The goal of this project is to develop plans for the creation of the Danville Research Center for African American History and Culture(DRC) at 348 Holbrook Street, Danville, Virginia. This Center will seek to collect, preserve, exhibit and interpret the history and cultural legacy of the Black community in the City of Danville and the surrounding region. Within this space will also be a genealogy research room and family tree maker lab with an oral history booth. The Center will be used as a hub for students, scholars, and families to research and work on special projects that will tell the stories of pre-slavery, the Reconstruction era, and the Civil Rights Movement. The DRC will house the popular Our History Matters Cultural Heritage Tours and support the revamp of AAHGS-Danville/Pittsylvania.

The Holbrook-Ross Historic District (108-0180) was the first African-American professional neighborhood in the City of Danville. The neighborhood served as the principal neighborhood for African-Americans containing single family dwellings with a library, school, family operated stores, funeral homes and churches; all primarily serving African-American families. The Center will operate to keep the stories of this neighborhood alive and act as a model to solve current issues of today by using spaces of the past.

Gold Sponsorship ~ $1,000+

Mary Massie Barnes 

~ in Loving Memory

Samuel, Linda & Mary Lewis Massie

Diamond Sponsorship ~ $10,000+

Weissberg Foundation

~ in Honor of Dorothy Moore Batson, Danville Civil Rights Demonstrator