Black History Museum of Virginia Added To Nat’l Civil Rights Sites

RICHMOND

Richmond’s Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia was recently selected as one of seven new sites nationwide that will describe the civil rights struggle.

The nationwide network includes the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, where four girls were killed in a 1963 bombing; the home of activist Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi; and the Lorraine Motel in Memphis where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. The Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery and Memorial in Alexandria, Va., where about 1,800 Black slave escapees are now buried, was added to the network in 2021

Launched in 1981, the Black History Museum of Virginia began on Clay Street in Jackson Ward. In 2016, the museum moved to an historic existing facility at 122 W. Leigh St. where it underwent extensive renovations.

According to its website, “BHMVA aims to restore a profound sense of cultural pride, well being, and unity within the diaspora while fostering a more open and inclusive society.”

The museum focuses on the collection, documentation, and study of untold and forgotten stories of Blacks in Virginia. In February, the museum was one of fourteen organizations chosen to receive a grant from the Virginia Museum History & Culture’s (VMHC) Commonwealth History Fund.