The Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum (SSAAM)

Alexander Gaines

In September of 2016, Elaine Buck and Beverly Mills officially founded the Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum(SSAAM), located at the Mt. Zion AME Church and True Farmstead. ¹ To fully understand the significance of the SSAAM it is important to start with the history of the church the museum is based out of.

The Mt. Zion AME Church was first established in 1866 by the descendants of free and enslaved African American people in the Sourland Mountain Region and was one of the first African Methodist Episcopal (AME) churches in New Jersey. ² In 1899, the church relocated to Skillman, New Jersey, where it currently stands today, as its location in Zion, New Jersey had become inconvenient for the congregation. ³ The church had an active congregation from its inception in 1866 up until 2005, when worship services ceased due to dwindling membership. ⁴ The story behind the creation of the SSAAM begins with Elaine Buck and Beverly Mills’ motivations for writing their book If These Stones Could Talk. In 2018, Buck and Mills were notified of a project that planned to pave over an African American burial ground. They began protesting against the project and were told they needed to prove that the land was an African American burial site. This led to extensive research in local archives and speaking with archival staff to try and find the evidence they needed. The two women defined the experience as “life-changing”. ⁵ While they worked through the project, the two women learned more and more about African American history in central NewJersey. They learned about the way African American history was hidden and considered unimportant in much of New Jersey, especially the Sourland Mountain Region, which inspired the two women to write their book. To support their book Buck and Mills inaugurated a tour in 2014 that started with a lecture for the Sourland Conservancy. ⁶ This lecture led to a partnership between the Stoutsburg Cemetery Association, of which Buck and Mills were members, and the Sourland Conservancy. This partnership was the basis for the creation of the SSAAM, created two years later with ownership of the Mt. Zion AME Church and the land around the church, which was the African American burial site they had fought to preserve. ⁷ The SSAAM is a museum that prides itself on exposing visitors to a “truthful and more inclusive sharing of the history and contributions of the founding African American families of the Sourland region of Central New Jersey since the time of New Jersey’s participation in the transatlantic slave trade” as described by the SSAAM. ⁸

Building on the inclusive history the museum shares, the SSAAM also provides programming and space to cultivate a community that comes together to understand and work towards remedies for American slavery. The SSAAM is a powerful museum that offers a new and unique use of commemoration. Commemoration is a powerful tool, that throughout the United States’ history has often been utilized as a weapon to further the interests of traditionally powerful actors. ⁹ However, the SSAAM turns this idea on its head by using the history of African American people in the Sourland Mountain Region to empower the local African American community. Whether it be through the fun fundraising events the museum holds or the important overlooked history the museum disseminates, the SSAAM uses history and community to rewrite a narrative, but in this instance, the narrative is rewritten to reflect a more accurate history of New Jersey in the mid to late 19th century. ¹⁰ The Commemorative efforts of the SSAAM are unique because the museum adds a personal element to its teachings of the history of the Sourland Mountain Region. The SSAAM utilizes recorded oral histories 

along with a map of important African American cultural and historical sites in the Sourland Mountain region.¹¹ These two aspects of the museum’s commemorative efforts introduce visitors to both the physical museum and its website to the interesting and compelling history that members of their own communities’ ancestors lived through. This personalized touch to the museum helps educate its visitors, while also keeping visitors grounded in a way many museums do not. Through the museum’s unique work of education, The SSAAM educates while reminding visitors that the African American people they are learning about really lived, as evidenced by their descendants living in the local community, and the still open historical and cultural sites in the area. 

The SSAAM and its commemoration are exciting examples of public history and the way history is remembered and can be re-remembered. The SSAAM also uniquely utilizes ideas put forth by Pierre Nora in his famous article Between Memory and History. Nora famously argued that history is a biased tool that runs counter to public memory and that public memory is a more accurate recollection of the past.¹² In the same vein, the SSAAM uses passed-down public history to educate the local community in hopes of exposing a more accurate history of African American people in the Sourland Mountain Region.

The SSAAM as an institution also provides a good example of wider commemorative efforts for African American communities throughout the United States. The SSAAM follows in the footsteps of the multitude of African American history museums that were established in the United States throughout the mid-late twentieth century. Throughout their history, African American museums have historically been started at the grassroots level, with many museums being housed in culturally significant buildings, or houses bought by or made for African American people. Many of these museums employ the use of public history and memory in an attempt to center the narrative of African American people’s history. No museum is a more shining example of what it means to effectively share African American public history than the SSAAM. The museum is able to bring both a personal community touch that is very common for smaller more focused museums, while also creating a space to have dialogue that is applicable nationwide. The SSAAM is able to allow visitors to re-remember history while trying to continue moving forward.

Though the SSAAM is a shining example of what an African American museum can do with public history, that does not mean the museum does not still face some challenges. As a small and relatively niche institution, much of the funding required to keep the museum running and pay the people who work to educate the local community comes in the form of grants. The church the museum is housed in was able to be refurbished by grants, and many items and objects that the museum utilizes come from local community donations. ¹³ The SSAAM does an amazing job even though it has to compete with larger, better-funded museums for grants. This situation is not uncommon for many museums that seek to educate their local community about the history of African American people in their town. This issue is particularly prevalent in smaller towns and regions such as the Sourland Mountain Region, especially when the African American history being shared is not directly related to the Civil Rights Movement or southern institution of slavery. For these same reasons, this issue of funding for African American museums persists in my home state of Rhode Island as well. As we move forward and think about how we want to both reconcile and celebrate America, it is important to understand the history of the other people who were significant actors in our history. Though we can observe all of the good the SSAAM and other museums similar to it are able to offer us as both researchers and community members despite their lack of sufficient funding, it is important to recognize the work that we need to do in reconciling our past and supporting the institutions that challenge us to think critically about our communities. Especially, when the history said museums offer differs from the African American history we continually commemorate. 

Elaine Buck and Beverly Mills’ work of revealing the stories of the African American families that shaped the Sourland Mountain Region for generations, and their efforts to support their community in taking control of their past, present, and future. ¹⁴ The SSAAM and their books serve as shining examples of the way commemoration can be used to empower communities and offer a more accurate history. To continue learning as a region, state, and country, historians and community members alike must both support and engage with the SSAAM and institutions like it.