Can North Brentwood revive its shuttered Black History Museum?

For years, the Prince George’s African American Museum and Cultural Center in North Brentwood has sat closed — its exhibits and artifacts dedicated to preserving the town’s Black history boxed up and sitting in storage. Among them are items collected by the North Brentwood Historical Society from older homes in the town.

Now, town officials are working to bring it back.

North Brentwood, incorporated in 1924 as the first African American town in Prince George’s County, filed a lawsuit against the museum in September 2025 over concerns about its management, building upkeep and care of its collections. A court-appointed receiver, Alexander Williams Jr., a former federal judge, is working to restore the museum’s corporate charter and reconstitute its board. His role, he said, is to help the museum reopen.

That reopening would restore a place that preserves and shares the stories of Black communities across the county.

“It’s a difficult time that we’re living in, with the assault on Black history,” said Chanel Compton, a former museum board chair and executive director who now leads the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture. “What history has told us over and over again when it comes to Black power, Black empowerment, it starts with community empowerment, and the museum has that.”

North Brentwood’s history is central to that mission. The town grew from land acquired by Black families, including Civil War veterans. The museum was established to preserve that history and tell the stories of Black communities throughout Prince George’s County.

“If you think about the spirit of the history of urban renewal, gentrification, these community stories can die off in one generation,” Compton said.

Before the museum closed, it offered exhibitions and educational outreach, including programs with Prince George’s County Schools, Compton said. She saw its potential to become a cultural and historical anchor for the county.

But reopening the doors will take more than resolving the organization’s leadership problems. The museum’s corporate charter must be restored before a new board can be seated. The building’s condition presents another challenge.

Williams has filed three receiver’s reports with the courts since his appointment. He described a vacant building in poor condition following a roof collapse. Artifacts once held in storage were returned to the shuttered building and are “boxed up and scattered in every room,” he wrote in one report.

When the museum failed to reopen after the pandemic, North Brentwood Mayor Petrella Robinson turned to the town’s attorney, Kevin Best, because she was concerned that it was being mismanaged.

Best filed what he characterized as a “friendly lawsuit” to get the museum back on track on behalf of the town after learning that the museum’s board was trying to manage a corporation whose charter had been forfeited.

“It’s doubtful that they will try to dissolve and liquidate all the assets of the museum and get rid of all the archives,” Best said. “But what they’re going to do is try to reconstitute the board and get it operating properly, so that they can seek grants and seek donations and try to get the museum back open again next year or so.”

The museum, which sits tucked back on Rhode Island Avenue, grew out of a 1991 oral history project documenting North Brentwood’s Black history. A local group later worked to establish a museum in 2007.

“It was something for everyone, and it was something that we as a town could remember our history,” Robinson said. “We want to get back to that.”

Across the street, Dr. Cecil Boyd hears questions about the museum almost every day. Boyd owns the African American Cafe and leads free historical tours of North Brentwood. He said customers ask him 20 to 30 times a day what is happening with the shuttered museum.

“Obviously, people would expect us to have answers, but we don’t,” Boyd said.

Boyd’s tours point out the town’s historic landmarks, including the physical racial barrier between North Brentwood and neighboring Brentwood. But he said the museum remains a missing piece for visitors who want to learn more about the community.

“They get to see all that, but they can’t see the museum where all the real rich history of this stuff lives,” he said.

Boyd opened the cafe in part to give people a place to gather after the tours and continue talking about what they had learned. He envisions the cafe, the tours and the museum working together to deepen visitors’ understanding of the town.

“They sit down and they talk and they collaborate,” Boyd said of the gatherings at the cafe. “They’re doing praise and worship. They’re exchanging phone numbers and they’re connecting with people and taking pictures. It’s a really beautiful experience. But again, it would be so much better if we had the addition of that museum to help elevate people’s experience when they come here and experience North Brentwood for the first time.”

When the museum was open, keeping it running was difficult, said Marva Jo Camp, a former board member who became involved with the organization through former North Brentwood Mayor Lillian Beverly, one of the museum’s founders.

“We had some good young people that were working there, and they didn’t have somebody over them that could make sure things were happening the way it needed to happen,” Camp said, adding that board members were left to do much of the work themselves.

Camp and Compton expressed hope for the museum’s future. Compton noted that it took nearly 100 years after the National Museum of African American History and Culture was conceived before it opened.

Compton said the museum’s closure was disappointing and heartbreaking, but she believes that support from the community, the county and the state can help it reopen.

“What our history tells us is that if we work together as a community, we may not all agree, but our North Star is we’re gonna make sure we get this repository open for this county, our ancestors for today and for tomorrow,” Compton said.

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