National Blacks in Wax Museum

The National Blacks in Wax Museum was started as a grassroots operation by Dr. Elmer Martin and his wife Dr. Joanna Martin. The idea of Blacks in Wax started with a few wax figures that were taken around to various schools, community centers, and malls. It received national recognition in 1983 when the founding members were allotted grants, loans, and endowments to open a permanent exhibition. In 1983, Blacks in Wax received its permanent home on the 1600 block of North Avenue in the neighborhood of Oliver.

The National Blacks in Wax Museum was original sponsored exclusively by Dr. Elmer Martin, his wife Dr. Joanna Martin, and donations from the community. In the early days, Dr. Elmer Martin was forced to ask his wife to sell her wedding ring to keep the moving exhibit going. However, in 1983 the project was awarded several loans and grants in order to obtain a permanent home, and now survives on admissions, loans, grants, and endowments.

The site was originally home to a firehouse that was converted into a showhouse. In 2004, The Blacks in Wax Museum was recognized by the U.S. Congress and became The National Blacks in Wax Museum allowing it to receive federal funding on the same status as The Smithsonian. It is home to the most wax statues of African Americans in the country.

Then and Now

Nineteen eighty-three was a much different time for the city of Baltimore and especially the neighborhood of Oliver. During this time, Oliver was considered a low income African American ghetto. Today, however, due in large part to what has become The National Blacks in Wax Museum, Oliver is undergoing major renovations. Oliver is now home to the nation's largest biopark, holds a walking tour, and hosts a number of community outreach and development projects. These ongoing renovations are different insofar as they attempt to rebuild the area for the population that currently resides there, not gentrification, which would serve to move the population out.

Exhibitions

The National Blacks in Wax Museum is one of the best of its kind. It is home to the most black wax figures in the United States, and goes over almost every aspect of slavery from trade to the lives of those enslaved.

The Museum employs oral histories, written accounts, and other evidence to make its support its claims. One of the best known documentation of The Triangle of Trade is the insurance records offered by such financial institutions as Wachovia – blacks were seen as goods and cargo and documented as such; thus there is empirical and financial evidences of the events.

Vision

The vision and call of The National Blacks in Wax Museum is to obtain knowledge – go to school and achieve the most that one can. Dr. Elmer Martin and his wife Dr. Joanna Martin wanted the African American youth of American, specifically Baltimore, to the see the resiliency, strength, and struggle their forefathers endured and overcame to achieve freedom as a guide to not becoming victims of the same bondage, no matter how that bondage is packaged – drug addiction, gangs, and pure ignorance of history.

Sources

National Blacks in Wax Museum. http://www.greatblacksinwax.org. Accessed November 30, 2010.

"National Great Blacks In Wax Museum." http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/11009. Accessed November 30, 2010.

Wood, M. (2009), 'Slavery, Memory, and Museum Display in Baltimore: The Great Blacks in Wax and the Reginald F. Lewis. Curator:' The Museum Journal, 52: 147–167. 2001.