America’s Black Holocaust Museum reemerges after 14-year hiatus with Foundation support
In 2008, America’s Black Holocaust Museum closed its brick-and-mortar location on North Fourth Street. Despite 20 years in existence, it was in danger of being wiped off the map for good.
In 2022, the museum reopened and was mentioned in The New York Times as one of the main reasons why people should visit Milwaukee’s Bronzeville neighborhood. A small but tenacious group of volunteers, support from an African American legacy group and a couple of catalytic philanthropic investments by an anonymous Foundation donor led to its revival. America’s lingering disparities and racial reckoning have made the cultural cornerstone even more relevant and necessary.
ABHM is dedicated to the legacy of Dr. James Cameron, the only publicly known lynching survivor. Inspired by a visit to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, Cameron founded ABHM in 1988 to explore under-told stories of the Black experience from pre-captivity to the present day in order to bring about racial repair and reconciliation.
“He thought we needed that here in Milwaukee, to teach the history of what’s going on, because it wasn’t taught in schools,” said his son, Virgil Cameron. “If you know the history, you have a chance of not repeating it.”
In 2008, following Cameron’s death and the Great Recession, the museum closed. But in 2010, it began its long road to recovery. In 2012, volunteers launched the museum’s virtual presence, which now has more than 3,300 pages of content. Interest in the museum continued to grow organically, thanks to the website and community programming held in churches, libraries and community organizations. However, it was a $750,000 grant from an anonymous Foundation donor in 2017 that “changed the whole equation,” providing much needed resources and momentum to revive the physical space, said Brad Pruitt, ABHM’s former executive director and one of the original volunteers to relaunch the museum.
“It sent a message to the world that this is a viable pursuit,” Pruitt said. “Who makes a $750,000 contribution to something unless they have some confidence in its ability to manifest its vision?”
The donor wanted to ensure that the museum’s role in sharing the story of Black Americans in U.S. history would be available for Milwaukee and beyond, said Kristen Mekemson, the Foundation’s vice president of development and philanthropic services. That generational work aligns with the Foundation’s vision of building a Milwaukee for all. The donor also has invested in the Wisconsin Black Historical Society, which has documented and preserved the historical heritage of people of African descent in Wisconsin, serving as a community and educational hub for 35 years.
Over the years, the donor’s support of ABHM grew. In 2019 the donor’s $1 million gift helped ABHM start an endowment. In 2021, ABHM received a $10 million commitment, which in part has allowed it to acquire another building, hire staff, finish exhibits, hold a reopening ceremony and develop programming.
“There are all kinds of individuals who feel the way I did about my father and what he believed in,” said Virgil Cameron. “He hoped everyone was listening. And evidently, they were.”
The donor wanted the gift to serve as a springboard for donations, exposure and collaborations both locally and nationally. That wish is already coming to fruition. The museum has received calls from all over the United States and from as far away as London. Close to 900 people visited on its opening day in February 2022, and ABHM averages several hundred weekday visitors.
ABHM plans to hire three part-time and eight full-time employees within the next 18 months. It purchased a building across the street, 324 W. North Ave., where it will build classrooms, office space, an auditorium and additional exhibit space.
Even before reopening, ABHM has been a catalyst in helping transform the Bronzeville area. Planned area projects include an artist housing cluster, the Foundation’s ThriveOn King headquarters and a new Bronzeville Center for the Arts.
“When you think of arts and culture, entertainment and economic development, areas like Bronzeville were epicenters for this — and there is no reason why we shouldn’t have them reemerge,” Davis said. “It makes total sense that a museum that has chronicled our history would be the cornerstone of doing that.”