Delbert Richardson, ’73: Founder and Curator of the American History Traveling Museum: The Unspoken Truths
Submitted by Deb Burton, ’67
Born in 1954 in Detroit, MI., during the year of Brown v Board of Education, when it was still legal to segregate, Delbert moved to Seattle in 1962. He attended Colman Elementary (now Seattle’s African American Museum), Washington Junior High, and Franklin High School. He was one of the few black athletes who qualified for an academic scholarship to the University of Chicago. Eventually he attended the University of Washington, where he started, with other incoming freshman students, to use the term “Black” with one another. While attending an African American studies class, he learned about the positive aspects of African culture, including concepts that were new to him. Previously he viewed the continent of Africa as a place a Black person would disassociate from.
Delbert Richardson (‘67) at the 2024 FHS Hall of Fame Dinner
His initial exposure to black collectibles was in Ocean Shores, WA. While vacationing, he visited various antique stores, and discovered everyday items, such as Aunt Jemima dolls and Cream of Wheat advertisements featuring African American imagery. Little did he know that these few purchases would start a more than thirty-year journey of collecting black memorabilia. His visit to Ghana in 2006 turned out to be a transformative experience. He returned to his home in Seattle from Africa with a feeling that "God wanted him to save his children" from a racialization paradigm to one that focuses on one’s humanity. If someone doesn’t know anything about their history, how can they possibly know anything about their ethnic identity?
Delbert began to collect artifacts about inventors and inventions like the super soaker, the modern doorknob, the golf tee, and dough kneader/rolling pin—the byproducts of Black brilliance introduced and interwoven throughout our daily lives.
His national award-winning American History Traveling Museum: The Unspoken Truths was developed as a chronological timeline broken into four parts: 1) Mother Africa, which focuses on the many contributions of African people in the area of S.T.E.M. (science, technology, engineering, and math); 2) American Chattel Slavery; 3) the Jim Crow Era; and, 4) Black technology and innovations (Black inventors). It’s common for Black children and young adults, upon experiencing the museum, to feel a greater sense of pride and a healthier sense of self. Delbert says: "I'm telling the story for the ones who can't speak themselves. Mother Africa is who I am (my North Star); inventions are what I am capable of accomplishing; slavery and Jim Crow represent what was done to Black people and not who we are."
Delbert has done this work for more than nineteen years: going into the Puget Sound schools, exposing, expanding our knowledge of Black Experience. When asked about what was one of his most memorable experiences, Delbert says he grows great inspiration and hope by watching a personal “pilot light” igniting the pilot light in each young person. Richardson’s goal is to provide them the knowledge of this light and inspire them to take their response to the flame and grow it brighter—into a personal commitment to maintain the flame and pass on the flame.
His view of his work is summarized in one word: “LEGACY.” He wants to acquire a building to permanently house the museum. A favorite of his quotes is, “He who tells the story controls the narrative”; the telling of the many stories of great African people is long overdue. When we take responsibility for telling these rich stories, we honor those ancestors upon whose shoulders we stand.