About Us
Culture Shoppe
In 2013 HMAAC began selling logo merchandise. We began to see sales increase in 2017 & there was an increased amount of visitors wanting to purchase artwork. At that point we decided that we had to expand our brand and create a space where our visitors could not only come in and experience the art, but also take a part of their experience home with them; thus the Museum store was born in January 2018. As the amount of products increased, John Guess proposed the idea of renaming the store. After several ideas were tossed around, Tereasa Session-Arceneaux, the Store Manager & Mr. Guess, CEO Emeritus settled on "The Culture Shoppe".
Today we partner with many artists that have exhibited in our space to offer not only original pieces of artwork but also prints. We carry books, catalogues, and many other novelty items!
OUR MISSION
The mission of HMAAC is to collect, conserve, explore, interpret, and exhibit the material and intellectual culture of Africans and African Americans in Houston, the state of Texas, the southwest and the African Diaspora for current and future generations. In fulfilling its mission, HMAAC seeks to invite and engage visitors of every race and background and to inspire children of all ages through discovery-driven learning. HMAAC is to be a museum for all people. While our focus is the African American experience, our story informs and includes not only people of color, but people of all colors. As a result, the stories and exhibitions that HMAAC will bring to Texas are about the indisputable fact that while our experience is a unique one, it has been impacted by and has impacted numerous races, genders and ethnicities.
OUR VISION
HMAAC seeks to be a cultural portal through which people share and converge histories and contemporary experiences that acknowledge and expand the African American experience, and from such interactions come together to build a common future.
OUR HISTORY
In the spring of 1999, a committee was appointed by the City of Houston Mayor Lee P. Brown to lay the groundwork for establishing an African American Museum. After a year’s deliberation, the committee proposed the forming of two separate institutions; one to preserve the richness of Houston’s African American history and the other to promote the vibrancy of African and African American culture and art forms. Thus, the African American Library at the Gregory School and the Houston African American Museum were born. Organized in the summer of 2000, the Museum received its 501(c)(3) designation as the Houston African American Museum. In 2007, the name was changed to Houston Museum of African American Culture to better reflect its refined mission.
Since opening our doors operating similar hours as our neighbors in 2012, we reached 40,000 annual visitors three years ago and are on track to have 50,000 visitors in 2021, ensuring that HMAAC remains the most visited African American cultural asset in Houston. HMAAC is a museum in a building and in the community that is engaged in superior artistic and film expression and visitor and community empowerment and uplift. We have engaged our community, not simply in art and history, but with the topics of our time, allowing the young and young at heart to understand our contemporary experience and define our future as a community and as a nation.