The journey to Tampa’s Black History Museum

In approximately 16 months, the long-sought museum preserving Tampa’s rich Black history and culture will be a reality.

Tampa’s Black History Museum, a collaboration between the Tampa Bay History Center and the Tampa Housing Authority, should be up and running in summer 2027 at the historic St. James Episcopal Church building in the Housing Authority’s Encore district downtown. 

While it will be a year and change before the museum exhibits and historic objects go on display, the History Center has putting on events and programming for a couple of years. A Black history book club meets there every other month. The History Center’s walking tours of Central Avenue, a once-thriving Black business and entertainment district, start at the museum building. At the end of February, it will host the History Center’s fifth annual Black History Month Reception. 

Tampa Bay History Center Curator of Black History Fred Hearns says planning for the museum is currently  “in the interior design phase,” with meetings underway to discuss “what it’s going to look like on the inside.”

The team is focused on making the best use of the 3,000 square-foot space

“I think we’re going to be able to use the building effectively by using different techniques where we are very strategic in what we display, where we display it,” Hearns says. 

Plans include a small theater that also hosts lectures and a dedicated area for the Black history book club.

While the museum’s focus is to share and preserve the Black history of the Tampa area,  Hearns says some artifacts and displays may “branch out” to other areas, “but there will be a connection to Tampa history.”

The next major steps involve planning and community partnership. Hearns says they are still collecting artifacts from the community. Hearns says not all of those artifacts will go on display, but anything the museum accepts will be part of its collection.

Some of the items already have connections to significant people and events in Tampa’s Black history. Hearns says the widow of civil rights leader Rev. A. Leon Lowry, the longtime pastor of Beulah Baptist Church and leader of the Woolworth lunch counter sit-in, donated some of his ties and the jacket worn in “When the Righteous Triumph,” a play about the sit-in.

 “Mrs. Lowry actually took me up on stage and asked the actor who portrayed her husband if he would give me Dr. Lowry’s jacket that he wore during the performance,” Hearns says.

Hearns says the family of Doris Ross Reddick, the first Black woman elected to the Hillsborough County School Board, donated her diploma from Bethune-Cookman University, which was signed by Mary McLeod Bethune,  the historically Black university’s founder.

Residents can support the museum before it opens by becoming a member of the Tampa Bay History Center or donating to the museum through the History Center’s website, Hearns says. A more detailed donor plan is in development.

Upcoming events include the Black History Book Club meeting on February 23rd to discuss “The Message” by Ta‑Nehisi Coates.

The museum hosts the History Center’s Black History Month reception on February 27 at 8 p.m. This year, the History Center’s Board of Directors is recognizing the Florida Sentinel Bulletin newspaper, which has been in existence for 80 years, Hearns says. One of the longest‑lasting Black weekly newspapers in the nation, the publication will receive the Dr. Bernard LaFayette Jr. Sankofa Award.

The evening will feature food, music, a performance by the Dundu Dole Urban African Ballet Group, and a keynote from founder Jai Henson. Riverview High School’s Thurgood Marshall History Club will also receive the first-place award in the History Center’s Thurgood Marshall History Club contest. 

When asked about the museum’s long‑term impact, Hearns defers to the museum’s new Program Director, Janine Quarles Adkins. 

“My hope is that the museum will serve as an institution that holds true and honest representations of Tampa’s Black communities, Black neighborhoods, and lived experiences…I’m hoping that in the future we can establish it as a meeting place, a grounding space, something that everyone who’s part of Tampa’s Black community can really feel like they own and are a part of,” she says.

For more information, go to Tampa’s Black History Museum