“The significance of a museum is to document our history for our children, over time. That was one of his main goals,” says Patrina Chatman, the Wright Museum’s director of collections and exhibitions. Chatman – who’s been with the institution for 31 years – says she first became involved with the museum when Wright invited her to help out with a project, “and I never left.”

Chatman describes Wright as a worldly man who often traveled abroad. She says the idea for the museum came to him as he began to take note of African countries taking independence from European colonizers during the mid-20th century. He recognized the struggle to retain their culture and archive their history.

After seeing a memorial to WWII soldiers in Denmark, Wright decided the idea could wait no longer. If Black history was to be remembered, it would need a steward to record it. When he returned to Detroit, he set after his goal to preserve African American history for future generations. Read the entire article on Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Blac Magazine.