The Prince Georges African American Museum and Cultural Center in North Brentwood will be getting an upgrade soon.
Located at 4519 Rhode Island Ave., for more than a decade the museum has commemorated Black history in Prince George’s County with rotating exhibits, workshops and events on topics as diverse as civic activism and quilting for more than a decade.
This week, the Maryland Historical Trust recently announced it has awarded the museum a $20,000 grant to design renovations at its facility which will include support space and affordable housing space for African-American artists.
The nonprofit museum grew out of the efforts of the North Brentwood Historical Society, which began collecting oral histories in 1991 about Brentwood being the oldest incorporated African-American municipality in the Washington area. The town’s history is rich, ranging from its founding in the Reconstruction Era to its Jazz Era music hall frequented by Duke Ellington to the end of formal segregation with neighboring Brentwood.
The historical society’s first effort, called “Footsteps from North Brentwood,” was displayed at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum in 1996 and 1997 and later at the State House in Annapolis. Afterwards, the group published a book, “Minding Our Own Business,” an oral history of the town’s entrepreneurs.
Although the museum is currently closed to in-person visitors due to the coronavirus pandemic, it has posted a series of online tours that visitors can stream online, especially during Black History Month.
