In 2024, we boldly transformed our institution into the Banneker-Douglass-Tubman Museum, Maryland’s official State museum on African American history and culture, elevating Harriet Tubman’s legacy alongside Frederick Douglass and Benjamin Banneker.
Walking through our museum doors in Annapolis, I am walking on sacred ground, land once owned by Charity Folks, an enslaved woman who gained freedom and purchased the very site that houses our museum today.
For four decades, these walls have amplified the voices of African American civil rights pioneers, historians, visionary museum leaders, and artists who paved the way for Black history, art, and culture in our state.
Over the next five years, we’re emerging from Maryland’s best-kept secret into an essential educational lifeline and cultural anchor.
In this new chapter, we will stay true to our roots, but unapologetically bold in our practice; attracting vital resources and forging strategic partnerships that will fuel unprecedented growth and expansion. We’re amplifying Black women’s history, expanding youth programs, developing a new permanent exhibition, reactivating our library as a dynamic research hub and more. In this chapter, we are deeply connecting Maryland stories to the global African diaspora, ensuring every Maryland student, teacher, and family has access to authentic Black history that reaches beyond 1619; and inspires and empowers young minds and communities.
The Banneker-Douglass-Tubman Museum isn’t just preserving Black history, art, and culture, we’re nurturing it and growing it for today and the future. This is our time.
Chanel C. Johnson
Executive Director Banneker-Douglass-Tubman Museum
Our Community Commitment
This strategic plan represents more than institutional development – it embodies our promise to be worthy stewards of Maryland’s African American and African diasporic heritage. Every initiative, program, and partnership serves our fundamental commitment to community empowerment and authentic storytelling.
As we implement this plan, we remain accountable to the voices that shaped it. We will continue to engage regularly with the community, provide transparent reporting on our progress, and adapt our planning to respond to evolving community needs.
Our success will be measured not just in numbers served or dollars raised, but in the stories preserved, the students inspired, the teachers supported, and the communities strengthened through our work. Together, we will ensure that Maryland’s African American and African Diasporic stories are not just preserved, but actively celebrated, shared, and lived by future generations.
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