Museum of African American History

CONTACT:

14 Beacon St., Suite 719
Boston, MA 02108
617-725-0022
www.afroammuseum.org

Beverly Morgan-Welch, Executive Director

DESCRIPTION:

Founded in 1966 by Sue Bailey Thurman, wife of Dr. Howard Thurman, mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr., the Museum's mission is "to preserve and interpret the contributions of people of African descent and those who have found common cause with them in the struggle for liberty, dignity, and justice for all Americans."

The Museum is located at four sites, which are its most precious artifacts: The African Meeting House on Beacon Hill, built in 1806, which is the oldest extant Black Church building in the U.S., and which housed in its basement the nation's first school for African American children; the Abiel Smith School, next door to the Meeting House, built in 1834, which was the first publicly funded school for African American children in the U.S.; the African Meeting House on Nantucket, built in the 1820s, which is the second oldest extant building in the U.S. built by free African Americans for their own use; and finally the Black Heritage Trail on Beacon Hill, developed in 1966 as the largest collection of historic sites in the U.S. relating to the life of a free African American community prior to the Civil War.

(1998: CULTURE: Education: Informal: Historic Preservation)