At Pratt and President streets is a vacant parking lot with faint traces of white and clumps of grass breaking through cracks in the blacktop. But to George L. Russell Jr., the land represents so much more.
It is there where children will understand that there need be no insurmountable obstacles to success. It is there they will learn of a Baltimore youth who became a millionaire, a child from Howard County who grew up to become the first African-American scientist, and a youngster from Detroit's ghettos who became a pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Medical Center.
For nearly a decade, attorney Russell has dreamed of a museum where African-American history would be portrayed accurately, where people long forgotten would be remembered, where fallen heroes would be honored.
By year's end, construction is to begin on the museum that will be named after Reginald F. Lewis, the Baltimore native and philanthropist who went on to head a billion-dollar corporation, TLC Beatrice International Holdings, then the nation's largest black-owned business.
"It's a positive way to change the lives of these kids -- to change their hopes and dreams," said Russell, a trial attorney in Peter G. Angelos' law firm.
The absence of such a museum in Baltimore has long been a major omission, said David C. Driskell, a retired professor of African-American art history at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a consultant for the Baltimore project.
"There's a void," he said. "The state of Maryland is second to none in terms of the people of African-American descent who played significant roles in political, cultural, educational and economic areas."
Maryland is the birthplace of Harriet Tubman, who helped free more than 300 slaves; Frederick Douglass, the internationally known abolitionist, orator and writer; Benjamin Banneker, an early African-American scientist, and Thurgood Marshall, the great-grandson of a slave, a civil rights leader and the first black Supreme Court justice.
Groundbreaking Dec. 3
Although Russell won't be part of the exhibit, he could easily serve as a role model. He was appointed as the first African-American judge on the city Circuit Court in 1966, was the first black city solicitor, was inducted as a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and is chairman of the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Baltimore branch.
Groundbreaking for the Reginald F. Lewis Maryland Museum of African American History and Culture is scheduled for Dec. 3. The $33 million project will rise five stories and contain 82,000 square feet of space, second in size to only Detroit's monument to black history. It will have galleries for permanent and temporary exhibits, an interactive learning center, a 200-seat auditorium, oral history studio, classrooms, a gift shop, cafe and administrative offices.
"This is something that will document the accomplishments, struggles and victories of a large segment of our population," said Raquel Guillory, a spokeswoman for Gov. Parris N. Glendening. "It will commemorate those contributions that African-Americans have made not only to Maryland but to the nation."
"Too many of them"
The museum is arriving as several tourist attractions near the Inner Harbor have struggled or failed. The City Life Museums struggled for years and ultimately closed, and the Hall of Exploration, was shuttered after seven months. Port Discovery, the city's highly promoted, Disney-designed children's museum, has failed to meet attendance and profit projections.
The new museum also will encounter competition. There are more than 200 African-American museums in the country -- some of them, including the largest, are foundering -- and 26 more are being built.
"Of course, we will have too many of them," said Randall M. Miller, a professor of history at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia.
Some museums have been victimized by insufficient financing, faulty business plans, lack of focus and a failure to win repeat visits.
"African-American museums have had financial woes across the years," said Rita Organ, director of exhibits at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati. "Sustainability is a problem. Strong post-opening development plans sometimes are not well thought out."
In Detroit, which has the nation's largest African-American museum, officials have reduced hours, slashed budgets, laid off employees and spent up to $15 million to overhaul the main exhibit five years after opening.
In Chicago, the DuSable Museum has been able to maintain its seven-day-a-week operation, but it can afford only a small staff, said E. Selean Holmes, interim chief curator.
"We're stable, but we struggle," she said.
Miller said Baltimore's project should succeed.
"Especially if it comes up with one that has a purpose, not just a grab bag, Baltimore would have to succeed," he said. "The question would be if you don't succeed, how could you not."
Driskell said, "I really think that people will see it as a must, just like the Aquarium. If there's any city in the United States where there isn't such an institution currently that could pull it off, Baltimore would be one such place."
Russell bristles at the slightest hint that Baltimore's museum will be anything but successful or at any question he perceives to be negative. Friends and associates say that is the result of his encountering so many obstacles and skeptics while pushing the project, including the General Assembly, which at first questioned whether the project was worthwhile or necessary.
"People come up with the traditional notions of black people, the traditional notions of low expectations," he said. "It encourages me to work harder."
For nine years, Russell quietly persevered, raising money, lobbying politicians and battling the naysayers.
"Every step of the way, nobody thought this would happen," said Wanda Q. Draper, chairman of the museum's marketing committee. "He's done what it took to make this a reality. I think his anger is born out of frustration that people don't have the same level of respect for the museum and hold it in the same high regard that he does."
Russell believes that the plans for Baltimore's project address the key issues that have beleaguered other museums.
The museum is receiving more public support than some of the other projects. The state is providing $30 million in state general-obligation bonds for construction and start-up costs, and also will finance 75 percent of operating expenses until the museum has been open for two years, and half of those costs afterward. That eliminates the pressure for the museum to turn an immediate profit.
The project also has raised more than $2 million in private contributions in addition to a $5 million endowment provided by the New York-based Reginald F. Lewis Foundation.
Organizers realize that they need to attract the broadest possible audience and aren't counting only on Maryland's black population -- almost 28 percent of the state's residents -- as the museum's audience.
"In order to be successful, a large museum needs to have the widest possible appeal," said Miller, the St. Joseph professor. "There would not be enough critical mass if these museums were relying on one small component of the population to make it in terms of long-term success."
Museum planners have secured a formal agreement with the Maryland State Department of Education to incorporate visits for all fourth- through eighth-graders.
They hope that once those children visit with their schools, they will ask their parents to bring them back.
The Smithsonian Institution has agreed to provide temporary exhibits to keep the museum's displays fresh, another key to attracting repeat visits.
"This is going to succeed because there's no other museum like this in America," Russell said. "When you tie into the educational system, it's dynamite."
Many museums are being planned as ways to boost tourism and local economies. Russell's vision is driven by the dream of changing children's lives.
"We can go in and reach these kids," he said. "This is the way African-American history and culture should be taught."