Virtual Opening Held for Tubman Museum on Juneteenth

CAPE MAY – On a day set aside to celebrate the end of slavery in America, Cape May gathered in Rotary Park to observe the opening of a museum dedicated to freedom.
About 100 people sat on the grass or in the shade about a block from Cape May’s new museum dedicated to Harriet Tubman, the most famous conductor on the Underground Railroad. Organizers said more than 20,000 people watched the event virtually.
The museum, at 632 Lafayette St., is in the former parsonage of the Macedonia Baptist Church next door. At the start of the project, it was in terrible shape, with the expectation the historic building would eventually be demolished. After about two years of work, the building is almost completely rehabilitated, with a few small items left to be completed.
“What a beautiful day to celebrate Juneteenth,” said Cynthia Mullock, one of the organizers of the museum efforts. 
Organizers hoped to hold a grand opening June 19, often referred to as Juneteenth, a day that has long been celebrated in American Black communities as the last day of slavery. While many history books cite Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation Sept. 22, 1862, as the end of slavery, that proclamation applied only to the states in rebellion. While the war continued, so did slavery in Confederate-held territories.
It was not until June 19, 1865, two and a half years later, that Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger reached Galveston, Texas, and proclaimed the end of slavery there, in one of the last outposts of the rebellion.
At the Cape May event, retired history teacher Ted Bryan discussed the importance of the day.
“I can’t imagine the emotions of the first Juneteenth. The excitement. The joy. The hope,” he said.
Lincoln’s proclamation did not free a single person, he said.
“It would take the Union Army going into the South and winning the war to make that happen, and that would be another two and a half years,” Bryan said.
The date for the museum opening was chosen before the death of George Floyd, in Minneapolis, and before waves of activism swept American cities around the nation, including in Cape May County, where crowds of Blacks and whites gathered from Cape May to Ocean City in a call for racial justice.
In her comments, Mullock called it the largest American civil rights movement in decades.
Her brother, Cape May City Councilman Zack Mullock, served as construction manager for the project. Both pointed to their father, Bob Mullock, as a driving force in getting the museum completed, but Bob Mullock said he did not do it alone.
Lynda Anderson-Towns, a member of the museum board and trustee of Macedonia Baptist, said some members of the church were initially skeptical, “but we took out a step on faith,” she said.
That faith was rewarded by the outpouring of support and volunteers, saying that each person believed in what Harriet Tubman stood for.
An escaped slave, Tubman led about 70 people to freedom, returning South repeatedly. She was also active in the abolition movement and worked for the Union Army during the Civil War, as a scout and a spy, becoming the first woman in U.S. history to lead an American combat operation.
“We are so excited to have all of you here at the opening of the Harriet Tubman Museum,” Anderson-Towns said at the park. “This has been a project of collaboration and love and creativity and passion and desire, and what I love most about the Harriet Tubman Museum is that it brought our community together.”
She said the nation is in a state of unrest.
“Guess what? Cape May’s ahead of the curve,” she said.
Work on the museum is expected to be completed by early July, but even if everything were ready, the museum would not be allowed to accept visitors under Gov. Phil Murphy’s continuing emergency orders related to COVID-19. There has been a slow but steady easing of restrictions – close to the event, roads were closed and filled with tables for outside dining on the Washington Street Mall – but it is not certain when museums and other indoor attractions will reopen.
Around the park were images of Tubman wearing a mask, with a quote stating she never lost a passenger on the Underground Railroad. Anderson-Towns asked those gathered to wear masks and remain safe, and to tell their friends the story of the museum.
She told the crowd that the former parsonage was listed as one of New Jersey’s most endangered historic sites. This year, it was listed by Smithsonian Magazine as one of the most anticipated museum openings in the world.
Mullock said she could not say for certain how much the project cost. They sometimes use an estimate of $500,000, but she said so many people volunteered their time and efforts, including local architects and construction professionals.
The museum will include material about Tubman, but also about the history of slavery and the men and women who worked to abolish it.
There are stories about Tubman living and working in Cape May, but they were often dismissed. Freelance journalist Barbara Dreyfuss said she investigated historical sources extensively and found documentation that Tubman worked in a local hotel in the summer of 1852, while she was active in the Underground Railroad. She believed that Tubman was in town other summers, as well, but has not been able to document it.
At that time, she said, Cape May had an active abolitionist movement, with Blacks and whites working to end slavery. It was also already a resort popular with many Southern planters, sometimes leading to tension.
The museum will feature that history and will also include items from the late Rev. Robert Davis’ extensive collection of slave artifacts. A longtime pastor of the Baptist church, Davis was a beloved figure in town. For 45 years, he led a choir presenting traditional spirituals at Convention Hall.
According to Dreyfuss, the neighborhood around the new museum includes several important historic sites. Across the street is the 1846 summer house of Stephen Smith, a Black businessman and abolitionist. The house was a meeting place for the abolitionist movement.
In his comments at the event, Zack Mullock quoted Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. from his visit to Cape May, where he addressed a conference of Quakers in 1958.
Mullock’s father, Bob Mullock, brought a copy of a newspaper from the 19th century that included advertisements for slaves, including an offer to buy 400 humans.
One that had him close to tears was a notice looking for the owner of a young girl about 10 years old. She was set to be sold by the government May 27, 1836. Her name was Mary Jane Adams, and she told the government officials she was free. They were set to sell her anyway.
The newspaper will be on display at the museum, he said.
Mullock also spoke of slaves rowing across the Delaware Bay toward the Cape May lighthouse and freedom.
State Assembly members Antwan McClellan and Erik Simonsen (both R-1st) also spoke at the event, as did Cape May Mayor Clarence Lear. McClellan told the crowd that Simonsen attends Macedonia Baptist, and Simonsen said McClellan is the first African American elected to represent New Jersey’s First Legislative District.
McClellan discussed a bill to make the museum an official state museum.
To contact Bill Barlow, email bbarlow@cmcherald.com.