Surging Interest in Black History Gives a Lift to Museums, Tourism

Black history museums and historic sites are flourishing across the South, riding a wave of interest in African-American history that has made a stunning success of the two-year-old National Museum of African American History and Culture in the nation’s capital.

In the past year, museums documenting the civil rights struggle and memorializing lynching victims have opened in Jackson, Mississippi, and Montgomery, Alabama. In Nashville, a museum focusing on African-American music is scheduled to open next year. 

And in Charleston, South Carolina, construction is set to begin next year on a projected $75 million black history museum that will stand on the former site of Gadsden’s Wharf, the disembarkation point for more than 100,000 Africans brought to America and sold into slavery.