In 2006 Dr. Deborah Johnson-Simon while working with Mr. Gabriel Tenabe at the James E. Lewis Museum of Art at Morgan State University discovered Mr. James E. Lewis’ copy of the African American Museums Association ‘s 1983 Blacks in Museums Directory. This was the first directory of African American museum professionals. With the help of Tenabe, they would create an organization that would use her training in museum anthropology to chronicle the participants in that directory beginning with Virginia Jackson Kiah and the Kiah Museum. She relocated to Georgia and would learn the Kiah Museum story. In 2014 Johnson-Simon taught Introduction to Anthropology at Savannah State University. But she also wanted this single course in the humanities, to provide her students the value of her experience in cultural and museum anthropology with a focus on applied Black museum anthropology. Ethnographic fieldwork on the Kiah Museum story allowed students to gather qualitative data that would save the museum from the wrecking ball.

The ADMI-Friends of the Kiah Museum Traveling Museum Trunks program preserves the legacy of Dr. Calvin L. Kiah and Virginia Jackson Kiah, founders of the now-closed Savannah Kiah House Museum. Opened in 1959 in Savannah’s historic Cuyler Brownville, the museum reflected Virginia’s lifelong commitment to art and activism, shaped by her mother, civil rights leader Lillie May Carroll Jackson. Denied entry to museums as a child, Virginia became a renowned portrait artist, documenting Civil Rights leaders and co-founding the National Conference of Artists to support Black artists. She and Dr. Kiah also led beautification efforts and youth art exchanges. The first trunk, One Woman, Two Museums: Virginia Jackson Kiah’s Chronicles in Civil Rights Museology, features five lesson plans exploring her museums and ADMI’s mission.

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