America’s Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee’s Bronzeville neighborhood is welcoming visitors once again.
The museum was founded in 1988 by Dr. James Cameron, the only known survivor of a lynching. He established the Black Holocaust Museum after visiting a holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem. Cameron passed away in 2006.
The museum’s purpose is to promote the acknowledgment of African American history, from pre-captivity to the present, as an integral part of U.S. history.
The former brick and mortar museum closed in 2008. It’s existed virtually since 2012 and now also has a new building.
On what would have been Cameron’s 108th birthday, America’s Black Holocaust Museum reopened late last week. It’s at the corner of W. North Ave. & Vel R. Phillips Ave. in Milwaukee's Bronzeville.
First there was an invocation by Rev. Dr. Reginald Blount. Then Milwaukee poet Kwabena Antoine Nixon followed with a poem.
The rest of the ceremony included comments from elected officials and congratulatory remarks from national museum leaders. They represented the Smithsonian Museum of African American History & Culture, the African American Alliance of Museums and the American Alliance of Museums.
The ribbon cutting officially signaled the reopening of the museum. Then people began to file inside to see the exhibits. Folks were given 15 to 20 minutes to walk through the gallery.
The first thing you see when you enter the gallery space are images of Cameron, the museum's founder. Several photos of him are plastered across large panels with a welcome message.
Exhibits span the periods of African peoples before captivity to present day Civil Rights and Black Power movements.
I walked through one exhibit called "Door of No Return” that references when enslaved African people were packed onto ships headed for the New World.
Adjacent to that one was a makeshift auction block referencing how enslaved people were sold to the highest bidder.
I caught Dr. Carlos Grant, who came up from South Carolina for the opening, in front of an exhibit on the Great Migration — the period when Black people migrated from the South to the North for more opportunity. Grant had a mix of emotions navigating the gallery.
"Some things you're aware of, but it brings back a lot of pent-up anger, frustration, confusion, mystery all-in-one," Grant said.
Peter McCauley, who came up from Chicago, stood in front of a piece dedicated to former President Barack Obama, entitled "Yes We Can!" McCauley said he was in Chicago’s Grant Park when Obama won the presidency.
"Thinking about that, juxtaposed to what Dr. Cameron experienced, gives it the chance to reflect on how far we’ve been able to come despite the challenges that we’ve faced in this country. And it’s really refreshing to know that our history is not going to be erased," he said.
One family who was going through the gallery together stuck out to me. Justin Roby was breaking down Milwaukee Black history to his 10-year-old niece Ta’nilya. "I love to spread that knowledge to her. She’s very inquisitive by nature as well, I think she’s going to be just as brilliant as I am," Roby said.
Roby’s mom, Theresa Davis, was following behind pointing out what she remembered happening in Milwaukee and the nation when she was growing up in the 1960s.
Seeing all this history in one place made her cry. "I must’ve been seven when Martin Luther King was assassinated. I remember the riots that happened. You know, I remember a lot. I remember segregation here; we couldn’t go pass Sherman. I remember a lot," she said.
Davis said the experience at America’s Black Holocaust Museum was a high and low at the same time. "When you come in, you crying. But when you come around the corner you start seeing the hope again," she shared.
Davis said there is no way you could get the full effect of the museum in a 20-minute trip through the gallery, so she’s definitely coming back.
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