The Old Line State’s official museum of African American heritage and culture got a new name this year. The Banneker-Douglass-Tubman Museum in historic Annapolis memorializes a trio of antislavery trailblazers—native Marylanders, all.
The museum, which explores African American history in the state from 1633 to the present, inspires its 15,000 annual visitors “to learn how they too can be agents of change in their own communities,” says executive director Chanel Johnson.
Nestled just blocks away from the Maryland State House, the museum is housed in the former Mount Moriah African Methodist Episcopal Church, constructed in 1874 by a congregation of free African Americans whose roots in the area stretch back to the eighteenth century.
Opened in 1984, it was named the Banneker-Douglass Museum in honor of mathematician, astronomer, and antislavery activist Benjamin Banneker and abolitionist and statesman Frederick Douglass. Its new name now recognizes Harriet Tubman, an abolitionist who made 13 missions to free slaves as a conductor on the Underground Railroad.
Johnson has helmed the museum since 2017, collaborating with artists, educators, and community organizations to produce exhibitions and educational programs.
The free museum’s permanent exhibition,Deep Roots, Rising Waters,includes a recording of a Douglass speech decrying racism and slavery; a reward poster for Tubman; and other artifacts celebrating the contributions of Marylanders including the late US Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall and explorer Matthew Henson.
𱹾/Ա,one of three rotating exhibitions,features more than 100 photos from theAfro American Newspapers,which chronicled the civil rights movement in Maryland during the 1950s and ’60s. The exhibition runs through January 4 and coincides with Maryland governor Wes Moore’s declaration of 2024 as the Year of Civil Rights to mark the 60th anniversary of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“Museums are such powerful places,” says Johnson, whopreviously worked as executive director of Prince George’s African American Museum and Cultural Center. “They bring history to life and fire the imaginations of young people. Getting to see that in real time is incredibly powerful.”