13 WTHR - Indianapolis News |Museum hopes to make national impact

Museum hopes to make national impact

Alex Sanz/Eyewitness News

Indianapolis, July 13 - The vision for the first museum of its kind in the state is a grand one.

What is today a vast field of green on the grounds of White River State Park, by decade's end, say its planners, will give rise to an unparalleled center of culture.

"It's a great campus with the Eiteljorg Museum not far away. As the executive director of the Indiana Museum of African-America History project, it is Rita Organ's job to bring the renderings, six years in the making, to life.

"I can see the outcome, and that's what my role is, is to get everybody else to see it as well," she said Wednesday.

It is a monumental effort honoring the vision of the founder of the Indiana Black Expo, the late Reverend Charles Williams.

"This is a natural outgrowth of what his vision for Indiana Black Expo is. And that is to, you know, discuss African-America life and culture and history throughout the state. This is kind of the next evolution of that." said Organ.

The plans for the 120,000 square foot multi-million dollar museum call for a full chronicling of African-American life, for sharing stories of days past and for building toward the future.

Multi-media presentations will balance traveling exhibits. The state's musical legacy will share common space with a national genealogy center.

"We're not going to just constantly tell this, this, this long, linear story. But we'll pick out pieces at different times and places in points in time that have made a significant impact on the state.

"We really want to have a national impact," Organ said of something now so near certainty with the vision already in place.

Plans for the museum also call for a 400-seat theater and rooftop dining. Groundbreaking is set for next year with plans for the doors to open in 2009.