Dr. Joanne Martin co-founded the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum in 1983, along with her late husband, Dr. Elmer Martin. She is working to expand the East Baltimore museum in the coming years. Photo by V. Edward Jones Productions

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Some museums whisper. Some lecture. Others expect you to admire quietly and move along. The National Great Blacks in Wax Museum in Baltimore does none of these things. It draws you in, focuses your gaze, and invites you to see history in full.

Located in East Baltimore, the museum stands as the first — and still one of the only — institutions in the United States devoted exclusively to African and African American history told through life-size wax figures.

Unlike many traditional museums, this one uses immersive dioramas to guide visitors through 5,000 years of history, from the kingdoms of ancient Africa to the achievements of modern Black leaders.

The museum was founded in 1983 by Dr. Joanne Martin and her late husband, Dr. Elmer P. Martin, two educators who noticed a gap in how Black history was taught.

“History has to meet people where they are,” Martin said in an interview with the Beacon.

They began with a traveling exhibit, bringing wax statues of historical figures into schools, churches and community spaces throughout Baltimore.

Bringing history to life was no easy task. Using photographs and historical records, the Martins sculpted early figures themselves from clay and wax, sewing costumes by hand and assembling props from donated materials. These first figures were built for durability as much as detail.

“We learned by doing,” Martin said. “What mattered most was that the figures looked human, and that the history felt real.”

They painstakingly researched the early figures. For ancient African kingdoms, the Martins relied on historical texts, scholarly illustrations and artifacts from museums to recreate the attire, posture and presence of kings, queens, scholars and builders.

Each figure was designed to convey both authority and humanity, teaching visitors to see these leaders as full, complex people, not just names in a textbook.

By the late 1980s, the collection found a permanent home in a former firehouse on East North Avenue. The Martins wanted the museum rooted in the community, not tucked away as a destination piece.

“History doesn’t need a grand entrance,” Martin said. “It needs a place to stand.”

Over time, adjacent buildings — including a Victorian mansion and nearby apartments — were incorporated, gradually creating the museum campus that exists today.

Inside the museum

Visitors begin their journey far earlier than many expect. Ancient African civilizations — Egypt, Nubia, Mali, Songhai — set the stage, presenting scholars, builders and leaders whose achievements predate American history by centuries.

These exhibits showcase the sophistication of African societies, their artistry, political systems, and contributions to science and culture. The effect is grounding, a reminder that Black history did not begin with struggle alone.

The Middle Passage exhibit is one of the museum’s most powerful spaces. A full-scale, dimly lit slave ship installation presents visitors with shackled figures. Sound and mirrors place visitors inside the hold, creating a claustrophobic, sobering atmosphere. The experience is emotional and intense.

“People need to feel this history, not just learn dates,” Martin said. “If you don’t feel it, you don’t understand it.”

Emerging from the darkness, visitors enter the resilience and achievement portion of the museum, a space filled with innovation, culture and leadership.

From there, the museum traces Black history through enslavement, abolition, Reconstruction, Civil Rights and into the modern era. Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. appear alongside entrepreneurs, artists, scientists and Baltimore icons such as Madam C.J. Walker and Reginald F. Lewis.

Visitors encounter cultural pioneers like Billie Holiday and Eubie Blake, as well as community heroes such as Bea Gaddy. More recent additions include a tribute to Henrietta Lacks, whose cells revolutionized medicine while raising ethical questions.

As the collection expanded, so did the museum itself. Today, the museum spans roughly 30,000 square feet, and plans are underway to add nearly 20,000 more, including outdoor memorial and sculpture gardens. The expansion, more than six years in the works, will improve accessibility and create space for additional educational programming, performances and community events.

“This work takes space,” Martin acknowledged. “And it takes time.”

Historians and educators

The museum continues its traveling exhibits with the “Beyond the Walls” initiative, bringing wax figures into airports, convention centers and other public spaces. These traveling installations extend the museum’s reach far beyond Baltimore, helping audiences nationwide encounter history in a tangible, memorable way.

The Martins’ approach to curation reflects their decades-long careers as educators. Dr. Joanne Martin, who earned her Ph.D. in educational psychology at Howard University, spent years teaching at Coppin State University before dedicating herself to the museum. Her understanding of pedagogy is evident in every display, from the way exhibits flow to the interactive, experiential design.

The museum’s design and programming make it clear that history is not static; it is present, interactive and evolving.

For local students, teachers and families, the museum is more than a display of figures; it is a living classroom. School groups participate in guided tours, workshops and lectures, while public programming includes forums on African American culture, art and civic engagement.

“We are about empowerment through knowledge,” Martin said. “When young people see themselves in history, they walk differently.”

The museum’s storytelling is deliberate and respectful. Figures tell their stories in dignified silence, inviting visitors to observe, reflect and draw their own conclusions. Visitors are often struck by the sense that history is watching them in return, prompting questions about memory, responsibility and identity.

Martin describes the museum not as an institution, but as a mission.

Its goal is simple yet ambitious: to ensure that the stories of African and African American history are told clearly, carefully, and with lasting impact. History is presented without haste, with respect for both the past and the people encountering it for the first time.

Truth has a way of sounding like exaggeration when people are unaccustomed to hearing it plainly. The Great Blacks in Wax Museum speaks plainly. It does not flatter, it does not rush, and it assumes visitors are capable of understanding more than they have been told.

When you step back outside, the figures remain — patient, steady, and exactly where they belong. The rest, as history likes to say, is up to you.

The National Great Blacks in Wax Museum, located at 1601-03 East North Avenue, Baltimore, is open Thursday through Sunday from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. For more information, visit greatblacksinwax.org or call (410) 563-3404.