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National Great Blacks in Wax museum received $2 million in funding for upgrades

Posted at 6:46 PM, Mar 31, 2023
and last updated 2023-03-31 18:46:04-04

BALTIMORE — There's one museum where you can learn more about Black women who pioneered their fields and even snap a selfie with some.

The National Great Blacks in Wax Museum is the first wax museum dedicated to Black history and it's right here in East Baltimore.

They received $2 million in federal funding to add 25,000 square feet to the museum.

It was founded in 1983 by a husband and wife team; Doctors Joanne and Elmer Martin.

Joanne says the idea came to them on a trip to France.

"Elmer said he got the revelation that perhaps what some people from the U.S. see as french arrogance, might simply be having a sense of your place in history, your right to claim that place in history, to know that place in history, and that that was something that people, Black people and people of African descent had been denied," said Dr. Joanne Martin, President and Co-founder of National Great Blacks in Wax Museum.

They set out to change that and found wax could give a face to the faceless, and make their stories up close and personal.

Today, the museum covers 5,000 years of Black history.