Every year millions of visitors flock to the more than 8,000 museums
across the United States. From house museums and storefront galleries
to the venerable Smithsonian Institution, these varied treasuries
affirm and transmit our nation’s complex history and cultural values.
But among museum professionals who operate these institutions -the
directors, curators, development directors, public relations
specialists, and others – less than one percent are estimated to be
minorities.
Several years ago, Dr. Rick Beard, executive director of the Atlanta
History Center, began wrestling with how to address the paucity of
minorities in his profession.
“I was interested,” Beard said, “because my experience had been that
if you wanted to recruit minorities in the museum profession, it could
be really hard work. And even when you were successful, it might be a
short stay for the professionals you hired. It wasn’t long before I
waved good-bye to them.”
The Atlanta History Center joined forces in 1994 with the Coca-Cola
Foundation to launch the Atlanta History Center/Coca-Cola Museum
Fellows Program. The goal: to expose minority undergraduate students to
the influential world of collecting, preserving, documenting, and
interpreting material culture.
Rinaldo Murray, a Clark Atlanta University senior majoring in
history, is a fellow in this, the third year of the program. He was
introduced to the Museum Fellows Program by his friend and school mate
Brett Crenshaw, a member of the first class. Murray says Crenshaw was
very blunt about what he should expect.
“Brett told me I should definitely consider the program,” Murray
recalls. “He told me that the things I would learn and be exposed to
would help me out a lot. But he also made it clear that this would not
be a walk in the park.
