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Joined 10 years ago

Much more educational than the typical wax museum sideshow.. The Mission


While this isn't the world's first exclusively African-American wax museum (which was in Baltimore), it is both a first-rate resource for African-Americans getting in touch with their history and their culture and for anyone who has been cheated by the American school system into believing the anemic little sketches of black history that students are given.



What's Inside


Actually, the "wax" part is not the main focus--the exhibits feature murals and historical objects as well as wax figures. But those wax statues are very powerful: George Washington Carver becomes all the more vivid as a historical figure when you can see what he might have looked like. Unlike many wax museums, the exhibits are not just set about willy-nilly, but tell a story. The first exhibit is a mural of pre-slavery African tribes; the ones that follow depict the horrible conditions slaves were forced to endure, "disciplinary" weapons used on slaves, a slave cabin recovered from Jonesboro, MO, a box that was used to mail a slave out of captivity and wax figures of George Washington Carver, John Berry Mecham and Clara Brown.