Water’s Edge Museum (Talbot)

Black History Month Leadership & Service Honoree The Water’s Edge Museum shares the empowering story of the daily life and spiritual beliefs of the Founding Black Families of Maryland– Black farmers, sailmakers, military figures, musicians, watermen, and crab pickers. “These Founding Black Families harnessed their power and placed it into the hands of their descendants.” 

The Water’s Edge is home to historic figures such as Harriet Ross Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, Charles Albert TIndley, and Waters Edward Turpin, and is a vital component of the long and rich African American history in Maryland. 

The Water’s Edge Museum shares visual and written accounts interwoven with an artistic, literary, and musical chronicling of people of African descent, set against the maritime backdrop of the Chesapeake Bay. Everything is managed by a team of volunteers, who invest 160 hours of service each week, including their pivot to a virtual opening of the Water’s Edge Museum during the pandemic. 

The impact of Water’s Edge includes helping “the young people of today find their place in history and identify their own positive and unique voice when facing contemporary issues and challenges. In short, it offers the experience for [Marylanders] to witness how people of color on the Eastern Shore lived and how their lives mattered.”

Watch their “Welcome to the Water’s Edge | Virtual Opening on February 1, 2021”

The team at the Water’s Edge Museum includes, but is not limited to, Paulette and George Albury; Emily Bakemeier; Will Baker’ Bradford, Janice, and Brittany Brooks; Colonel William and Dr. Dennis DeShields; Justine Flora; Hugh Freund; Bruce Glover; Brenda Henry; Kentavius Jones; Nina Khrushcheva; Tilghman Logan; Theodore and Betty Mack; Annie Miller; Kenneth Milton; Jaelon Moaney; Jeffrey Moaney; Olivia Moaney; Tish Moaney; La Fleur Paysour; Dominique Sessa; Clara Small; Dave Wheelan; and John Wesley Wright.

Visit their website at watersedgemuseum.org