The Dr. Carter G. Woodson African American Museum in St. Petersburg, Fla. is being moved to a new $27 million facility. The new five-acre facility will be renamed “The Woodson African American Museum of Florida.”
St. Petersburg uses the Black-owned company Huff Gooden and WJ Architects in a partnership with Wannemacher Jensen Architects. to build the new museum for Black history, art and culture.
The Pinellas Community Foundation is helping to raise funds needed to build the new museum. The foundation supports the nonprofit organization and people in Pinellas County with financial resources and information.
The foundation began raising funds in 1969 and donated over $86 million to more than 400 charities and museums since its founding.
It also helps those most in need in the community, such as the people most at-risk during the coronavirus pandemic and senior citizens in need, with housing, food and healthcare.
The foundation also donated the funds for local galleries to add built-in wireless access points for hearing-assisted devices.
CEO Duggan Cooley said that the history of Black people had been ignored for far too long in St. Petersburg.
“The African American experience in St. Petersburg and our country has too often been ignored, an after-thought, relegated to a space that limits or narrowly defines its impact rather than celebrating its importance.”
The Woodson African American Museum of Florida is named after Carter Godwin Woodson. Woodson was the first scholar to study African American history and the African diaspora.
The original museum first opened in 2006 on 9th Ave. S. and is currently 4,000 square feet. The new 30,000 square-foot museum will be located in a Black neighborhood called “The Deuces,” where Black-owned businesses were built on 22nd St during segregation.
The Woodson African American Museum is still in the fundraising phase and will receive $1 million from the City of St. Petersburg for the new facility.
