Top Black History Museums & Cultural Centers

Whether it’s the MLK National Historic Site, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum or the National Museum of African Art, some of America’s top black history museums and cultural centers have become destinations in themselves. We compiled this list based on the popularity of the museums and the noteworthy artifacts that they have in their possessions. So get out and take in a little culture on your next vacation or trip and stop by one of these museums!

1.      Birmingham Civil Rights Institute

The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute features state of the art, multimedia presentations of historical events from post-World War I racial segregation to present-day racial progress.

2.      MLK National Historic Site

Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site consists of several buildings, including Martin Luther King, Jr.’s boyhood home, Ebenezer Baptist Church, the church where King and his father Martin Luther King, Sr. pastored, as well as MLK’s burial tomb.

3.     Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum tells the compelling story of segregated baseball, from the founding of the Negro National League in 1920, until Jackie Robinson, who played for the Kansas City Monarchs, signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.

4.      Du Sable Museum of American History

Named in honor of Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sable, a Haitian fur trader and the first non-Native-American permanent settler in Chicago, the DuSable Museum of African American History is the first and oldest museum dedicated to the study and conservation of African American history, culture, and art.

5.      Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture

Named after the famed African American entrepreneur and philanthropist Reginald Lewis, the Reginald Lewis Museum is the largest African American museum on the East Coast, and the second largest in the country with over 80,000 square feet of exhibition space.

6.      Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History

Housing arguably the world’s largest permanent exhibit on African American culture, the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History is a stirring testament and tribute to over 600 years of African perseverance and achievement.

7.      African American Museum of Philadelphia

First opening its doors in 1976, the African American Museum of Philadelphia was the first major museum in the country devoted specifically to African American history and traditions.

8.    Motown Historical Museum and Hitsville USA

The Motown Historical Museum includes the original Hitsville USA building and Motown Studio A, once frequented by the likes of the Temptations, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, and other Motown royalty to record their first hits.

9.       National Civil Rights Museum

Located south of Downtown Memphis, the National Civil Rights Museum was built around the Lorraine Motel in which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968. The exhibits cover events from 1619 to the present day and include Little Rock, Montgomery Bus Boycott, The March on Washington, Booker T. Washington, The Assassination of Dr. King and much more.

10.      Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture was named after Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, a Puerto Rican born Black scholar, who in 1926 donated his personal collection of books, manuscripts, photographs, paintings and  other documents — one of the largest collections of African and African-American artifacts in the world — to what was then known as the Division of Negro Literature, History and Prints of the 135th Street Branch of the New York Public Library.

11.       National Museum of African American History and Culture

The National Museum of African American History and Culture is a future Smithsonian Institute museum to be built on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It is the first major museum to open on the web before completing a physical structure and is slated to be finished by 2015.

12.      National Museum of African Art

Featuring African art from antiquity to the present, the National Museum of African Art, located on the National Mall in Washington D.C., is home to the largest publicly held collection of contemporary African art in the U.S. drawn from many of Africa’s 900 cultures.