The African American Heritage Family Tree Museum
Introduction
Text-to-speech Audio
The African American Heritage Family Tree Museum is dedicated to the collection, exhibition, and preservation of African American culture and history in West Virginia. This museum is open to the public from Memorial Day through Labor Day. The museum was established in 1991 by Norman Jordan and Dr. Brucella Jordan. The Norton House in Malden WV is connected to this museum, and is available to view by appointment.
Images
Sign that leads to the museum.
William H. Jordan
Backstory and Context
Text-to-speech Audio
The African American Heritage Family Tree Museum is unique in its mission to support the preservation of African American culture and history in West Virginia. The museum makes efforts to record local oral histories, visit and talk to local schools, and hold community programs to educate the surrounding communities. The museum was founded by two Chautauqua Scholars: Dr. Brucella Jordan and Norman Jordan.
Dr. Brucella Jordan is a historian and the curator of the African American Heritage Family Tree Museum. She is a Chautauqua scholar who portrays the social activist Ida B. Wells, and the Harlem Renaissance poet, Anne Spencer. Norman Jordan was the co-founder and director of the African American Heritage Family Tree Museum until his passing in 2015. He was also a poet and playwright associated with the Blacks Arts Movement, Director of the African American Arts & Heritage Academy for teenagers, and a Carter G. Woodson Chautauqua Scholar.
The museum holds the collection of African American photographer William H. Jordan. The collection contains over 1,000 negatives and photographs as well as Mr. Jordan’s personal diaries, his Krona View 8×10 Studio Camera and camera stand, his posing stool and various other two- and three-dimensional artifacts. Jordan was born in 1886 and died in 1976.
The African American Heritage Family Tree Museum’s “Jordan Collection” is currently on display in the historic Norton House in Malden, West Virginia. The Norton House is owned and operated by West Virginia State University.
Sources
The African American Heritage Family Tree Museum on MuseumUSA http://www.museumsusa.org/museums/info/12739 http://aaheritagefamilytreemuseum.org/