Episode 49: AARCH African American Heritage Center, Wilford Graham & Niya Yeboah

Now, the Heritage Center has been on a long road from getting the space to breaking ground last year to opening this month.

What are some of the hardest moments and what kept the team going

through all that?

Mm-hmm.

So much perseverance in what they were doing and the ultimate vision and goal of having the Heritage Center.

I remember it was probably a big thing in probably 2019, 2020, just writing letters of support for ARCH to have to get the building from Frederick.

Right.

I remember that being a big thing and kind of kind of getting over that hurdle, but so many more before that.

And then leading up to financing, that's been a big thing.

But just because they have all the artifacts, they have the ideas, they have the information, it's housing it and presenting it and finding a way to do that.

So that's been, I think, the long-term struggle.

Yeah.

And there were some misses or some losses.

I know they identified some buildings around Frederick that was sort of the old Lincoln School, for instance, that would have been ideal for... preserving cultural artifacts and so on.

And that went by the wayside or transformed into something else.

It felt like a loss to the community.

And the artifacts that we were collecting as people were transitioning out of Frederick, however you count that, right? The artifacts began to be stored in people's basements or barns and so on.

Yeah, literally.

Wow.

And you know what happens with that because it's not secured necessarily in the environment.

Exactly.

You know, so that those are some of the challenges.

I think and I'm going to say this a bit that our partnership with the city in securing our current space.

Yeah,

I think that was a major, major accomplishment.