Keepers of the Memory: Frederick’s New Heritage Center, Atchison’s Black Business District Museum, and the Volunteers Restoring Black Cemeteries

A people who keep their own story stay connected to one another. In recent days, in small cities and rural counties across the country, Black families and their neighbors have done that work with their own hands: readying a heritage center for its grand opening, giving a forgotten business district a museum, and clearing brush from burial grounds that were nearly lost. Much of it happens on an ordinary Saturday, and much of it is happening today.

Frederick, Maryland: “Where History Comes Home”

Frederick County’s African American Heritage Center holds its grand opening on Saturday, October 17, at 2 p.m. at 125 East All Saints Street, WYPR reports. The City of Frederick calls it the county’s first museum and cultural center dedicated to the history and contributions of local African Americans, which the African American Resources Cultural and Heritage Society, known as AARCH, is opening under the theme “Walk. Rise. Remember: Where History Comes Home.”

According to WYPR, the center was the dream of the late historian Bill Lee, AARCH’s founder, who wanted a place to tell the lost and forgotten stories of Frederick’s Black community. AARCH member Barbara Thompson told the station the idea began with the society’s founding in 2001, and the work itself took more than five years. Visitors will walk a timeline from the 1600s to today, with exhibits on voting rights and the importance of African American churches, a theater showing AARCH’s documentaries, including The Tale of the Lion, about the staff of the segregated Lincoln School during Jim Crow, and a replica of Petey Sewell’s barbershop with the original chair from his shop.

Thompson also chairs AARCH’s living treasures initiative, which records oral histories of Black elders in the county, and she told WYPR the center will later add a computer lab where young people can research their own ancestry. “People can come in and just connect with the living treasures, ask them about their journey, [and] connect with their historical knowledge of Frederick,” Thompson said. “Especially for the young people.”

Atchison, Kansas: the call that started it all

In Atchison, the Historic Black Business District Museum held its formal grand opening on October 3 at 1118 North Seventh Street, in a building that dates to 1920, according to KAIR and MSC News. The Atchison Globe reported that the opening came after five years of grassroots effort, with Patty Boldridge cutting the ribbon.

Boldridge, an artist and genealogist, told KAIR it began with a warning that the last standing buildings of the old district could be demolished. “My cousin Angela called me and she said, ‘You’ve got to be at the City Commission meeting tonight,’” she said. She and her sister, Sonja Boldridge, started digging. “We have uncovered over 100 Black-owned businesses,” Boldridge said. “I believe the earliest was 1876.” Per KAIR, the City of Atchison transferred properties connected to the district for the project in 2024, and preserving that history has long been a goal of the Atchison County Historical Society and its volunteers.

Six places across the country where communities are keeping Black history alive.

Ypsilanti, Michigan: lifting Woodlawn’s headstones

Woodlawn Cemetery in Ypsilanti Township is Washtenaw County’s only known historic Black cemetery, MLive reports. It was founded in 1946 by Pastor Garther Roberson of Ypsilanti’s Second Baptist Church, at a time when other cemeteries refused to bury people of color. After 1965 it went unmaintained, trees grew over it, many gravestones were buried, and its records were lost in a garage fire in the 1960s.

Now, according to MLive, hundreds of volunteers have helped clear the site and unearth buried headstones, and two training days on October 10 and October 17 teach volunteers to safely lift, reset, and clean grave markers, led by preservationist Melanie Purkis. “We think there are at least 500 gravesites there,” said Debby Covington, a board member of the African American Cultural and Historical Museum of Washtenaw County, which leads the restoration with Washtenaw County and Ypsilanti Township partners, with support from groups including the Washtenaw African American Genealogical Society. That is an estimate: the museum’s own project page says initial research indicates the cemetery is the final resting place of more than 150 African Americans, so the full count is still being worked out. “This is a very exciting phase because of all the work we’ve done previously,” Covington told MLive.

Dunn, North Carolina: “Show respect for those who came before us”

In Harnett County, a local committee is calling for volunteers to clean up Wilkins Cemetery, one of the oldest African American cemeteries in the county, at 10 a.m. on Saturday, October 17, at 1127 North Wilson Avenue in Dunn, The Daily Record reports. The paper names committee members Audra Goodman, Pam Amerson, Gerelene Goodman, Dunn City Council member Raquel McNeil, Dr. Gwendolyn McNeill, Cynthia Fisher, and Peggy Robinson.

“Your time, effort, and support will make a meaningful difference in honoring and preserving this historic resting place,” Pam Amerson said in an email quoted by the paper. “Together, we can preserve our history and show respect for those who came before us.”

Lake Charles, Louisiana: clearing the Chloe cemetery

The Chloe African American Cemetery Preservation Association is holding a community cleanup on October 17 and 18, from 7 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., at the cemetery on Manchester Road, KPLC reports. The station describes it as a nineteenth-century burial ground along English Bayou in Calcasieu Parish, tied to generations of African American, Creole, and Native American families. The association says it received a $10,000 sponsorship from Amazon, and it is still asking for volunteers to clear brush and for local contractors who can lend equipment and experienced operators.

Big Rapids, Michigan: the Jim Crow Museum’s new home

Ferris State University says more than 1,000 people toured its Jim Crow Museum during the grand opening of its new building, which holds more than 30,000 artifacts and a recording studio where visitors can share their own experiences. Per the university, funding from the Michigan Legislature, through three grants, covered $10 million of the $22 million construction cost. “I hope this exhibit will remind Michiganders of the power of community connection, that when we band together in our humanity, we can overcome even the most insurmountable odds,” said state Senator Sarah Anthony, in the university’s announcement.

Lessons from the keepers of the memory, from Atchison to Ypsilanti.

What we can carry forward

Show up when it is threatened. In Atchison, one urgent phone call brought a family to the meeting that mattered.
Learn the craft of care. Ypsilanti’s training days turn willing hands into skilled preservers.
Sit with the living treasures. Frederick’s oral histories remind us to record our elders’ stories while they are here to tell them.
Bring the young people. A child who finds a great-grandparent’s name in the record knows where they come from.
Keep the ground clean. Dunn and Lake Charles show that honoring the ancestors can be as simple as gloves, clippers, and a Saturday morning.

Memory is not something we inherit by accident. It is something we keep, together, one headstone and one story at a time.

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