The Banneker-Douglass Museum in Annapolis, Maryland received a $50 thousand grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to assist in conservation efforts. The Institute gave out fourteen such grants to institutions across the country.
The museum plans to use the grant money to develop storage for its collection of fine art and African arts. Currently, many of these objects are stored on tables or on the floor of the museum’s third story. Chanel Compton, Executive Director of the Banneker-Douglass, told WMAR that the new storage space will be climate controlled and have appropriate shelving to store small objects. “The space is going to afford us the opportunity where we can have visiting scholars, and curators come and actually utilize our collection and storage facility because it’ll be an actual professional space,” she said.
The Banneker-Douglass Museum opened in 1984 in a former AME Church. The museum is named for Black anti-slavery advocates Benjamin Banneker and Frederick Douglass, both natives of Maryland. It holds over 12,000 artifacts and has library and exhibition spaces.