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The Banneker-Douglass Museum Expansion
 The Banneker-Douglass Museum opened in the historic Mt. Moriah A.M.E. Church in February 1984 as the state repository for African American history and culture. The museum project was the result of an extraordinary partnership among the Annapolis African American community, Historic Annapolis Foundation, and state and local governments. A project of the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development, the Banneker-Douglass Museum has worked to document, preserve, and interpret African American heritage for over twenty years. The museum has organized numerous changing exhibits, annual programs, and educational events aimed at informing the public about the vital role African Americans have played throughout Maryland history.
A 1994 report by the museum’s governing body, the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture, concluded that insufficient space in the former Mt. Moriah A.M.E. Church hampered the museum’s mission, particularly in the areas of collection and research facilities. Planning for renovation of Mt. Moriah and expansion into the vacant lot north of the church began in 1996. Archaeological investigation took place on the building site, the last empty lot in the Courthouse block, in the summers of 2000 and 2001. In autumn 2000 the architectural firm of Cho Benn Holback + Associates was hired; they were given the challenging task of designing a modern building that would create a visual transition between the contemporary style of the neighboring Anne Arundel County Courthouse and the neo-Gothic brick church. The building had to complement Annapolis’s historic styles without attempting to reproduce them, while the interior provided the extra exhibition, collection, library, and office space necessary to fulfill the museum’s mission.
 The recently completed Banneker-Douglass Museum addition, constructed by R. J. Crowley General Contracting, is a four-story addition (one underground story) which uses the nineteenth-century brick of the church’s north façade as its interior lobby wall. In addition to a more spacious lobby, the first floor now houses a small gallery for changing exhibits as well as office space and expanded restrooms. A light oak staircase rises from the first floor lobby to the second floor, allowing visitors an unobstructed view of the former church’s stained glass windows. The entire second floor will house the museum’s first-ever permanent exhibit, Deep Roots, Rising Waters: A History of African Americans in Maryland, an overview of African-American history in Maryland from 1633 to late in the Civil Rights Movement. The third floor comprises offices and a small conference room. Renovation of the interior of Mt. Moriah has created space for an expanded library as well as updated restrooms. The Banneker-Douglass Museum addition has doubled the museum’s exhibition space and freed up space for performances, events, and site rentals.
With the Banneker-Douglass Museum’s expanded facilities and our organizational move to the Maryland Department of Planning last October, we look forward to a new era in fulfilling our mission to preserve and educate about the African-American legacy in the state of Maryland.
Last updated: February 28, 2006
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