Tampa's Black History Museum is eyeing Summer 2027 as the timeframe it wants to open its doors to the public.
The museum is at the Historic Saint James Church at Encore on Central Avenue. This was once Tampa's heartbeat of Black-owned businesses and entertainment. The church is right across from Perry Harvey Sr. Park and the museum is a partnership between the Tampa Bay History Center and the Tampa Housing Authority.
On "Florida Matters Live & Local," museum program manager Janine Quarles Adkins and curator of Black history Fred Hearns described how they're continuing to do outreach as they prep for the museum's opening.
So far, they've had focus groups, surveys, and have been collecting items from the community. Quarles Adkins said her role as program manager is about "activating the space" and establishing it as "an anchor for the community."
Here's what else to know.
The interview below has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Fred, how is being a curator at Tampa's Black History Museum different from what you've been doing in the past?
FRED: Tampa has never had a Black history museum. This is the very first one.
For the last five years, I've been working at the Tampa Bay History Center, which is down in Channelside — not too far away from the Black History Museum. We have an exhibit there. That space is called "Travails and Triumphs."
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It's a wonderful exhibit. It's a permanent exhibit, but it is not really a space that people can come and do the kinds of things that they're going to be able to do in an entire building, which is where Tampa's Black History Museum is gonna be — 1213 North Central Avenue.
It's a bigger space. We're going to have fixed, permanent exhibits there. We're also going to have a small space for traveling exhibits and for talks and to bring the community in.
So, two different spaces — one will be a little larger than the other and gives us a little more flexibility.
How does it feel to see this project come to fruition?
FRED: Growing up here in Tampa, this is really a dream come true.
A lot of the stories I grew up hearing or learning about, we're going to be able to actually make come alive in the museum through artifacts and talks and things that we're going to be doing there to engage the community.
And that's where Janine comes in — having staff there in the space, which has not happened before — it's going to really take us to the next step and make our history something people can see as a tangible asset to Tampa.
What sort of input are you looking for from the community?
JANINE: You have a lot of descendants and folks who have been here a long time, who can help tell those stories and facilitate those experiences. You have a number of families here who we are connecting with, who have stories, who have made contributions, who have been leaders. And we want the museum to really be a space to honor those legacies as well.
We're always looking to add to the collection, so artifacts, photographs — things that might be of value that tell stories that can speak to Tampa's Black history.
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We have the fixed exhibits, and we also have the things that are going to shift and change. We have the digital components where we can bring in a lot of interactive experiences — information.
So I really would love the community to tell us what they want to see, what they want to learn — how they would like to be engaged. I really want them to come with the questions that they have so that we can fashion the space to continue to be an asset and in support of Black history.
How does it feel as a museum curator to be inviting the community in?
FRED: It's quite amazing to talk to people. And some folk have some really amazing items — some personal things.
For example, we have a diploma from Bethune-Cookman College at the time when Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune was alive and the president of that college in Daytona Beach.
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And our first female school board member here in Hillsborough County, Doris Ross Reddick, actually gifted us her diploma with Dr. Bethune's name on it. It came from her family, rather, and so that's one of our treasured items we're going to have, I'm pretty sure, on display, and that will help tell a story.
These artifacts, which museums depend on for us to interpret them and share the stories and make people get answers to the questions that they maybe have had for a long time. And now we actually will have a museum here locally.
Many of us have traveled to other cities, visited other museums and other places. Now we can do that here in Tampa as it relates to Black history, which is American history —something everybody should know.
Janine, are there artifacts that stand out for you?
JANINE: I would say the building itself has been a talking piece. Right now it's a blank canvas.
So being in the building, I get folks who come and they're knocking on the door or ringing the bell and they're saying, "Well, I heard this was a Black history museum."
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Well, it is, right? And right now, it's a space that you can really kind of envision. So talking about the church having existed or this structure being there since the 20s. Being founded by Black families from the Bahamas in the late 19th century.
Like that of itself has been a great talking piece and a great way to invite people back into the space. They want to come. They want to continue to follow the process of the building out of the museum.
You can listen to the full interview in the media player above. This article was compiled from an interview conducted by Matthew Peddie for "Florida Matters Live & Local." You can listen to the full episode here.
