In the Portsmouth Colored Community Library Museum, autographs and other memorabilia of well-known Hampton Roads artists fill the annual Art is Revolutionary exhibit.
Young visitors know performers like Ella Fitzgerald, Wanda Sykes and Missy Elliot, but their parents or grandparents might remember Bertha Edwards – the sole librarian of the Portsmouth Colored Community Library before it became the museum in 2013.
Many return annually to see the exhibit, which changes each year during Black History Month. Some residents even return to visit the transformed library for the first time since their own childhood during segregation.
“Multi-generational groups of people come in having all these different experiences and that impacts how they view the museum,” said Assistant Museum Curator Carlie Doggette.
The Portsmouth Colored Community Library Museum is hosting the Art is Revolutionary exhibit through October, which is part of the city’s Black History Now event series.
“It has instilled a sense of pride in the community,” said Lynette James, marketing coordinator for the museum. For many in Portsmouth, it is a source of inspiration and possibility.
The Portsmouth Colored Community Library, before transforming into a museum, was a staple in Portsmouth’s black community – as was Bertha Edwards.
Edwards often sent someone out on a bike to get books from the larger public library, which was only for white residents at the time.
That bike, rusty and faded, now dangles from the ceiling.
Today, the one-room brick building is split down the middle. On the left side is the sleek display of Black artists with a vinyl collection featuring their music that visitors are encouraged to play on the museum’s turntable.
On the right, in stark contrast, is a preserved history of segregation in Portsmouth. A series of plaques outline the history of the library when it was segregated.
While the museum regards the past as vital to remember, the exhibit makes clear that, as the title suggests, Black history is “not just some distant thing,” Doggette said. “Black history is being made now.”
“It’s been about changemakers…past, present, and future,” James added.
For locals, Doggette said, there is a special interaction between the older and younger family members who visit the exhibit.
Doggette said many families come to the museum because their children are interested in the artists, and the parents or grandparents say, “I knew Bertha Edwards,” or “I remember being a kid going to this library.”
The featured artists, with their own complex struggles, resonate with so many because they are able to “use those struggles as a tool to actually promote what they’re feeling,” James said.
It’s this same tension between struggle and success, strikingly embraced by the museum in parallel, which makes the display resonate too.
Even beyond the artists, Doggette said, “the people in this community are revolutionary. They are the icons, innovators, and trailblazers.”
“What an awesome opportunity…to find something positive and fun for the community..not just for the black community but for all cultures,” James said.
For more information about the museum, including dates and hours of operation, visit Portsmouthcclm.com. For more information on the Black History Now events, visit blkhistorynow.com.
