Planting historical feet

Legacy Museum of African-American History opens in Lynchburg

By KIA SHANT'E BREAUX
Associated Press Writer

LYNCHBURG-It all started with a painting.

Seven years ago, a local artist asked area residents to help gather information on prominent blacks in the Lynchburg area.

The result was "Plant My Feet on Higher Ground," a painting of dozens of the area's most influential blacks compiled from old photographs.

That painting by Ann van de Graaf inspired a movement to dig up more information about the role blacks have played in Lynchburg and central Virginia. Thus, the idea for the Legacy Museum of African-American History was born.

"There's not much about African-Americans in the local museum; therefore, a lot of African-Americans didn't feel comfortable going," said museum board member Carolyn Bell, an English teacher at Randolph-Macon Woman's College. "That demonstrated to me that there was a need and a place for this museum."

The first exhibit in the Legacy Museum, which opened last month, focuses on health care. Subsequent exhibits will showcase education, the black church, political life and entertainment and sports.

The health care exhibit includes artifacts, memorabilia and documents that tell about the struggles of blacks dating from the use of herbal medicines during the Antebellum period through segregation and the present day.

One wall features pictures of old tobacco mills converted into hospitals during the Civil War. Slaves often staffed the hospitals as nurses, cooks and laundry hands.

The museum also features Dr. Augustus Nathaniel Lushington of Lynchburg, believed to be the first black in the country to receive a degree in veterinary medicine in 1897. There's also memorabilia belonging to Clarissa Wimbush, who became Virginia's first black female dentist in 1926.

Another prominent black physician was Dr. R. Walter Johnson, who treated famous black athletes such as Arthur Ashe and Althea Gibson. The museum recently received a tennis racket cover signed by Ashe to add to its collection.

Perhaps the most touching artifact in the museum is a heartfelt letter by Dr. R.C. Wesley, Sr., to the staff of Lynchburg General hospital. In the handwritten letter, Wesley urged the all-white staff to allow black doctors to visit their patients in the hospital-something that was forbidden until the 1960s.

The final leg of the tour features pictures of the area's black health care workers today.

"We are really proud of this museum," said Thelma Mundy, the museum's administrator. "This project has been a long time coming."

The project was initially sponsored by the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Museum organizers formed a corporation in 1995 and they've been working on opening ever since.

The main obstacle was finding a place for the museum. The group finally settled on an old, rundown house in the heart of Lynchburg's black community that had served as a brothel years ago.

"This was a place of ill repute during Prohibition," said Joe Berryman, president of the museum board.

Today, one could hardly tell the Victorian house was once uninhabitable. It has been fully restored and even has a charming storytelling porch and a marvelous second-story view of the city.

Appropriately, the museum's logo is the Sankofa, a symbol of the Akan people of West Africa which means "return and take from the past that which may have been forgotten but which will be of use today and in the future."

Bell said it is important for blacks and whites alike to visit the Legacy Museum.

"Until we make an honest effort to understand this part of American history, we're not going to make much progress in race relations," said Bell, who is white.

"Too many people say, 'Slavery was bad, segregation was bad, but it's in the past.' Everyone needs to take into account what those things meant and the impact that they have on the county today."