Photos Map Information: 84 Franklin Street 410-216-6180 www.bdmuseum.com Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. No charge for admission. Tours and site rentals available for a fee. Related Stories: Exhibit explores fellowship in the African-American church Unearthing Maryland’s African-American history BD library to be named for its founder BD celebrates 30 years A historic celebration Investigators probe cause of three-alarm fire Bid to halt expansion to BD museum fails Museum expansion gets another nod Judge gives OK for downtown museum project Suit tries to block museum expansion Advertisement

For 25 years, the former Mt. Moriah AME Church, now known as the Banneker-Douglass Museum, has served as the repository for African-American information in the state. Banneker-Douglass, with its arching windows and pitched Victorian Gothic roof is the first black institution in the city to be preserved for its historic value.

It was named for Benjamin Banneker, the Maryland-born mathematician who helped survey and lay out the District of Columbia, and Frederick Douglass, who escaped slavery to become a leader of the abolition movement.

Built by free blacks in 1874, the church was purchased by the county in 1970 for $123,000 to make room for courthouse parking and expansion. The congregation moved from Franklin Street to a new church on Forest Hills Avenue in 1972.

Their building, however, would have been razed or at least relocated if it hadn't been for the work of preservationists like Yevola Peters, who in 1972 was an organizer with the Community Action Agency. Mrs. Peters helped raise awareness of the building's history, which eventually led to its designation on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

A hot legal battle ensued, pitting the city of Annapolis, which wanted to preserve the building as part of its urban renewal efforts, against the county, which wanted the entire block to be cleared. The battle ended up in the Court of Appeals, which ruled in 1974 that the county could not tear down the building without approval of the Historic District Commission, which refused to approve the demolition.

Eventually, the state's Commission on Afro-American History and Culture stepped in and leased the property from the county for $1 a year for 99 years. The commission continues to run the museum under the auspices of the Department of Housing and Community Development.

A long-awaited expansion of the museum was completed after many delays in November 2005, adding a two-story addition with more exhibit space, a gift shop, computer labs and a library.

In a 2008 interview museum director Wendi Perry said, “we are not the biggest museum, but we are trying to give people an overall look at African American heritage in the state.”

The 2005 renovation doubled the gallery space. The added space also made room for special performances, events and temporary exhibits.

On the second floor visitors can walk through a permanent collection of Maryland’s African-American history. The exhibit takes you back in time from the days of Benjamin Banneker, Frederick Douglass and Harriett Tubman all the way until the Civil Rights Movement of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X.

The permanent collection features one-of-a-kind artifacts, interactive media shows, and some hands-on activities for children. “If you call and you know you have kids coming, we can even offer a specialized guided tour,” said Ms. Perry.

Many visitors also do not realize that they can access the museum’s library collection, which holds a rare collection of documents, books and archives pertaining to African-American history. The library also stores an extensive amount of information on the museum’s largest artifact, the Mt. Moriah African Methodist Episcopal Church.

The Church, which was originally built in 1874 by the city’s free blacks, served as a house of worship for almost one hundred years. In the early eighties the site was renovated and deemed a historic landmark. Now, the Church, with its red brick facade and colorful stain glass windows, sits as the central part of the museum’s collection, giving visitors a real sense of Annapolis’s African-American heritage.