2505 Saint Louis Avenue
Saint Louis, Missouri
314-241-7057
Griot, pronounced “GREE-OH,” is a West African historian/storyteller. When this museum opened in 1997 it was called the Black World History Wax Museum. The name was changed in 2007 to emphasize its mission as the keeper of the stories, culture, and history of Black people. and to downplay its image as a wax museum. There still is plenty of wax: The Griot Museum of Black History and Culture is the second largest black wax museum in the country, trailing only the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum in Baltimore.
The Griot interprets stories and features life-size likenesses of African Americans with a regional connection whose life activities influenced the state, region, and sometimes the entire country. Visitors can “meet” and learn about Carter G. Woodson, Josephine Baker, Dred and Harriet Scott, Elizabeth Keckley, William Wells Brown, James Milton Turner, Clark Terry, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Rev. Earl. E. Nance Sr., Miles Davis, Madame C.J. Walker, York, Percy Green, and others. The Griot also features an authentic slave cabin, originally built on the Wright–Smith Plantation in Jonesburg, Missouri. Visitors can solve puzzles, view documentary videos, and “board” a scale model section of a ship that is the actual size used to transport Africans to America during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. This diorama is a life-size cutaway of a slave ship. Its lower deck is no bigger than a crawlspace is packed with dozens of nearly naked slave figures, chained together.
The museum also celebrates the achievements of African-Americans. Visitors can learn about John Berry Meacham, who circumvented the law forbidding the education of blacks by teaching them on a boat he anchored in the Mississippi River or William Wells Brown, a slave unloading a riverboat who just kept walking, for six days, until he was freed in Ohio. An entire section of the museum has been set aside for Madam C.J. Walker, beauty entrepreneur and one of America's first self-made millionaires.
The Griot’s “Motherland Museum Shop,” offers Afrocentric clothing, jewelry, figurines, sculptures books, videos, and greeting cards. In addition to its permanent collection, life-size wax figures, other art, artifacts and memorabilia, The Griot hosts traveling art exhibits by local and national artists.
Visiting the Griot Museum of Black History and Culture
Visiting Hours
Wednesday - Saturday: 10 am - 5 pm
Admission
Use the official site of the Griot Museum of Black History and Culture to find the answers to the questions about the questions that you may have.
