Pop-Up Black History Museum is back!

Originally published on the JOLT News on February 5, 2026.

Strolling through the Pop-Up Black History Museum last year, I remember feeling a multitude of emotions as I observed each exhibit and experienced the moments of celebration, sorrow and the deep cry for justice. I cannot wait to experience it all again!  

Opening on Saturday Feb. 7, New Life Baptist Church in Lacey is bringing back the Pop-Up Black History Museum again this year with expansions, more exhibits, and diverse opportunities to expand your education and role in preserving this important history. I encourage you to mark your calendars for the one-day, “Negro Baseball League,” exhibit and event on Feb. 21.

The museum will be open to the public Saturdays only through the month of February from noon to 4 p.m. School and private tours will be held on weekdays.  

To learn more about this year’s experience, I interviewed Dr. Thelma Jackson. Our conversation left a deep impact on me and reshaped my understanding on why efforts like these are so vital during these uncertain times.  

 The big picture 

Having a doctorate in Educational Leadership & Change, Dr. Jackson’s career within her educational consultant firm has allowed her to be a catalyst for positive change and advocacy here in Thurston County.

Taking her experience with her, Dr. Jackson describes how her involvement with the Black History Museum is “an extension of (her) education vision and what education is really about.” 

Members of New Life Baptist Church recognize the current struggle within classrooms and administrations surrounding Black History, and the museum offers an opportunity to preserve history and provide community based education for free to students.  

 “It's our contribution to the community, and at the same time we are trying to help our kids, our people better understand their history," Dr. Jackson said.

The very nature of history relies on oral traditions of story telling, the preservation of artifacts, and so much more which can become muddled or lost in an age of technology and the evergoing debate on accurate history.

 New Life Baptist Church is a very fitting space to hold conversations like these because as Dr. Jackson reminded me, the civil rights movement, voting rights, open housing laws, criminal justice —it all took place and began in the Black church in the late 1950s and 1960s. 

“Anyone younger than 50 may not know the history, and you can’t teach what you don’t know," Dr. Jackson said.

The role of genealogy  

“The museum is very, very important this year in light of all the efforts underway to eradicate discussing Black History,” Dr. Jackson commented.

Much of this is being done through removal of exhibits at other museums, schools and universities not teaching it, or book bans or removing public monuments. Thus, genealogy begins to serve an even greater purpose.  

 On Feb. 7, the museum will be partnering with the LDS church for genealogy workshops.

“We are helping the community learn how to research their family history, and we are going to teach kids how to fill in that family tree and talk to oldest living relatives about family history and memory before they are gone,” Dr. Jackson said.

Normally, we would think of this as a fun family exercise, which it can be, but it does carry a sense of urgency.  

In a nutshell, Dr. Jackson described how if politics and societal trends continue to follow the path they are on, there is ultimately going to be a requirement that you can trace your ancestry and show that you are descendent of slaves. 

In attending a museum like this, you educate yourself and hope for the best, but you also plan for the worst.  

Relevance 

Sometimes, it is really easy to get caught up in a sort of bubble where you find a comfortable sense of denial or claim safety for the bigger picture of what is happening in our nation. Oftentimes for me, that bubble lives in the statement, “We are so lucky to live in our very diverse corner of the world.” Here’s a fact I learned that popped the bubble:  

 “Do you know why so many black people live in Lacey?” Dr. Jackson asked me.

Admittedly, I did not. She explained how Tumwater and Olympia were founded in the late 19th century, and Lacey not until the mid-20th century. The differences in these moments are critical: Tumwater and Olympia held black codes that forbid blacks from living in these areas.Lacey never had any black codes. The founding of Lacey was not actually that long ago, and there are still people alive who can remember that moment.  

 We cannot let memories die, nor can we bury our heads in the sand about the ripple effect of history in our current lives. So dear readers, I invite you to invest in the truth and explore the Black History Museum.  

https://www.thejoltnews.com/stories/pop-up-black-history-museum-is-back,28087