Gift goal put at $3M to renovate museum at Mosaic Templars

The Mosaic Templars Cultural Center in Little Rock hopes to raise $3 million in almost entirely private funds by year’s end to renovate the 11-year-old museum.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson, alongside center director Christina Shutt, on Monday accepted a $300,000 donation from Union Pacific as a “foundational gift” for the project. Shutt also said the museum, which chronicles the story of Arkansas’ African-American history — had secured a $248,000 grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services, which will require matching funds from the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission.

A committee chaired by AT&T Arkansas President Ronald Dedman is tasked with raising more than $2 million by the end of 2019.

Shutt said the museum’s audience has changed since 2008 and so has the history that it covers.

“We’ve developed an interpretive and design plan to re-imagine the museum’s educational exhibit space as a modern and engaging space for visitors of all ages,” she said. “This expanded vision will allow us to tell a more

complete story of Arkansas through the lens of African-Americans.”

The museum’s name comes from the Mosaic Templars of America — a black fraternal organization that was founded in Little Rock in 1882 by two former slaves. The museum opened in 2008 at the southwest corner of Broadway and West Ninth Street, where the organization’s national headquarters once stood until destroyed by fire. The museum falls under the state’s heritage operations.

Stacy Hurst, secretary of the state Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism, said Monday that she initially told Shutt that a museum overhaul would likely need private financing, and she commended Shutt for working hard to find some seed money.

Union Pacific Railroad CEO Lance Fritz said the company believes in investing into the communities where it operates. The major American railroad has a sizable locomotive maintenance and overhauling facility in North Little Rock.

“We believe in vibrant spaces, and none more vibrant than the [Mosaic Templars Cultural Center] and the celebration of the diversity of Arkansas’ history and the inclusiveness that Arkansas is a guiding light to the rest of the United States,” Fritz said.

The museum saw more than 30,000 visitors last year, Shutt said, and it conducted about 13,000 tours. The renovations are being cast as an update to the museum, and a pamphlet soliciting charitable contributions said the new space “re-envisions a 10-yearold education exhibit to embrace inclusivity and widens its focus to reflect and share the complete story of black Arkansans from across the state.”

Renderings of the updated museum show a space that would guide visitors through a theater into the main exhibit area with sections dedicated to success stories, community, people, culture, oppression and survival.

The museum now has six permanent exhibits — including an exhibit for the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame and an exhibit to Little Rock’s West Ninth Street business district in the late 19th and early 20th centuries — and a rotating exhibit (right now it’s dedicated to African-Americans in the timber industry).

Shutt said the renovations would help the museum commemorate more individual stories like the integration of Hoxie schools in 1955 and Scipio A. Jones, a prominent black defense attorney in the late 19th and early 20th century who opposed Jim Crow laws. She also said it would allow more exploration of rural Arkansas and the meaning of community and family in the Natural State.

“In essence we’re going to be expanding the story,” Shutt said.

Dedman said the capital campaign committee will begin “knocking on doors and making phone calls.” He said he’s optimistic about meeting the $3 million goal, which will rely on individual and corporate benefactors.

“We’re going to have to hit the ground running and run hard,” he said.

The Republican governor thanked Union Pacific for the gift, and he said at this point no other state funds are planned for the project.

“This is what’s wonderful about this, is this is private sector coming in and Secretary Hurst saw the need for this and said, ‘You better raise the private dollars,’” Hutchinson said. “We’re very grateful for the private sector stepping up and with the matching funds we’re well on our way.”