Effort mounted to reopen Waterloo Black history museum
African American Historical and Cultural Museum hopes to reopen in spring; needs community support
WATERLOO — The African American Historical and Cultural Museum in Waterloo, dormant for about 12 years, may bloom again in the spring.
A core of volunteers is jump-starting a quarter-century dream to have the museum, on East Fourth Street across from Sullivan Brothers Memorial Park, open on a regular basis as a resource for Black history and culture in Waterloo.
Volunteers hope to have the museum open again to the public several days a week beginning in March, through October; it’s anticipated to be included as a stop on school tours prior to that. Plans are also underway to move a one-room country schoolhouse to the site for artifact and exhibit space.
“If I can tell the community anything, it’s that we’re going to need community support,” said Ryan Madison, an insurance agent and local farmer who chairs the board of volunteers. “This is an opportunity for us to actually complete this project and get it to fruition. We have some really good people who are really passionate about it and trying to do something for the community.”
They’ve committed some of their own resources and time, but more is needed.
A fund has been established at the Community Foundation of Northeast Iowa to accept donations. Organizers are looking to raise about $500,000 to pay for site improvements associated with the planned schoolhouse move.
Organizers are looking for volunteers, possibly retired teachers, to staff the museum, as well as donations of artifacts and monetary support.
The museum is located in a donated railroad boxcar, refurbished inside as exhibition space. The boxcar is symbolic because the bulk of Waterloo’s Black families who came north from Mississippi during the Great Migration in the early 1910s to work for the Illinois Central Railroad that ran from the Midwest through the Deep South.
While other cities have a larger population numerically, Waterloo has the highest percentage Black population of any larger city in Iowa — 17 percent, or 11,800, out of a population of 67,300. Black students make up 27 percent of Waterloo public school enrollment.
Planning for the museum began in 1996. In 1998, original plans were announced for a museum on the site across from Sullivan Park. In 2005 , the Canadian National Railway, following up on a commitment by its predecessor Illinois Central, donated the boxcar for the museum site, and its interior was renovated into an appropriate exhibition space.
The site, and an adjacent pavilion to the rear of the boxcar added in 2013, have been made available and utilized for community activities. But there has been little development with the boxcar museum itself since 2014 following some leadership turnover. The museum’s longtime former executive director, Melvina Scott, passed away in 2018.
The museum is open by appointment and features many interesting artifacts. While normal repair and maintenance has been made, longer-term plans for the facility have yet to be realized. That’s what Madison and the present board hopes to revive in making the facility that is more open and accessible to the general public.
“The status of the museum is, we’re in a better position” financially, Madison said. It is in the process of paying off an assessment for sidewalk repairs. “But everything with a nonprofit hinges on community support. We’ve had a few donations” and board members have chipped in their own resources, but more is needed to sustain site improvements and operations into the future.
An “African American Historical and Cultural Museum Fund” has been established at the Community Foundation of Northeast Iowa to accept donations. A Facebook page has been set up with a link to that fund and it can be accessed here. The organization’s website, also with a donation option, can be accessed here.
“Everything, again, hinges on the community and community support,” Madison said. “We’re working on that relationship and trying to be more transparent with the community on what’s going on” with anticipated possible activities. “As we get more involvement, the more things we’re able to do.”
That includes being a stop on a Waterloo schools tour of the historic “Smokey Row” area near the railroad tracks crossing East Fourth Street south of Sullivan Park where many Black families coming from Mississippi settled more than a century ago. It was named “Smokey Row” because of the number of establishments there of questionable repute; but it was one of the few areas where Blacks were allowed to settle because of de facto segregation.
Beyond the school tour program, Madison said, “We want to piggyback off that and start opening the museum three days out of the week, and we need volunteers to be able to do that. Of course, we don’t have the finances or resources to have staff at this point. So the goal is to have it open like a Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, for about four or five hours a day.”
”It hinges on community support and getting the community involved.” Madison said. Museum board members have reached out to various community organizations and leaders to let them know the museum is trying to be more active again. The museum is looking for retired teachers and others to serve as museum staff or board members.
“We have a couple of exhibits we want to work on,” Madison said, including “Fades,” the history of Black-owned barber shops; and a display of U.S. postage stamps commemorating historic Black individuals and events. However, “we don’t want to over-promise and under-deliver,” he said, and, for example, are looking to local business and those previously associated with local barber shops to supply artifacts and information.
“Right now, we’re working a shoestring budget,” Madison said. A major development will be when the schoolhouse is moved on site. That will provide an additional 3,000 square feet for exhibition space and programs. Wayne Magee of Magee Construuction in Cedar Falls said he is working on estimates associated with that work.
But again, Madison said, “I can’t iterate it enough: Everything we do is hinging on community support. It takes a village.”
More information is available at the museum website, aahcmuseum.org, linked here
Pat Kinney is a freelance writer and former longtime news staffer with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier and, prior to that, several years at the Ames Tribune. He is currently an oral historian with the Grout Museum District in Waterloo. His “View from the Cedar Valley” column is part of “Iowa Writers Collaborative,” a collection of news and opinion writers from around the state who previously and currently work with a host of Iowa newspapers, news organizations and other publications. They are listed below. Clink on the links to check them out, subscribe for free - and, if you believe in the value of quality journalism, support this column and/or any of theirs with a paid subscription .
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Opening the Black Museum is a worthwhile goal. However, equally worthwhile would be the creation of a graphic/audio version of the museum that could be inexpensively posted on the WWW. The artifacts would be easier to see by a much larger audience.
I find this narrative very offensive, given Darrell Wilder , the last President of this center was not mentioned in this article. Waterloo, I'm disappointed in your crab mentality.