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Walker County, Georgia, to hold new museum focused on African American history

Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / A new historical marker on the east side of the Marsh-Warthen House, a Greek Revival mansion in LaFayette, Georgia, recalls the 1916 lynching of Henry White on Lookout Mountain in Walker County. The other side details racial injustice in Georgia. Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / A new historical marker on the east side of the Marsh-Warthen House, a Greek Revival mansion in LaFayette, Georgia, recalls the 1916 lynching of Henry White on Lookout Mountain in Walker County. The other side details racial injustice in Georgia.

By Tierra Hayes July 10, 2021 3 min read

Walker County officials have approved plans for a future African American Museum and Culture Center.

The plans join other volunteer ventures spearheaded by local historian Beverly Foster, who has championed educating the area – which is more than 90% white – on the history of Black residents beyond just slavery through a local TV show, an upcoming memorial park and now through the museum.

“I’m hoping that they will use the … museum and park that we formed as an educational thing to learn about [Black people’s] accomplishments beyond enslavement,” said Foster, a Black woman whose family has been in the area since around the 1800s. “We want our opportunity to express our heritage and our own viewpoint.”

The Walker County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to approve the use of the Wardlaw Building at 309 N. Main St. in LaFayette as the site for the museum during a recent meeting.