African American Museum of Rhode Island will turn History into Empowerment

The African American Museum of Rhode Island (AAMRI) will also be a workforce development opportunity for youth and young adults of color.

From an AAMRI press release:

It was conversations with frustrated neighborhood youth that gave Helen E. Baskerville-Dukes the idea to use Rhode Island Black history to help others understand identity, foster pride, and remain hopeful.    

The African American Museum of Rhode Island (AAMRI) will also be a workforce development opportunity for youth and young adults of color. 

“There was nothing I could do or say to give them that hope then,” said Baskerville-Dukes, who also leads the successful Juneteenth RI festivities and is the Executive Director of the Mount Hope Community Center. “But to know who you are and seeing a physical structure or exhibits that say, ‘Hey, look at us, someone cares about you, your blackness, your curly coils…’ That connection will draw them in, and then we can give them skills that will take them much further in life.” 

The initial seed money and a team of organizers with Baskerville-Dukes helped start the project. It builds on the existing efforts made to preserve that history in Rhode Island while strengthening the state’s economic stability and prosperity, particularly for young residents of color. The first phase involves hiring cohorts of community youth for Stories from Camp Street: Black Providence in the 20th Century, a project that enables the intergenerational transfer of knowledge from elders in the Black communities for all to know and celebrate. These oral history stories will be recorded, interpreted, and distributed via social media networks. 

The team has identified six community icons from this neighborhood Baskerville-Dukes grew up and still resides in for the first vignettes that the students will produce - Robert Lee Bailey Sr., Amy Elizabeth Pinder-Bailey, William H. “Dixie” Matthews, Captain Reeves Ramsey Taylor, William A. Taylor, and Roosevelt “Bells” Benton. This phase will conclude with a showcase and presentation of the youth’s experience at a March 2025 breakfast. 

Additional phases include an exhibition-style panel display of their projects that can tour throughout Rhode Island; more permanent structures within the neighborhood with QR codes to scan to learn more; and introducing or replacing neglected street signs that celebrate the community’s history. More phases will expand to additional people, neighborhoods, and subjects, such as Black nurses who were educated and certified in the American South and migrated with their families to Providence in the post WWII era. They served as the backbone of public-facing primary health care in the Black communities. Finally, a museum to serve as a home for all this work is a final goal.

“This is not about a museum,” said Wendy Wallace, another AAMRI organizer, who is Director of Civic Engagement for Brown University. “We want to tether these young folks, not handcuff them, to their community with knowledge and engagement. We want them to not only learn but receive technical skills and money in their pockets to launch them.”

For more information, go to www.aam-ri.org.