Fort Mose Historic State Park [FL]

Description

The power politics of 18th-century England and Spain reached across the Atlantic to the Florida frontier. In 1738, the Spanish governor of Florida chartered Fort Mose as a settlement for freed Africans who had fled slavery in the British Carolinas. When Spain ceded Florida to Britain in 1763, the inhabitants of Fort Mose migrated to Cuba. Although nothing remains of the fort, the site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994 for its importance in American history.

The park offers tours.

Dorsey Chapel Historic Site [MD]

Description

This small frame meetinghouse-style church is distinguished by its steeply pitched gable roof and late Victorian ornamental treatment of its principal gable front. The upper gable has alternating courses of sawtooth and rectangular shingles, a quatrefoil bulls-eye ornament, and a turned wooden finial at the ridge. Each of the chapel's side walls is lighted by three gothic-arch windows that have delicate tracery in the upper sashes.

The church offers tours.

Berkeley County Historical Society [WV]

Description

The Berkeley County Historical Society seeks to preserve and share the history of Berkeley County, West Virginia, founded 1722. To this end, the society operates a museum within the Belle Boyd House. The residence was the childhood home of Belle Boyd (1844-1900), Confederate spy and femme fatale actress. Exhibits topics include the Civil War in the Lower Shenandoah Valley, Belle Boyd, county history, 1860 through 1920 dress, Abraham Lincoln, World War II, the Spanish American War, the Revolutionary War, African American history, and baseball player Hack Wilson. The grounds include an herb garden and a rose garden.

The society offers a 51-minute film, exhibits, gardens, archival access, and research assistance. A fee is charged for research requests.

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture [NY]

Description

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is a research library which focuses on the lives, history, and cultures of individuals of African descent located throughout the world. Collections include more than 150,000 volumes and 20,000 African and African Diaspora artifacts, among a wide variety of other resources. Artists represented by the collection include Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937), the first internationally lauded African American painter, and Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000), who drew from Harlem for artistic influence.

The center offers research library access, research assistance, traveling exhibits, and a junior scholars program. The website offers virtual exhibits.

The Herndon Home [GA]

Description

The 1910 Beaux Arts Classical Herndon Home was once the residence of Alonzo Herndon (1858-1927), one of the most successful African American businessmen of his time. Herndon survived slavery, sharecropping, and Jim Crow laws during his life to become the founder of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company and a prominent barber. Alonzo's first wife, Adrienne McNeil, served as the head of dramatics at Atlanta University. The interior is furnished to period with pieces which belonged to the Herndons and others purchased by their son, Norris.

The home offers period rooms.

George Ranch Historical Park [TX]

Description

The George Ranch Historical Park presents living history interpretation of the history of Fort Bend County, Texas and neighboring areas. The site consists of a 23,000-acre working ranch, which interprets the periods between 1824 and circa 1940. Sites include the 1830s Jones Stock Farm, 1860s Ryon Prairie Home, a sharecropper's farm, chuck wagon camp, blacksmith shop, the 1890s Davis Victorian Mansion, a family cemetery in use between the 1820s and 1916, and the 1930s George Ranch House.

The park offers period rooms; hands-on activities; guided group tours; self-guided tours; 11 educational program options for students, including two role-playing programs; a homeschool day program; demonstrations; home tours; living history interpreters; period lunches; a tram; and a cafe. Groups desiring guided tours must include at least 15 individuals. Meal options are available for groups.

California African American Museum

Description

The California African American Museum presents African American art, history, and culture. The museum's permanent exhibit addresses life in West Africa, experiences in the American South, and the Great Migration toward the western coast. Highlights include traditional headdresses and masks. Collections include landscapes, traditional and modern arts, and other artifacts of historical note.

The museum offers exhibits, guided tours, lectures, craft activities, films, performances, readings, discussions, and a high school docent internship. Groups of 10 or more are asked to make reservations. The website offers educator resource guides for purchase.

National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center [OH]

Description

The National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center aims to educate the public about African-American history and culture from African origins to the present through a variety of programs, including museum exhibits, research and publications, visiting scholars, oral and visual history, and adult and children's educational activities.

The museum and center offer exhibits and tours.

Levine Museum of the New South [NC]

Description

The Levine Museum of the New South presents the history and culture of the New South, the Southern United States after 1865. At the beginning of this period, southerners were forced to determine new ways of life, as the institution of slavery, so long a major component of the economy, had been abolished. The museum's permanent exhibit uses the Charlotte area to describe the development of the South after the end of the Civil War. The interactive exhibit includes six experiential environments, as well as oral histories, film, music, and more than 1,000 artifacts.

The museum offers interactive exhibits, self-guided tours, guided exhibit tours, guided walking tours, curriculum-based programs for students, traveling trunks, outreach programs, discussions, and lectures. Reservations are required for all group tours or programs, and must be made at least two weeks in advance.

Old City Cemetery and Museums [VA]

Description

The Old City Cemetery is the oldest public cemetery in Virginia, in continuous operation since 1806. The site includes the Mourning Museum, Pest House Medical Museum, Hearse House and Cemetery Caretaker's Museum, Station House, and Chapel and Columbarium. The Station House is furnished in a circa World War I style. The Hearse House contains a circa 1900 hearse and a variety of cemetery caretaker tools. The Mourning Museum presents 19th- and 20th-century mourning attire, jewelry, and etiquette, as well as the history of coffins and embalming. Topics relevant to the site include horticulture, symbolism, ironwork, Civil War medicine, mourning practices of the Victorian era, railways, African American history, the founding of Lynchburg, women, archaeology, and local disasters. The cemetery has been in use since 1806.

The cemetery offers self-guided tours; period rooms; exhibits; Mourning Museum tours; interior tours of the Pest House, Hearse House, Station House, and Chapel; audio tours; customizable guided cemetery tours; and wayside signs. Appointments are required for interior tours of the Pest House, Hearse House, Station House, and Chapel, as well as for guided cemetery tours. The website offers lesson plans, brief descriptions of notable figures interred on site, a virtual African American history tour, and brief informative articles.