TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV/Gray Florida Capital Bureau) – A Tallahassee historian who founded a museum and created a statewide network to preserve African American history has received the nation’s highest historic preservation award.
As the United States celebrates 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, WCTV and its parent company, Gray Media, are taking a moment to celebrate our local history. Our “We The People” series commemorates and honors local history in the Big Bend and South Georgia.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation awarded Althemese Barnes the Louise du Pont Crowninshield Award for her decades of work in establishing preservation efforts that have become a model for museums across the country.
“My thing, my motto is that it’s important to know history. History, to me, and understanding it, is the root of intelligence,” Barnes said.
Barnes founded the John Gilmore Riley House and Museum in Tallahassee after retiring from the NAACP in the 1990s.
“I just felt there were certain parts of the history that would be meaningful, inspiring, rejuvenating, if people knew it,” Barnes said.
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Through her work establishing the museum, she created the Florida African American Heritage Preservation Network, which connects other African American museums across the state.
Barnes said she was surprised by the national recognition.
“Most people say I’m too humble,” Barnes said. “When the people called me and said they were going to nominate me, I said, ‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’”
Barnes has also advocated for the legislature not to observe Juneteenth, arguing that Florida’s Emancipation Day is May 20, while June 19 applies to Texas.
“We can make the wrong turn, we can write the wrong thing, we can say the wrong thing, if we don’t know,” Barnes said.
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