Conference `Comes Home' to DuSable // Director's Ouster Difficult for Group

The African American Museums Association arrives Thursday inChicago for its annual conference, sponsored this year by the DuSableMuseum of African American History.

It is a timely arrival in Chicago because DuSable is the oldestsuch museum in the country and its recently ousted director,Gwendolyn Robinson, is responsible for bringing the group to town.

Jocelyn Robinson-Hubbuch, executive director of the 300-membermuseum association based in Wilberforce, Ohio, said the board choseChicago as the convention site "to come home in a sense because(founder Margaret) Burroughs and the DuSable Museum are thecornerstones of the African-American museum community."

She said she hopes the shift of power at the museum doesn'timpede the strides the convention hopes to make.

The theme of the conference is, "The Future of the Past:Planning to Educate America in the 21st Century." Sessions include"everything you wanted to know about museum operations but wereafraid to ask," Robinson-Hubbach said.

African-American museums developed in the same manner the blackcommunity's churches sprouted - initially within homes andstorefronts and, more recently, in buildings that could be calledmuseums, Robinson-Hubbach said. Such is the case with the DuSable,the oldest African-American museum in the country, which had itsbeginnings in the home of Burroughs, an educator.

"New museums are being formed all the time," Robinson-Hubbuchsaid. "In the black museum community, even though money is tight, wehave a history of being creative with scant resources. We haveinstitutions not so much thriving but moving along and growingdaily."

Media coverage of the DuSable board's decision not to renewRobinson's contract was not positive for the museum orAfrican-American museums, she said.

African-American museums have historically come up short onfoundation funding. Meanwhile, the professionals who staff them arecontinually hired away by mainstream museums as those museums areencouraged by foundations to become more multicultural.

A committee of Robinson supporters has asked the DuSable boardto reinstate her. Earl Moore, chairman of the museum's board, saidthat Robinson will not be reinstated and a search for a new directoris under way. But he promised the museum association that theDuSable and Robinson will make sure the Aug. 25-27 gathering at theSwissotel is a success.