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May
13,
2008
By 2007, members of the museum’s board could finally step back and consider what should be done next on a longer-term basis. They established a strategic-planning initiative – a common approach used by museums – that will continue to shape policy over a five-year period.
Museums, as a rule of thumb, can take three to five years to gain a sense of identity, Terry says. “But what happens if you get one of those economically down years – for instance, one as bad as everybody is talking about for this year – do you just throw that year out?” Like many museums, Terry says, the Lewis Museum is grappling with its identity – is it a cultural facility or a tourist attraction? He points out the educational role that the museum fulfills, but notes that “we have to realize that we’re part of the Inner Harbor landscape.” And in the tourism industry, he says, “we all sink or swim together.” Since coming into the tourism industry in general, and the museum industry in particular, Terry says he’s been “pleasantly surprised” at the willingness among industry members to help each other. “It’s one big family,” he says. The Lewis Museum also benefits from an affiliate association with the Smithsonian Institution, he says, which provides marketing assistance and access to travel exhibitions. Joint project
with MICA Terry says his museum is exploring partnerships as opportunities to engage people from all across the state in Maryland’s African-American history and culture. The museum’s mandate calls for statewide outreach, he says, which presents challenges – namely, that traveling to Baltimore for many people in the Washington, D.C., region seems to be a formidable task, like “going to Bangladesh.” Terry became executive director at the request of the museum’s board in February 2006. He had been director of collections and exhibitions for the newly-formed museum since 2004. Trained as a historian, Terry earned a doctorate in U.S. history from Howard University. He attracted attention from the museum’s board while researching the Maryland aspects of African-American history at the Maryland State Archives, beginning in 2001. He initiated a research project called Beneath the Underground: the Flight to Freedom and Communities in Antebellum Maryland – it examined how black Marylanders had struggled against lavery and managed “to push people across the Mason-Dixon Line” in the quest for freedom, he says. Underground Railroad The Maryland State Archives project web site, mdslavery.net, includes 10,000 runaway ads and other documents in online databases that depict African-American history in Maryland from colonial days to the Civil War. “People want to see themselves reflected in history – they have universally recognizable experiences,” he says. “The museum is a place to re-imagine what had been, not a just a place to look at artifacts.” As part of its educational programs, the Lewis Museum will have a high-school curriculum available for state schools in the fall. It currently has a program for lower grades. “A sense of history is empowering,” Terry says. Terry has a master’s degree in African-American History from Morgan and an undergraduate degree in African-American studies from the University of Maryland. He also taught history at Morgan State University. When he arrived at Maryland’s College Park campus, Terry intended to study documentary filmmaking.Though he shifted his attention to African-American history and culture, he still wanted to be a storyteller – but in a different way. “I was fortunate enough to be there at that time (late 1980s), when these types of pursuits were encouraged,” he says. “There were a number of faculty members who were very supportive, as well as a group of students who were highly engaged in these studies.” Terry is also one of the board members for the Maryland State Arts Council. He received his appointment last July. As one who works in Baltimore and lives in Bowie, he is keenly aware of the state’s efforts to reach out and make the arts accessible to all Marylanders. Map-related exhibit Reginald F. Lewis was a Baltimore businessman and philanthropist who died in 1993 at the age of 50. He had made it known that he wished to support an African-American cultural museum. In 2002, the Reginald F. Lewis Foundation gave a $5 million grant to the Maryland African American Museum Corporation, which adopted the Lewis name for its formative museum. The Maryland state legislature allocated $30 million toward the construction of the five-level 82,000 square-foot museum, along with 50 percent of the museum’s long-term operating budget.
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month shy of its third-year anniversary, the 
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