A $500,000 investment from the Quantum Foundation, a Florida-based non-profit, is boosting plans for Palm Beach County to build a Black history museum and research center at a former high school that has historic links to segregation. The project is aiming at revamping the area, which has been afflicted by disinvestment over several decades.
Danita DeHaney, president and CEO of the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties, which is overseeing planning for the project, announced that the funding is key in moving the large-scale project forward.
The Quantum Foundation focuses on health services in underserved pockets of the state. “This area has deep historical roots, and it’s important to share the stories of the people who built and shaped Florida,” said Eric Kelly, the foundation’s president, in a statement disclosing the grant agreement.
The museum is set to be located on the grounds of the former Roosevelt High School, an all-Black school that in the 1950s to 1960s, was a site of segregation for students in Palm Beach County. In recent years, the campus that houses the school’s building has served as a social services community center.
The proposed plan seeks to restoring parts of the campus that have fallen into disarray over the years, with an aim to build a 20,000-square-foot museum focused on the site’s ties to Black history in the area.
The project has secured $1 million in local funding for its design and construction. In a statement, DeHaney called on the county to focus on preserving stories of longtime residents who lived to see Roosevelt’s segregated era, many now in advanced ages, to keep the area’s history recorded for other generations.
Six architectural firms have been shortlisted to lead the proposed building project.
