenue, 10th Street, and U Street NW in Washington, D.C., commemorates the service of 209,145 African-American soldiers and about 7,000 white and 2,145 Hispanic soldiers, amounting to nearly 220,000, plus the approximate 20,000 unsegregated Navy sailors, who fought for the Union in the American Civil War, mostly among the 175 regiments of United States Colored Troops, The sculpture, The Spirit of Freedom, is a 9-foot bronze statue by Ed Hamilton of Louisville, Kentucky, commissioned by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities in 1993 and completed in 1997. The memorial includes a walking area with curved panel short walls inscribed with the names of the men who served in the war.
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
The National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) is a Smithsonian Institution museum located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in the United States. It was established in December 2003 and opened its permanent home in September 2016 with a ceremony led by President Barack Obama.
Early efforts to establish a federally owned museum featuring African-American history and culture can be traced to 1915, although the modern push for such an organization did not begin until the 1970s. After years of little success, a much more serious legislative push began in 1988 that led to authorization of the museum in 2003. A site was selected in 2006, and a design submitted by Freelon Group/Adjaye Associates/Davis Brody Bond was chosen in 2009.
Construction began in 2012 and the museum completed in 2016. The NMAAHC proved immediately popular, ranking as the fourth most-visited Smithsonian museum in its first full year of operation. The museum has more than 40,000 objects in its collection, although only about 3,500 items are on display. The 350,000-square-foot (33,000 m2), 10 story building (five above and five below ground) and its exhibits have won critical praise.
National Great Blacks and Wax Museum
The National Great Blacks in Wax Museum is a wax museum in Baltimore, Maryland featuring prominent African-American and other black historical figures. It was established in 1983, in a downtown storefront on Saratoga Street.
The museum is currently located on 1601 East North Avenue in a renovated firehouse, a Victorian Mansion, and two former apartment dwellings that provide nearly 30,000 square feet (3,000 m2) of exhibit and office space. The exhibits feature over 100 wax figures and scenes, a full model slave ship exhibit which portrays the 400-year history of the Atlantic Slave Trade, an exhibit on the role of youth in making history, and a Maryland room highlighting the contributions to African American history by notable Marylanders.
Museum of African American History (MAAH)
The Museum of African American History is New England’s largest museum dedicated to preserving, conserving and interpreting the contributions of African Americans. In Boston and Nantucket, the Museum has preserved two historic sites and two Black Heritage Trails® that tell the story of organized black communities from the Colonial Period through the 19th century.
Exhibits, programs, and education activities at the Museum showcase the powerful stories of black families who worshipped, educated their children, debated the issues of the day, produced great art, organized politically and advanced the cause of freedom.
In Boston, the African Meeting House is the first of its kind in America and the oldest black church building in the country. The adjacent Abiel Smith School is the oldest building in the nation constructed for the sole purpose of housing a black public school. Today, the Abiel Smith School galleries feature rotating exhibits and a Museum Store open year around.
Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History
The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History is located in the Cultural Center of the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan. Founded in 1965, the museum holds the world's largest permanent exhibit on African-American culture. In 1997, Detroit architects Sims-Varner & Associates (now SDG Associates) designed a new 120,000 square foot (11,000 m²) facility on Warren Avenue, the museum's current location. The Wright Museum has dual missions, serving as both a museum of artifacts and a place of cultural retention and growth. A wall of the museum has the museum's official poem, written by Melba Boyd, inscribed in bronze.
The Museum owns more than 35,000 artifacts and archival materials. Some of the major collections it is home to include the Blanche Coggin Underground Railroad Collection, the Harriet Tubman Museum Collection, a Coleman A. Young Collection and a collection of documents about the labor movement in Detroit called the Sheffield Collection. Also in the museum is an interactive exhibit called And Still We Rise: Our Journey through African American History and Culture, seven exhibition areas devoted to African Americans and their lives, the Louise Lovett Wright Research Library, and the General Motors Theater, which is a 317-seat facility for film, live performances, lectures, and presentations.
A terrazzo tile creation by artist Hubert Massey entitled “Genealogy” is in the Ford Freedom Rotunda Floor and the museum is topped by a 100 feet (30 m) by 55 feet (17 m) glass dome. The museum store sells authentic African art and books, as well as other merchandise. In August, the museum hosts the African World Festival, a free, three-day festival celebrating the culture of the African diaspora.
Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia
The house, built in 1832 by German descendant Adolph Dill, incorporates both the Federal and Greek Revival architectural styles. Under the leadership of Maggie L. Walker, the country’s first female and Black bank president, the Council of Colored Women purchased the house in 1922. And then in 1932, it became the Black branch of the Richmond Public Library and was named in honor of Rosa D. Bowser, the first Black female school teacher in Richmond.
In the spring of 2016, the Museum adopted a new location‐the Leigh Street Armory. Prior to being the new home of the Museum, the Leigh Street Armory had endured a fire and decades of neglect and abandonment. In 1981, the city declared the armory as surplus property. As a result, the building remained padlocked until 2002. However, a grant from Save America’s Treasures, a national historical site preservation program, agreed to fund the armory’s rehabilitation. The structure had some of its exterior brickwork redone, new floors and a roof installed and was soon up-and-running once again.
The Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia celebrates the rich culture and moving histories of African American people in Virginia and their contributions to our magnificent country. We endeavor to tell a more complete and inclusive story about America.
America's Black Holocaust Museum
America's Black Holocaust Museum (ABHM), located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is a memorial museum dedicated to the history of the Black Holocaust in America. It was founded in 1988 by James Cameron, who became well known to have survived a lynching. The Griot Building was named for Dr. Cameron; “griot” is a West African term for an oral historian and news-bringer.
Dr. Cameron died in 2006. In 2008, the museum's board of directors announced that the museum would be closed temporarily because of reduced funding during the 2008 Great Recession. The 501c3 nonprofit Dr. James Cameron Legacy Foundation was created in 2012 to continue the legacy and vision of Dr. Cameron. In 2012, the Foundation re-opened ABHM as a 3200+ page virtual museum at www.abhmuseum.org. In 2016, the Foundation began planning to return the museum to a new home. The new physical museum, located on the ground floor of the Griot building at 401 W. North Avenue in Milwaukee's historic Bronzeville neighborhood, is now scheduled to open in Fall 2019. The exact date of its Grand Opening will be announced on www.abhmuseum.org.