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Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Moton Museum joins inaugural cohort of African American museums

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The Robert Russa Moton Museum's newest installation, the Wiley|Wilson designed Pavilion. It was designed to replicate the tar paper shacks that housed the classrooms African American attended in Prince Edward County in the 1950s.

Joining seven other prestigious African American museums, the Robert Russa Moton Museum in Farmville, Va. was chosen to be a part of the National Museum of African-American History and Culture Museums Cohort (NMAAHC), according to Cameron Patterson '10, ’17, managing director of Robert Russa Moton Museum.

According to Patterson the program is through the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture and the American Association of State and Local History (AASLH).

“This is a partnership that the museum is doing with the American Association of State and Local History, which is a professional history organizational that we at Moton have been members of for quite some time,” Patterson said.

“I look forward to it. I think it’ll be a great opportunity to have some mentorship from different, more established, in a way, museums that have been around for a longer time,” said Cainan Townsend ’15, director of education and public programs at the Moton Museum.

Per AASLH website, the following museums are part of the inaugural cohort of the program along with the Moton museum:

African American Cultural & Historical Museum of Washtenaw County, Ann Arbor, MI

Black Heritage Society of Washington State, Seattle, WA

Evansville African American Museum, Evansville, IN

Mary & Eliza Freeman Center for History and Community, Bridgeport, CT

Northwest African American Museum, Seattle, WA

National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center, Wilberforce, OH

According to Patterson, this is the first cohort the Moton Museum will be a part of that is part of the STEPS (Standards and Excellence Program for History Organizations) program that ultimately brings focus to African-American museums. 

STEPS, according to the AASLH website, is “a national assessment program that offers small and medium-sized museums, historic sites and related organizations the opportunity to assess policies and practices, benchmark themselves against national museum standards, and earn Bronze, Silver and Gold progress certificates.”

“I think what our membership with these professional organizations does is it allows us to be on the cutting edge of best practices in our profession,” Patterson said.

“We’ve only been a true professional museum for about five years so it’ll definitely benefit us, learning from those that have been around for much longer and have similar missions and goals,” Townsend said.

According to Patterson, there is no cost to the museum to participate in the program and will give them access to training resources, mentorship, webinars and attendance to the AASLH conference. He and other leaders from other museums in the cohort will attend the AASLH conference this year and receive more information and be assigned mentors.

“The whole goal with the program is for them to provide networking resource, to provide access to webinars, to training so that all of our organizations can become stronger from a governing standpoint and from a mission standpoint,” Patterson said.

Per Patterson, the cohort will offer the Moton networking opportunities as well.

“I’m very excited just to increase our work with those two organizations, two organizations I have a lot of respect for,” Patterson said. “I’m also very excited about the networking opportunities this will bring and to connect with museums who have a similar focus and to learn from one another.”

Patterson said he is hoping this could lead to the completion of long-term goals of the Moton museum, particularly in regards to achieving accreditation. Additionally, being part of the NMAAHC will help the Moton become better known.

“Part of the goal is increase awareness about the work that we do, the story that we share and I think that this program is one of the things that will help us do that,” Patterson said. “I think the Moton story is becoming more widely known here in the Commonwealth (of Virginia) and this program elevates that in a powerful way.”

Patterson noted that the participation in the NMAAHC could help the Moton reach a diverse audience. 

The Robert Russa Moton Museum's newest installation, the Wiley|Wilson designed Pavilion. It was designed to replicate the tar paper shacks that housed the classrooms African American attended in Prince Edward County in the 1950s.


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