TUCSON, Ariz. (13 News) – Tucson is home to the only Black history museum in southern Arizona.
Located on the University of Arizona’s campus, the African American Museum of Southern Arizona opened in 2023 with a goal of helping celebrate and recognize the achievements and contributions of Black people throughout history in our area.
“Even our own people, African Americans, we aren’t sure how much is out there, but we are finding out there is more and more,” African American Museum of Southern Arizona Executive Director Beverly Elliott said.
The 11-hundred-square-foot museum has become a growing archive of stories, images, and artifacts that tell the history of the Black community in and around Tucson.
Exhibits include everything from the Buffalo Soldiers to the historic Dunbar community, which was home to Tucson’s first segregated school. There are also displays that recognize icons like Fred Snowden, the men’s basketball coach at the University of Arizona in the early 1970s who was the first African American head coach at a major university.
Elliott said every day they are discovering more.
“We have some information on Hattie McDaniel who was married here and lived in Tucson,” Elliott said. “Hattie McDaniel was the first African American woman to receive an Oscar award with Gone with the Wind. She was Mammy in Gone with the Wind.”
What started out as nine exhibits has grown to 17 and there is more on the way.
“We have put in for and applied for a little more space here on campus, so we are keeping our fingers crossed because we have enough to probably fill a whole other room,” Elliott said.
Elliott said she knows more stories are out there waiting to be heard, and they want to preserve them and share them with the community.
“Sometimes it’s just an oral history,” Elliott said. “Sometimes it’s you know my grandmas passed away, but she came here with the Buffalo Soldiers and that story needs to be told and that’s a legacy story.”
They’ve had over 7,000 people visit since they opened just over two years ago. Elliott said they’ve had people come in from all over the world.
The popularity of the museum has even grabbed the attention of some national icons who have come to visit Tucson to share their stories. People like Carlotta Walls Lanier, the youngest of the nine courageous Black students known as the Little Rock Nine who integrated Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Basketball legend Julius Erving, as well as Ruby Bridges, the first African American child to integrate an all-white elementary school in the South in 1960.
“We try to bring in those icons that are gonna relate to young people. We want to be intergenerational,” Elliott said. “So the people my age probably grew up with Ruby Bridges whereas my grandchildren are learning about her in school.”
Elliott said they are more than just a museum as they work to educate the public on social injustices too, much like the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“His whole platform was about equality, whether it was education, whether it was healthcare, whether it was employment,” Elliott said. “All of those things are still around for African Americans which is why we say we are not just a museum, we are a movement.”
Elliott said the idea for the museum came from her grandson Jody. In 2021, he was assigned a school report during Black History Month on an African American Hero and found there was nowhere in Tucson where you could go and learn about these important historical figures. So they decided to create that special place.
“Jody says to me ‘I think you should start a museum, and I will help you!’” Elliott said. “My husband and I talked about it, and we decided to check with JP Roczniak who’s the head of the U of A foundation and he thought it was a great idea so we started working with the University to find the space and then I put the word out there we were doing it and I could not believe how many people were saying ‘I have something you should put in the museum.”
Beverely says one of the best ways to celebrate Black History Month is to read and educate yourself. She said you can do that by supporting a number of talented local authors like Adiba Nelson, Márquez Price and Daisy Jenkins.
There is also a variety of Black History Month events happening in our area:
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