African American Museum construction comes to an end

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) - Construction crews will wrap up work on the $5 million dollar renovation to the African American Museum of Iowa on Monday, February 12.

Work started at the end of May 2023 at the same time the city was in the middle of flood wall construction at the Cedar River which was already impacting access to the 20-year-old museum.

“The people who have been here before will definitely notice all of the changes in new things,” said AAMI Executive Director LaNisha Cassell.

The biggest changes are the full renovated exterior, which includes a new entryway and lobby that faces Second Street Southeast rather than 12th Street SE.

“It’s kind of more welcoming and embracing,” she said.

“So it’ll be exciting for people to be able to come in and see all the new features that we have to offer and the mission hasn’t changed.”

The museum will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony February 27 at 10 a.m. with state officials expected to attend.

The museum is next expected to re-open to the public until April.

“I think for people who have never engaged, they’re going to be engaged in having that conversation, considering things they hadn’t considered before,” said Cassell.

“There’s going to be something that resonates with everybody and I think that people will look forward to seeing that in our exhibits, in our program and just all the things that we engage with throughout the Community.”

Cassell says much of the $5 million construction costs have already been pledged. But the Museum is trying to raise another $1 million for an endowment program that will support the long-term sustainability of the Museum.

While the Cedar Rapids museum has been closed, its exhibits have travelled throughout the state and Community programs have continued.

“We are still educating people on a daily basis,” said Cassell.

“Not just way past history, but yesterday’s history, you know, today’s yesterday’s history. So we continue to learn more stories that we can be able to are able to share and we have some new programming that’s coming up this year and some of it we launched at the end of last year.”

Among the new projects is an expansion of its Des Moines Black Panther Party program.

Cassell says it’s going to be presented in February 2024 at several locations across the state.

“We like to think that people are going to be learning new things every day if they engage with the museum.”