Earl Lloyd’s original sculpture at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (Photo courtesy of the City of Alexandria)
Historical collections ranging from NBA player Earl Lloyd to Mayor Bill Yuill may soon be digitized.
The Alexandria Black History Museum, 902 Wythe Street, has received a $99,772 grant to digitize its vast collection and make more exhibits available online.
This is the second Museum Grant for African American History and Culture the city museum has received from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which will help support the project, which began in July and will run through next June, “enabling visitors to further explore the museum’s valuable collections beyond the boundaries of the museum’s walls.”
The first grant, awarded in 2021, will enable the museum to catalog, digitize, and make public four archival collections.
According to the release:
Building on this success, the new grant will digitize the museum’s entire collection of objects and make them available online, including materials from Alexandria’s first African-American mayor, William “Bill” Yuill, 1980s photographs of the Parker Gray neighborhood, images from local African-American church services, a rare edition of The Home News newspaper published between 1902 and 1903, relics from Alexandria’s African-American businesses, and memorabilia from Earl Lloyd, the first African-American to play in the NBA. Additionally, the famous fundraising cookbook “A Kind Heart and a Light Hand” and other significant items will be digitized to showcase Alexandria’s rich and diverse history.
An additional component of the grant will be making approximately 4,000 non-lending Watson Reading Room Library catalog records accessible online, which will include updating existing records and creating 1,000 new records, all of which will be accessible online.
According to the announcement, the initiative is part of an ongoing effort to make local history more accessible.
“The digital content created through this project will support the valuable work and ongoing mission of Historic Alexandria and the Alexandria Black History Museum to tell the stories of underrepresented and marginalized people and highlight their central role in the American story, both locally and nationally,” the release reads.
