A wax figure of Harriet Tubman was bent over behind a hidden passageway. Her outstretched arms were extended; her hands were locked on the arms of a man.
An escaping slave.
She was pulling him through a hole in the rear of a potbellied wood stove, which sat next to a wall that had an opening just large enough for a man.
Tubman was pulling him to freedom.
This lifelike representation of Tubman and the freedom movement she symbolized pulled something out of me that had been buried for years: immense pride for my enslaved ancestors and the obstacles they’d overcome.
At the Great Blacks in Wax Museum in Baltimore, that image and many others depicting the African-American experience are everywhere.
“The pride you’re feeling is exactly what the owners hoped visitors would feel when they opened this museum,” said John Jones, the museum’s weekend docent.
The museum was established in 1983 by Drs. Elmer and Joanne Martin. At first the cultural and historical wax artifacts were housed in a downtown storefront. But when additional space was needed to showcase the expanding collection, the couple moved the museum to its present location inside a former firehouse.
Now the museum-the only one of its kind in the United States-sits in a predominantly black low-income community about 10 minutes from downtown Baltimore.
“We are very proud to be here, because our glory as a people in America has always come from overcoming negative conditions and learning how to triumph,” said Jones.
He flipped off a light switch. The gallery darkened. And Jones left to greet a group of tourists.
Here they would find waxed reincarnations of their past-powerful, dramatic images of African-American culture and history pleading to be rediscovered and re-examined. The themes included the Underground Railroad, the Civil War, the civil rights movement, African-American educators, African-American explorers and black cowboys.
Guion Bluford, the first African-American astronaut to travel in space, highlighted the theme on aerospace. Bluford had been told as a student in Philadelphia he didn’t have the capability to become an engineer.
In contrast and complement stood the figure of Djeli Mamoudou Kouyate, the blind, 14th-Century griot (storyteller). His words and philosophy spoke volumes about the power and importance of the African oral tradition, through which tribes’ history, culture and religion were passed down through generations: “I am the master in the Art of Eloquence, the repository of secrets many centuries old. Without the griot the names of kings vanish into oblivion. We are the memory of mankind . . . History holds no mystery to us . . . For the world is old, but the future springs from the past.”
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The gallery door suddenly swung open. And Jones, who’d left 20 minutes ago, walked inside with dozens of patrons.
“We’re emphasizing the spirit and the beauty,” Jones said to the visitors. “There was a negative force trying to crush the spirit of African Americans. And it was only by the strength of our ancestors’ spirits that they survived and we exist.”
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The Great Blacks In Wax Museum is at 1601-3 E. North Ave., Baltimore, Md. 21213; 410-563-3404. Hours: 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, noon-6 p.m. Sunday, closed Mondays and most major holidays. Admission: $5.50 (adults), $5 (senior citizens and college students); $3.50 (students, 12-17); $3 (children 2-11).
The museum is wheelchair accessible, as are the restroom facilities.