Prince George's African American Museum and Cultural Center (4519 Rhode Island Avenue)

Much of the safekeeping of North Brentwood’s entrepreneurial history is thanks to the hard work of the people behind the Prince George’s African American Museum & Cultural Center. The PGAAMCC was born out of the North Brentwood Historical Society, founded in 1991, whose members organized the exhibit “Footsteps From North Brentwood” at the Smithsonian Anacostia Museum in 1996. The exhibit featured oral histories, archival photographs, documents, and memorabilia, some of which dated back to North Brentwood’s early origins prior to its incorporation in 1924, and eventually became the core of the PGAAMCC’s permanent collection.

The Friends of North Brentwood was established in 1998 to begin developing plans for a museum and gained 501(c)(3) nonprofit status in 2000. The next several years marked a period of development and collaboration with local officials, the recently founded Gateway Community Development Corporation, and the local community. In 2007, the Friends changed its name to the Prince George’s African American Museum & Cultural Center. Three years later, the organization began mounting exhibitions in the gallery space at the Gateway Arts Center at 3901 Rhode Island Avenue. It was at this time that “Footsteps From North Brentwood” was donated to PGAAMCC and became a permanent display. Temporary exhibitions included “Coming Home,” which reflected on the experiences of African Americans in the military, and a display of vintage movie posters for films featuring Black performers.

The museum finally opened its own space at 4519 Rhode Island Avenue in 2014 and kicked off a robust succession of programming. The exhibitions and events reflect a commitment to the Town of North Brentwood as well as the museum’s broader mission to “celebrate and inspire residents through the cultivation, preservation, and presentation of the cultural and artistic contributions of African Americans in Prince George’s County, Maryland, and beyond.” The Community Treasure Chest program engages community members in cultural preservation practices, inviting residents to share oral histories and family heirlooms with the museum as donations for temporary display or for the permanent collection. The museum has invited visiting artists to exhibit and sell their work at the museum, and scholars to share their knowledge with the community through public discussions.

The PGAAMCC’s reach extends well beyond its Rhode Island Avenue headquarters. The Museum in a Box program brings museum educators to nearby schools, where students receive interactive lessons in Black history through historical images, objects, and artwork. The programs Early Keepers and Culture Keepers were designed to engage pre-K through elementary school students and middle through high school students, respectively, in workshop activities which culminated in an exhibition of participants’ work in the museum’s gallery space. The museum has also hosted festivals and other seasonal events for Juneteenth, Christmas, and Kwanzaa, as well as a Caribbean Junkanoo street parade and a weekend of programs celebrating natural hair.

In 2019, the museum welcomed 8,500 visitors and seventy-five visiting artists, and hosted thirty-eight community events. The PGAAMCC suspended in-person programs at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, but soon adapted to the new reality by offering virtual programming. Even with the doors closed, the museum remains an exemplary model of community care and “a home for Black excellence.”

Captain Wallace Bartlett and Highland Addition

The birth of entrepreneurship in the Town of North Brentwood dates back to before the first lot was sold in 1891. Wallace Bartlett was a White officer in the Civil War and led Maryland’s Company I of the United States Colored Troops in Texas during the Reconstruction Period. After his time in the Military, he came to D.C., where he worked for the Patent and Trade Office, wrote books, and started the Holladay Company, a business developing land in the suburbs just north of the District, in Prince George’s County, Maryland.

Capt. Bartlett’s investment in Washington D.C.’s early suburban expansion on the edge of the Highland Development presented him with the opportunity to sell land to African Americans who did not have access to more ideal properties around the county due to racialized housing covenants and other discriminatory housing practices in the late nineteenth century. His first Black land buyers were entrepreneurs, Henry and Isabella Randall. The Randalls were related to Gassaway Hawkins, a soldier who served under Capt. Bartlett while stationed in Texas at the end of the Civil War, and whose daughter, Maggie Hawkins, married Augustus Randall, the son of Henry and Isabella. This exchange of property, from one entrepreneur to another, was the birth of Randalltown, the unincorporated precursor to the Town of North Brentwood. Other veterans of the USCT would also purchase lots in the Highland Addition in the following years.

Sources

https://pgaamcc.org/

Prince George's African American Museum and Cultural Center. www.hyattsvillewire.com

"Footsteps from North Brentwood" Exhibition. https://pgaamcc.org

Prince George's African American Museum and Cultural Center. www.experienceprincegeorges.com

Photograph of Captain Wallace Bartlett from Historical Survey: North Brentwood, Maryland, p. 4 (1991).

Plat of the Highland Addition, showing the first houses built by the Randall Family in block 20 (from the Maryland State Archives and Prince George's County Circuit Court Land Records).