Bowling Green, Kentucky, Deserving Of Black History Museum, But Many Will Bellyache About City Funding For It.
Black history museum will meet a need
By the Daily News
It was first touted as a need in 2004, so we like the fact that supporters are resurrecting the idea for a black history museum for Bowling Green before even more history disappears.
The community missed the opportunity to locate the museum in a historically significant building in 2004.
Residents have asked the city for $123,000 to help start the museum in a building owned by the Housing Authority of Bowling Green near Third Avenue and State Street.
The first time the museum was discussed, the Bowling Green Area Convention and Visitors Bureau considered buying the 1875 Underwood-Jones house at 506 State St.
The building was once home to prominent black physician Z.K. Jones.
That purchase from LifeSkills didn’t come to fruition and the building is now a Montessori school.
Starting a museum now would ensure that Bowling Green’s rich black heritage is preserved.
Case in point is the storage of a historical marker that noted the site where one of Bowling Green’s first black nurses lived. The sign, which was erected at 715 College St. in 2005, was removed for preservation or restoration after the house was torn down in 2009 for downtown redevelopment.
Perhaps that sign could be an artifact for the museum. There also are others that might be available from the F.O. Moxley Recreation Center. Items there were once part of the former High Street School, a segregated school for blacks in town at one time. It was torn down for expansion of The Medical Center’s campus.
Or perhaps there are artifacts around from the Quonset Auditorium that was torn down in 2003 to make way for storage for Bowling Green Municipal Utilities. The auditorium’s stage was host to great black artists such as B.B. King, Ray Charles, James Brown, Little Richard and Ike and Tina Turner, a long with others.
Bowling Green has another claim to fame - the father of ragtime, Ernest Hogan, was a Bowling Green resident. A historical marker near the L&N Depot sits yards away from where his boyhood home was. He is buried in nearby Mount Moriah Cemetery. A museum could recount his history and influence on the genre.
The museum also could tell the story of the several hundred residents who were displaced from Jonesville when the state bought the property in 1968 for expansion of Western Kentucky University.
We hope the city can find this money and that there is enough community support to keep it going, given that the privately supported Barren River Imaginative Museum of Science is closing this month because of a lack of funding. But this project is important and we should heed the words of Mayor Joe Denning:
“Some (history) we may never hear about because family members are gone,” he said. “We need to take advantage of those individuals that are still living in Bowling Green that have the knowledge.”
By the Daily News
It was first touted as a need in 2004, so we like the fact that supporters are resurrecting the idea for a black history museum for Bowling Green before even more history disappears.
The community missed the opportunity to locate the museum in a historically significant building in 2004.
Residents have asked the city for $123,000 to help start the museum in a building owned by the Housing Authority of Bowling Green near Third Avenue and State Street.
The first time the museum was discussed, the Bowling Green Area Convention and Visitors Bureau considered buying the 1875 Underwood-Jones house at 506 State St.
The building was once home to prominent black physician Z.K. Jones.
That purchase from LifeSkills didn’t come to fruition and the building is now a Montessori school.
Starting a museum now would ensure that Bowling Green’s rich black heritage is preserved.
Case in point is the storage of a historical marker that noted the site where one of Bowling Green’s first black nurses lived. The sign, which was erected at 715 College St. in 2005, was removed for preservation or restoration after the house was torn down in 2009 for downtown redevelopment.
Perhaps that sign could be an artifact for the museum. There also are others that might be available from the F.O. Moxley Recreation Center. Items there were once part of the former High Street School, a segregated school for blacks in town at one time. It was torn down for expansion of The Medical Center’s campus.
Or perhaps there are artifacts around from the Quonset Auditorium that was torn down in 2003 to make way for storage for Bowling Green Municipal Utilities. The auditorium’s stage was host to great black artists such as B.B. King, Ray Charles, James Brown, Little Richard and Ike and Tina Turner, a long with others.
Bowling Green has another claim to fame - the father of ragtime, Ernest Hogan, was a Bowling Green resident. A historical marker near the L&N Depot sits yards away from where his boyhood home was. He is buried in nearby Mount Moriah Cemetery. A museum could recount his history and influence on the genre.
The museum also could tell the story of the several hundred residents who were displaced from Jonesville when the state bought the property in 1968 for expansion of Western Kentucky University.
We hope the city can find this money and that there is enough community support to keep it going, given that the privately supported Barren River Imaginative Museum of Science is closing this month because of a lack of funding. But this project is important and we should heed the words of Mayor Joe Denning:
“Some (history) we may never hear about because family members are gone,” he said. “We need to take advantage of those individuals that are still living in Bowling Green that have the knowledge.”
Labels: News reporting
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