Owner of Nevada’s first African American Museum fights for support amid city’s competing plans

By Emerson Drewes, Las Vegas Review Journal

When the city of Las Vegas announced several years ago plans for an African American museum in the Historic Westside, Gwen Walker cried for three weeks.

“When I heard this about the ‘world-class museum,’ I was in a state of shock for almost a month,” she said.

Walker owns and operated the Walker African American Museum and Research Center, the first African American history museum in Nevada, in the Historic Westside. She was forced to shutter the museum in 2017 after a series of structural issues at the house where the museum was housed and after her mother, who helped found the museum, was diagnosed with dementia. She hopes the closure is temporary.

Walker said then-councilmember for Ward 5 Cedric Crear never reached out to her about the city’s plans for a museum, which are still ongoing, despite multiple conversations with him about the city helping her reopen the Walker Museum.

Walker said the city should support her museum instead of building another as there’s no need for two in the same city.

“I’ve been here doing the work. My mother and I, we’ve been in our community,” said Walker. “Why not join with us and help make us world class?”

Walker’s museum has had to be put on hold despite her plans for an expanded venture that could benefit from the city’s money.

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