{"id":99318,"date":"2025-12-29T22:38:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T22:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/99318\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T22:38:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T22:38:08","slug":"tallahassee-historian-influences-national-local-black-history-preservation-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/99318\/","title":{"rendered":"Tallahassee historian influences national, local Black history preservation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV\/Gray Florida Capital Bureau) &#8211; A Tallahassee historian who founded a museum and created a statewide network to preserve African American history has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2025\/09\/16\/tallahassees-althemese-barnes-presented-national-award-historic-preservation\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2025\/09\/16\/tallahassees-althemese-barnes-presented-national-award-historic-preservation\/\">received the nation\u2019s highest historic preservation award<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/community\/we-the-people\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/community\/we-the-people\/\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cWe The People\u201d<\/a> series commemorates and honors local history in the Big Bend and South Georgia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cMy thing, my motto is that it\u2019s important to know history. History, to me, and understanding it, is the root of intelligence,\u201d Barnes said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Barnes founded the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2025\/10\/23\/john-g-riley-house-museum-selected-featured-destination-great-florida-road-trip\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2025\/10\/23\/john-g-riley-house-museum-selected-featured-destination-great-florida-road-trip\/\">John Gilmore Riley House and Museum<\/a> in Tallahassee after retiring from the NAACP in the 1990s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI just felt there were certain parts of the history that would be meaningful, inspiring, rejuvenating, if people knew it,\u201d Barnes said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-center article-text\">More from WCTV\u2019s We The People series:<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Through her work establishing the museum, she created the Florida African American Heritage Preservation Network, which connects other African American museums across the state.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Barnes said she was surprised by the national recognition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cMost people say I\u2019m too humble,\u201d Barnes said. \u201cWhen the people called me and said they were going to nominate me, I said, \u2018Oh, I don\u2019t know about that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Barnes has also advocated for the legislature not to observe Juneteenth, arguing that Florida\u2019s Emancipation Day is May 20, while June 19 applies to Texas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe can make the wrong turn, we can write the wrong thing, we can say the wrong thing, if we don\u2019t know,\u201d Barnes said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 WCTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV\/Gray Florida Capital Bureau) &#8211; A Tallahassee historian who founded a museum and created a statewide&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[49647,52302,9316,1442,28,52303,2457,232,234,233,24301],"class_list":["post-99318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-althemese-barnes","tag-america-250","tag-black-history","tag-cody-butler","tag-florida","tag-florida-250","tag-history","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news","tag-we-the-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}