"COMMUNITY HISTORY PROJECT"

The Black World History Museum's project was entitled "Community History Project" and endeavored to expand its collection through heightened community involvement. In specific, the Black World History Museum targeted its interpretive program and the system by which it organizes and catalogues its existing collection. Interns from St. Louis Public Schools were involved in aiding in the development of the collection and increasing public awareness; they also would participate in the museum's idea of a "'grow your own' project of exposing and training young people for the profession."

The program as initially conceived by the Black History Museum weighed heavily on the work of its interns both to gather information and artifacts for an exhibit on their family histories and to support public programming for a new permanent exhibit on the Reverend Earl Nance, Sr. The interns would be involved in the gathering of oral histories of a person selected by the group, in conducting historical research, in developing the programs of a mock auction, the presentation of the main exhibit, and the mounting of their smaller auxiliary exhibit. As Lois Conley stated in her March 2000 update to the Council, "The interns will be expected to participate fully in fabrication of the final exhibit and in documenting the process through which the exhibit is developed, i.e., photographing, video and audio taping, and helping to complete the guidebook" for the exhibit. "Community History Project" was conceived, then, as a way to create a formalized model for the process by which the museum could actively involve interns in the conceptualization, fabrication, mounting, and presentation of a new, permanent exhibit relevent to the community.