App concept · Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia
The museum is a building. The history isn't.
One app for the people who can walk through our doors on Leigh Street, and for the far larger number who never will. Both groups get a real museum. Neither one gets a brochure.
Open now · until 5:00 PM
A Compromised Freedom
250 Years of Black Life in Virginia
Point Comfort
Hampton · 1619 arrival site
Add to the archive
Photographs, letters, church programs, funeral fans. Our archivists review every submission.
The problem this solves
Two people open this app. Only one of them is in Richmond.
Most museum apps are built for the visitor standing in the lobby. That leaves out the descendant in Atlanta, the teacher in Roanoke, and the researcher in Chicago who found us through a name in a family Bible. The app has to serve both without making either feel like an afterthought.
Standing in Jackson Ward
They have an hour, a phone, and a question about the object in front of them.
- Hours, closures, and what is open right now
- Tickets, member pass, and race bib discounts
- Gallery map that works in an 1895 armory with thick brick walls
- Point the camera at an object number for its story
- Audio from the people in the exhibition, not a narrator
- Save what moved you and read it on the train home
Nowhere near Virginia
They may never visit. They should still be able to use what we hold.
- Walk current exhibitions in a real virtual tour
- Search the collection and request research help
- Oral histories to listen to on a commute
- Live and recorded programs, panels, and fireside chats
- Statewide map of Black Virginia history well beyond our walls
- Give, join, and volunteer remotely
What's inside
Every feature, grouped by what it's for.
Plan and visit
The basics, done properlyToday at the museum
Hours, what's open, what's closed for install, and today's programs on one screen.
Tickets and member pass
Buy, store, and scan. Members skip the line. Race bib and partner discounts apply automatically.
Gallery map
Floor by floor, with restrooms, elevator, and the gift shop. Works offline inside the building.
Events and RSVP
Farmers market, panels, Juneteenth, and the holiday schedule. Add to calendar in one tap.
Inside the galleries
Where an app earns its placeScan an object
Point at the number on a label and get the full story, longer than wall text allows.
Listen as you walk
Voices of the people in the exhibition. Captions and transcripts on every track.
Exhibition guides
Deeper reading on the current shows, with the sources behind the labels.
Save and revisit
Bookmark an object, a quote, or a name. It's still there a year later.
From anywhere
The half most museum apps forgetVirtual exhibitions
Walk the galleries in 360. Shows that have already closed stay open here.
Digital collections
Search photographs, documents, and objects. Request a high-resolution scan.
Oral history library
Hours of recorded memory, searchable by name, place, and decade.
Did You Know
The whole archive of the series, sourced, in one place instead of scattered across a feed.
Virginia history map
Sites across the Commonwealth, from Point Comfort to Farmville. We're one stop on it.
Live and on demand
Stream panels and fireside chats, or watch the recording afterward.
Educator resources
Standards-aligned lessons for Virginia classrooms, free to download.
Shop and ship
The gift shop, reachable from outside the 804.
Family history
Our strongest draw for people who live elsewhereWhere to start
A guided path through Virginia records for people who have never done this before.
Book a researcher
Reserve time at the genealogy help desk in person, or a video session from out of state.
Add to the archive
Upload family photographs and documents for archivist review. Your people in the record.
Record a memory
Answer a prompt in your own voice and add it to the oral history collection.
Support and belong
Giving should not require a zip codeMembership
Join or renew, with a digital card and a tier for people who will never use the free admission.
Give
One time, monthly, in memory of someone, or through an employer match.
Volunteer
Open shifts on site, plus remote work like transcription and tagging.
Stay in touch
Newsletter and alerts you choose, so a notification always means something.
Why it matters
The people we serve left Virginia generations ago.
The Great Migration carried families out of the Commonwealth to Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, and New York. Their grandchildren still trace back to a county here. They are our audience as much as anyone who drives in from Chesterfield.
Right now the only way to reach them is a website and a social feed. An app turns an occasional visitor into a member who gives every year, and turns a stranger in Indiana into someone who tells us what happened to her family in Southampton County.
How it gets built
Ship something useful first. Earn the rest.
Three releases, in this order. Each one works on its own, so nothing sits half finished waiting on the next round of funding.
Open the doors
The visit essentials, plus enough remote content that an out-of-state download isn't a dead end.
- Today at the museum, hours, closures
- Tickets, member pass, events and RSVP
- Gallery map and exhibition guides
- Did You Know archive
- Give, join, newsletter
Open the collection
The part that makes the app worth keeping on a phone in another state.
- Object scanning and gallery audio
- Digital collections search
- Oral history library
- Virginia history map
- Educator resources
Open the mic
Where the public stops being an audience and starts adding to the record.
- Submit family photographs and documents
- Record an oral history from home
- Book a genealogy researcher
- Virtual exhibition tours
- Remote volunteering
Next step
This is the model. Now we scope it.
Everything on this page is a concept for discussion, not a committed feature list. The next conversation is about what Phase 01 actually contains and what it costs.
Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia
122 W. Leigh Street · Jackson Ward · Richmond, Virginia
Preserving stories that inspire.