First ever Black History Living Museum at Wicomico County Public Library
History Comes to Life
MARYLAND – The Wicomico County Library will host its first Black History Living Museum this weekend.
This museum aims to educate the community, highlight local historical figures, and highlight the contributions African Americans have made to our society and our State. Organizer Julia Hughey is excited to launch this real-life museum and says the community has much to gain. “They should expect to get a brief history of the person they’re portraying, and hopefully by having that information, it may make them want to go and do more research… It’s not just, it’s not just Black History, It’s American History.”
Learning new history and reading biographies is a love for DeMyra Harvey-Morris, the Library’s Project Read Coordinator who spearheaded this event. Volunteers have chosen historical figures and will dress up as an embodiment of the museum. “Well Originally, we wanted it during Black History Month, but just to pull it all together, we decided to kick off Black Lives Matter Month, in addition to Juneteenth as well… One of our characters on Saturday will be Ida B Wells. And she’s going to say, ‘Hi, I’m Ida B. Wells. I was born here, I grew up here, and I helped with this, this, and this.”
Hometown heroes in Wicomico County will have a separate room, DeMyra explains, and some characters will be portrayed by family members. “So, you’ll see characters or figures like Billy Jean Jackson Sr., Winifred Hall, Vivan Elzie Taylor, just to name a few… We’ll have April Jackosn, April Prunell-Chapman, and we’ll have Wanette Curtis. They will be portraying their family members as the hometown heroes.”
Julia says she can’t wait to the see local heroes come to life. “I would like to see Vivan Taylor, because she was the first black Art teacher at Salisbury High. She tells us often times we don’t go deep enough into the history, and this museum is an opportunity to expand. “People talk about Martin Luther King, they talk about Harriet Tubman, which we appreciate all that they’ve done. but there are other people that have been involved and did things let’s bring them to the light as well.”
Julia Hughey says they have students as young as 11, who will be portraying people like Serena Williams and Barack Obama. They wanted adults to be a major part of the program to hopefully encourage younger generations.
The library says they’re interested in community feedback to tell them what was good and suggest other programs you would like to see. The Black History Living Museum will take place Saturday from 1- 4 pm and is free and open to the public.
