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Photograph (c.1920)
of the Greenville Branch, Jersey City Free Public Library. View looking
southeast from Wade Street and Kennedy Boulevard. Originally published
in the American Architect magazine. |
The Afro-American
Historical and Cultural Society Museum is housed on the second floor of
the Greenville Branch of the Jersey City Free Public Library |
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In 1977, Captain Thomas Taylor, President of the Jersey City Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, promoted the idea to have an exhibit on Afro-American history and culture in Jersey City for February, Black History Month. Lay historian Theodore Brunson, with Nora Fant and Virginia Dunnaway, formed the Historical and Cultural Committee to fulfill that mission with the assistance of the NAACP. In 1984, the committee found permanent space for a museum as a separate nonprofit organization housed on the second floor in the Greenville Branch of the Jersey City Free Public Library. Now a consultant to the museum, Brunson was its first director to 1998. His son, Neal E. Brunson, Esq., presently serves as director. The Museum has galleries for lectures, special exhibits, and a permanent collection of material culture of New Jersey's African Americans as well as African artifacts. The collection includes memorabilia and documents of the Pullman Porters (a black labor union), the Civil Rights Movement, the NAACP in New Jersey, slave trade in Jersey City and New Jersey, the underground railroad, a replica of an urban 1930s kitchen, photographs of New Jersey's historic African American churches,and genealogical records for the preparation of family histories. It conducts tours of historic sites in Hudson County and schedules special events, such as Kwanzaa, celebrating the contributions of African Americans. Reference:
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| By: Carmela Karnoutsos Project Administrator: Patrick Shalhoub |
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