Vashti DuBois, founder and executive director of The Colored Girls Museum, had to move from her home to ensure that the museum she created there was saved, writes Elizabeth Wellington for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
For the past eight years, DuBois escorted visitors through her home in Germantown, showing them a variety of paintings, collages, fiber arts, books, and sculptures celebrating the lives of ordinary Black women.
However, at the start of 2024, Philadelphia granted a variance that rezoned her home so it could be used as a library and cultural institution. That meant that the museum could stay open, but DuBois had to find a new place to live.
It was not easy to make the move, as DuBois had lived in the same three-story Victorian twin for over two decades.
She managed to find a new residence in a house on the same block she could continue hosting weekend tours at The Colored Girls Museum. Still, the energy that existed while she was still living there is gone.
“For almost nine years, The Colored Girls Museum has been a show about a house that performs as a memoir museum,” said DuBois. “The variance marked the end of Act I.”
Read more about the Colored Girls Museum and its new iteration in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
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