Mother passes African American Cultural Arts and History Center legacy to daughter

"Its surprising, I don’t feel pressure at all,” Shineece Sellars said. “The biggest pressure, for me, is balancing everything that I have going on. My mom did such a good job in the initial work that carrying a torch seemed natural to me.”

Sellars, who has been involved with her mother’s organization since the beginning, believes that she was groomed to take over her mother's work, which is what she did at the beginning of July. Since then she has overseen the organization’s historical and genealogical mission.

"Our goal is to preserve and educate on the local African American history,” Shineece Sellars said. “A lot of things that we have done in the past have been recognizing the phenomenal men and women in the community that have contributed to the community.”

The nonprofit also preserves historical and genealogical documents for the next generation.

“Locally … what we have done is partner with Elon University, we’ve partnered with the Sheriff’s Office and addressed the divide between them and the African American community."

While the center first earned its nonprofit status in 2017, the work behind it started years prior.

“I was probably in middle school,” Sellars said about when her mother first started work on the center. “I’m 28, now. She put a pause on her research after my grandfather passed away. I still have all the books that she put together.”

It’s largely because of this experience, Jane Sellars already had an inkling of the kind of work she wanted her center to pursue. Before the organization, Jane Sellars spent countless hours putting together the genealogical record of her family.  

“My mom was big on history, she was the genealogist of the family,” Shineece Sellars said. “She would keep records of our family and put together books to show where everybody came from. Her research started to, somewhat, bleed out into the community.”

The desire to do this for other families was one of the motivating factors behind Jane Sellars’ effort to start her nonprofit.

“We call ourselves a center and not a museum, although people in the community might call us the Black museum or African American,” Shineece Sellars said. “We had a museum concept, but that wasn’t the only piece to the vision. One thing my mom wanted was a place for people to come in and come do DNA testing and get their results.”

Both Sellarses also would like to include a small library featuring works by African American authors.

“We want to have books by Black people on Black people so people can read more about their own culture,” Shineece Sellars said. “My mother was a psychology major, so for her, it is about discovering yourself.”

This vision is still very much in play. Currently, Shineece Sellars is in the process of finding a physical home to house the center, something that proved elusive when her mother first got things started.

Years later and their prospects of finding a physical home has improved. She hopes to be able to make a move soon, given that there is already interest in the center.

Shineece Sellars said she hopes the community would be able to lend a hand, especially given the center’s potential to draw tourists. Shineece Sellars has big hopes for the center over the next five years. She said she hopes that the center will be located in a sufficiently large space, while helping people discover themselves.

This article originally appeared on Times-News: Mother passes African American Cultural Arts and History Center legacy to daughter