The Virginia African American Cultural Center is closer to having a physical building.
The General Assembly has budgeted the Virginia Beach-based nonprofit $1 million this year. That amount will kick off more fundraising to start construction, said board chair Amelia Ross-Hammond.
Construction is expected to cost more than $20 million.
What began as an idea around 2012 during Ross-Hammond’s first stint on Virginia Beach’s city council has developed into a thriving organization that hosts events and sponsors experiences to preserve and celebrate the state’s Black history.
The cultural center is based out of an office near Town Center now but Ross-Hammond has always envisioned a permanent community hub with rotating exhibits, performance spaces, a research library and even a rooftop garden.
“The point was to not just talk about it,” she said, “but to build somewhere that people can come.”
The start of Black History Month coincided with a federal dismantling of diversity, equity and inclusion programs and some agencies will no longer observe celebrations for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Black History Month or Juneteenth. Ross-Hammond remains optimistic about the center’s trajectory.
“Actually we have even more programs than we can handle right at this second because people now are growing more interested in it,” she said.
The cultural center celebrated Black History Month with an opera about Frederick Douglass. Upcoming events include a Virginia Symphony Orchestra concert on the land of the center, a lecture series at Virginia Wesleyan University and an annual Juneteenth golf tournament.
Ross-Hammond hopes the building will become a space for people to slow down and share different perspectives and backgrounds. That’s as crucial as ever, she said.
“The country has come a long way, and we hope that we won't backpedal,” she said. “But I think there are enough people who, after getting over the shock of this whole DEI, are still standing tall to say, ‘This is important. It's about learning about each other.’”
The building’s design reflects that goal.
Renderings by the Norfolk-based firm Hanbury show a structure wrapped in a copper cylinder with cut-out phrases such as “A place of coming together.” The shape resembles a hat perched at an angle — a nod to Black women’s fashion and matriarchal societies of Western Africa, Ross-Hammond said. The design is also based on a palaver hut, a building with Liberian roots.
Ross-Hammond, who was born in Liberia, explained the hut is round with open walls for conducting business and working out community disputes.
“The point was everybody was equal,” she said. “You can go all the way around and if you have something to say too, you can add in or listen.”
The building for the center has been in the works for more than seven years. In 2018, Virginia Beach transferred about 5 acres off of Newtown Road to the nonprofit and required construction to begin by December 2023 and be completed by December 2025.
Ross-Hammond, who sits on the city council now, lobbied for an extension last January, citing delays in fundraising and increased construction costs. The city granted the extension for construction to begin by December 2026 and be completed by December 2028.
Ross-Hammond takes inspiration from the late Congressman John Lewis. For 15 consecutive years, he submitted a bill to establish the National Museum for African American History and Culture. It was finally passed by Congress and signed into law in 2003. The museum opened in Washington, D.C. in 2016.
She has come a long way since the idea was planted during her first term on council when she talked with seniors and children in the neighborhoods she represented and realized there was a lot of history older folks knew that kids had missed out on.
“I look back and reflect on how much was accomplished within that time. We have land, we have renovated basketball courts,” she said.
Knowledge is power, Ross-Hammond said. “What you don’t know, it hurts you.”
