After nearly three years of guiding guests through the African American Museum at the England Manor while teaching them about African American history, both locally and beyond, founder and executive director Sylvia England is taking the show on the road.
With a new, comfortably furnished van seating 12 including the driver, England is now offering tours to places like archeological digs near downstate El Dorado, and within a month or two will have a trailer with which the van will be able to transport exhibits around Lake County.
“We’re going to go to schools with the van, and make an effort to show exhibits from the museum at the schools,” England said. “We’ll go to the Waukegan public schools and others in Lake County.”
England and a group of supporters formally inaugurated the van with a ribbon-cutting Friday at the museum in Waukegan with the goal of both taking museum artifacts on the road and bringing people to sites significant to African American history.
“This is now a mobile museum too,” England said after the ceremony.
Though the trailer has yet to arrive, England is already using the van to take people to places where history occurred, as she did on a recent trip to Carbondale. Not all of it is pleasant, but everything is important, she said.
“It’s an opportunity to see, feel and touch history like we did at archeological digs in southern Illinois,” she said. “Oh my gosh, talk about seeing history. We definitely saw a different side of history. Some of the things will make you feel bad, but it is the history.”
Along with the archeological digs, England said she has used the van to take people to the DuSable Black History and Education Center in Chicago, Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and the Quad Cities.
Waukegan Mayor Ann Taylor, who spoke at the event Friday, said teaching history is important. When it comes to learning about an individual’s culture or the culture of their neighbors, it takes on a stronger meaning.
“How can you know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve come from?” Taylor said. “We have to teach our children about our history.”
The museum is located inside England’s home near downtown Waukegan, a house built in 1859 before the Civil War began. Slavery was still a Southern institution. She believes the building was a stop on the Underground Railroad helping escaped slaves find freedom.
State Sen. Adriane Johnson, D-Buffalo Grove, spoke at the ribbon-cutting. She said African American history is rich and vibrant. She likened England’s work to that of Harriet Tubman.
“This reminds me of Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad,” Johnson said. “You’re a modern Harriet Tubman. You are creating a record to nurture and grow. African American history has influenced so many people.”
England said the van seats recline with sufficient room for a backpack and a little more under the seat. There is plenty of legroom, she said.
Looking forward to taking the van with its trailer to schools, she said more trips to historic sites are planned as well. People will get a chance to see “living history in a lot of different places.”
Spending time on a recent trip to Carbondale, where they met scholars at Southern Illinois University, England said visitors toured the dig at Eldorado, a town much closer to former slave states Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee, than Chicago.
“It was a sundown town,” she said. “If a Black person was there after dark, you’d be put in jail or worse. There was a man who wanted to open a school like Tuskegee (University), but they ran him out of town.”
