'Biggest Black History Museum.'

Ebony, Feb, 1998

Detroit's Museum of African American History calls itself the "world's largest Black history museum," and its $38.4 Million structure and world-class exhibits clearly establish this new cultural jewel among the nation's most magnificent tributes to African-Americans.

When the museum opened last spring, it was the culmination of a long journey from its mid-'60s origin in the medical office building owned by founder, Dr. Charles H. Wright, on West Grand Boulevard. A retired obstetrician-gynecologist who has delivered more than 7,000 babies, Dr. Wright founded the International Afro-American Museum in 1965 in an effort to introduce innovative ways to educate people about Black culture and to encourage self-esteem. The current 120,000-square-foot institution was preceded by a more modest facility that opened in 1985 in the University Cultural Center.

Museum officials express gratitude to Dr. Wright and his vision to provide Black Detroiters with a major symbol of racial pride. "Without his vision, energy and resources, the museum we are experiencing today would not be a reality," says Arthur Jefferson, the museum's board chairman.

Dr. Wright says he knew that the establishment of the museum would "enable us to seize the authority of researching, interpreting and publishing our history from those who have done so to our disadvantage." He wanted to help fill the information gap about Black people for all Americans.

The new museum is located in Detroit's Cultural Center near the Science Center, Institute of Arts, Medical Center and Wayne State University. It houses three exhibition galleries, a domed lobby and unique rotunda floor, a 317-seat theater, an orientation amphitheater, three classrooms, two multipurpose rooms, a state-of-the-art research library, a museum store and a restaurant.

The museum's main exhibit, titled Of The People: The African American Experience, covers 16,000 square feet and presents one of the largest exhibitions created in this country on African-American people, reflecting a 600-year survey of the African legacy and heritage. The exhibit presents more than 100 artifacts to illustrate the accomplishments and achievements of African-Americans while also documenting oppression and racism.

Among the artifacts featured in the core exhibit are the Congressional Medal of Honor Medal awarded to Christian Fleetwood for heroism during the Civil War; a Pullman Porter's uniform worn by a Detroiter; the first stoplight and gas mask, both invented by Garrett Morgan; a replica of the jail cell door behind which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote the "Letter from the Birmingham Jail"; the dress worn by Carlotta Walls, one of the Little Rock 9, on the first day she braved racist mobs to attend Little Rock's Central High School; pages from the unpublished chapters of The Autobiography of Malcolm X; and astronaut Mae Jemison's flight suit on loan from the Smithsonian.

Kimberly Camp, president of the Museum of African American History, says the new museum offers tremendous diversity in its programs and exhibitions. "We have an aggressive program that is aimed at audiences of all ages and that provides basic and important information on our heroes, our triumphs, our rites of passage and our history," says Camp, who was founding director of the Smithsonian Institution's Experimental Gallery. "Our changing exhibitions will create an ongoing dialogue with the core exhibitions. The purpose of those exhibitions is to stimulate discourse and to excite inquiry among our visitors....We can provide the most comprehensive and most dynamic exhibition and public program offerings in the nation. We can do this through maintaining a sense of commitment and sensitivity to the needs of our community, in the broadest sense."

While the DuSable Museum in Chicago is the nation's first major African-American and the Studio Museum of Harlem is among the most prestigious, the Museum of African American History in Detroit is the newest jewel among the nation's Black cultural institutions.