Little Rock’s Board of Directors will vote Tuesday evening on whether to approve the redevelopment of a property that would house a museum dedicated to legendary writer and poet Maya Angelou.
The proposal identifies a 0.17 acre property at 1722 Wolfe Street to be the location for the Maya Angelou House and Celebrate! Maya Project Headquarters. The site is within the Central High Neighborhood Historic District and is about a block southwest of Arkansas Baptist College. An existing building on the property would be demolished to make way for new construction.
The Maya Angelou House would be a two-story, 3,100-square-foot historical museum dedicated to telling the story of Angelou’s life. The site would also serve as a youth and community service center that would host events such as literacy and writing workshops, tutoring and mentoring, and summer camps, and would include a computer lab and library, administrative offices, outdoor public event space and much more.
The Celebrate! Maya Project expects to hold events such as public speaking forums, poetry readings, history presentations, art exhibits, panel discussions and more.
Janis Kearney heads the Celebrate! Maya Project, a nonprofit organization that has existed since January 2015. The organization celebrates Angelou’s life through sharing her works and aims to help impoverished children overcome difficulties in their lives, just as Angelou had to do as a child.
Back in November, the city’s planning commission voted to recommend approval of the redevelopment. The proposed ordinance to approve the development states that the city of Little Rock has already found that the project plans are consistent with the city’s Comprehensive Plan, compatible with surrounding residential zoning and appropriate within the Central High Historic District.
Kearney said that there has been no public funding as of yet, and that all donations so far have been from private donors.
The Angelou historical museum would be open to the public Mondays through Fridays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Kearney said construction will take place in three phases beginning this spring, and her organization wants to start using part of the space by late fall. The group hopes to finish construction in 2027.
Angelou, an internationally celebrated and awarded poet, actress, singer and much more, grew up partially in Stamps, Arkansas, a tiny town in southern Arkansas’s Lafayette County. She described her Arkansas childhood in the autobiographical book “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”. Angelou also was active in the Civil Rights Movement and met or knew figures such as Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
She died in 2014, at 86. Former President Barack Obama awarded her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011, the United States’ highest civilian award.
