Boo! Hiss!-story
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I went to a two hour session about the African American Museum here in Dallas this morning at my church. Phillip, the curator of the museum, gave an interesting talk about the history of the museum and showed some slides of the artwork exhibited there. It's wonderful, and I can't wait to visit next weekend when a group from my church will go there as the second part of this informative session this morning.
During the history part of the talk, he said that Dallas (yes he said Dallas TX!) had the first African American Museum in the country in 1936! Wow...was I ever proud of that!! It was housed in one of the art deco buildings at Fair Park and was known at that time as the African American Museum of Life and Culture.
But then, as he continued the history of the museum, it got ugly. Seems that during the early days of the museum, blacks could only access the place on "Black Family Day, Black School Children Day, and June 19th." The rest of the time, the museum sat empty.
So with all this non-use, the city fathers, in their infinite wisdom, decided that the site of the museum could be put to better use. It would be a wonderful place for a public swimming pool, in their minds, so they tore it down and built the pool there. (So much for art and history and culture!)
But wait, it gets worse. When the civil rights movement back in the 60s started catching on and the city fathers realized that they would have to allow blacks the opportunity to use the public pool, they filled the pool in with concrete and built a parking lot for the Music Hall at the site. (You just can't have too much concrete now, can you?)
Thankfully, in 1974, Bishop College decided to appropriate part of their space for another museum and in 1980, a bond election was held to fund the new building at Fair Park. And that's where it stands today. It's part of the Smithsonian and is the only African American museum in the Southwest US.
So the next time you are in the Fair Park area of town, check it out. Better yet, plan a trip to visit it and I think you'll be glad that you did!
During the history part of the talk, he said that Dallas (yes he said Dallas TX!) had the first African American Museum in the country in 1936! Wow...was I ever proud of that!! It was housed in one of the art deco buildings at Fair Park and was known at that time as the African American Museum of Life and Culture.
But then, as he continued the history of the museum, it got ugly. Seems that during the early days of the museum, blacks could only access the place on "Black Family Day, Black School Children Day, and June 19th." The rest of the time, the museum sat empty.
So with all this non-use, the city fathers, in their infinite wisdom, decided that the site of the museum could be put to better use. It would be a wonderful place for a public swimming pool, in their minds, so they tore it down and built the pool there. (So much for art and history and culture!)
But wait, it gets worse. When the civil rights movement back in the 60s started catching on and the city fathers realized that they would have to allow blacks the opportunity to use the public pool, they filled the pool in with concrete and built a parking lot for the Music Hall at the site. (You just can't have too much concrete now, can you?)
Thankfully, in 1974, Bishop College decided to appropriate part of their space for another museum and in 1980, a bond election was held to fund the new building at Fair Park. And that's where it stands today. It's part of the Smithsonian and is the only African American museum in the Southwest US.
So the next time you are in the Fair Park area of town, check it out. Better yet, plan a trip to visit it and I think you'll be glad that you did!
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