| Black History |
Black History
Jack Hadley Black History Museum heads into the future
by Payton Fletcher
Documenting and exhibiting the achievements of African-Americans , the Jack Hadley Black History Museum began as a spark in the hands of James “ Jack ” Hadley , an 86-year old Thomasville local .
In 1979 , Hadley was on duty at Lindsey Air Station in Wiesbaden , Germany with his wife , Christine Jackson Hadley , and the rest of his family , when his son , Jim Hadley , came home complaining about his school not celebrating Black History Week .
“ My son Jim , who is now 60-years old , came home from school one day and Jim made mention that there was no interest in Black History Week at that time ,” Hadley said . “ So , I could have easily told my son to go and get on outside with your friends , but I didn ’ t do that .”
His son ’ s complaint , Hadley said , ignited something inside of him . An itch to see invest some of his time into gathering articles from overseas about recent black news and achievements for his son ’ s class .
“ I guess the Lord just put in me that it ’ s time to do something ,” Hadley said . “ Being in the military , you subscribe to the Ebony magazine , the Jet magazine , Pittsburgh Courier paper , which covers all the black news that ’ s happening back in the states when you ’ re overseas , so I subscribed to those papers , I had them , we cut articles out of the paper . We had them reframed when we came back from overseas . Jim took them to school and the teachers liked them .”
In fact , Hadley said that his son had revealed to him some years back that the school enjoyed them so much that they had in fact put up the exhibit he ’ d made in the school ’ s display case , for a time replacing the trophies that had sat there .
Jack and Christine Jackson Hadley on their wedding day .
The success of the school exhibit gave Hadley an idea to push further with displaying black achievements , going to his commander to broach the idea of an exhibit at the military base .
“ So , then it gave me the idea to ask my commander , my squadron commander , if we could do an exhibit on the base ,” he said . “ So , my commander said , ‘ Jack , go ahead on and get all the young people together and ya ’ ll do what you wanna do .’ So , we did an exhibit .”
10 February | March 2023 Thomasville Scene