Joan Maynard, a founding preservationist of the historic Weeksville neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, discusses how she came to learn about the Anacostia Neighborhood Museum (now Anacostia Community Museum) in 1971 after attending a meeting of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington DC. She talks about the museum's influence for developing African American museums throughout the country, its importance to and impact on the Anacostia neighborhood, and the leadership of John Kinard and Zora Martin-Felton. She discusses how a tour of the museum on its 5th Anniversary encouraged and energized members of the museum and preservation communities in New York.
The interview was conducted via telephone on May 9, 1992. There is background static throughout the recording, which makes it difficult to hear the interviewee in some parts.
Biographical / Historical:
Joan Maynard (1928-2006) was born in Brooklyn, New York on August 29, 1929. She attended Bishop McDonnell Memorial High, Art Career School in Manhattan, and graduated from Empire State College of the State University of New York. She was also a Revson Fellow at Columbia University and received an honorary doctorate from Bank Street College of Education. She worked as a commercial artist and art director for McGraw-Hill, and created comic book treatments of black history, including the Golden Legacy comic series. She also drew covers for The Crisis magazine, the official magazine for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In 1968, she founded the Society for the preservation of Weeksville and Bedford Stuyvesant, which worked to preserve the legacy of Weeksville, a pre-Civil War African American community in Brooklyn, New York. She secured funding from the New York Landmarks Conservancy, the Downtown Brooklyn Association, and the Mary Flager Carey Trust in order to rehabilitate four wood-frame houses from the mid-1800s, and engaged the local community through public outreach and education, including recruiting students to participate in archaeological digs on the site. Joan Maynard served as President of the Society for the Preservation of Weeksville and Bedford Stuyvesant from 1972-1974, and as Executive Director from 1974-1999. She was also a member of Alex Haley's Junta Kinte Oral History Workshop, a founding member of the African American Museum Association, and was Trustee Emeritus of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, receiving their highest honor, the Louise DuPont Crowninshield Award. In 1983, she authored Weeksville, Then & Now: The Search to Discover, the Effort to Preserve, Memories of Self in Brooklyn, New York. She also received a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award from the Brooklyn District Attorney, Charles Hynes. In October of 2017, a block of Buffalo Avenue in Brooklyn was re-named Dr. Joan Maynard Way in her honor.
Provenance:
Conducted as part of the ACM 25th Anniversary Oral History Project, which includes approximately 100 interviews of residents and influential people of the Anacostia area of Washington, DC.
Restrictions:
Use of the materials requires an appointment. Please contact the archivist to make an appointment: ACMarchives@si.edu.
Genre/Form:
Oral histories (document genres)
Collection Citation:
ACM 25th Anniversary Oral History Project, Anacostia Community Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; partial gift of Lynda Lanker and a museum purchase made possible with generous support from Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker, Agnes Gund, Kate Kelly and George Schweitzer, Lyndon J. Barrois Sr. and Janine Sherman Barrois, and Mark and Cindy Aron
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; partial gift of Lynda Lanker and a museum purchase made possible with generous support from Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker, Agnes Gund, Kate Kelly and George Schweitzer, Lyndon J. Barrois Sr. and Janine Sherman Barrois, and Mark and Cindy Aron
