A Legacy in Artifacts: Ralph Hunter’s Lifelong Dedication to History

Photo Courtesy of Ralph Hunter

Philadelphia native and African American Heritage Museum of Southern New Jersey Inc. founder Ralph Hunter always had a love for history and learning something new. One day back in 1954, he visited a mall in Atlantic City and was inspired by seeing so many African Americans who were doctors, lawyers, engineers, and many other noteworthy professionals. After meeting a historian in Atlantic City who collected artifacts based on the area’s history of nightlife, hotels, restaurants, churches, and college organizations, Hunter decided to begin collecting.

“It was a really wonderful time in my life to have the world involved, to want to collect something about Southern New Jersey,” Hunter recalls in an interview with We Are Jersey. 

According to Hunter, the African American Heritage Museum of Southern New Jersey Inc. started as a small traveling museum. 

“We go to different churches and schools and take some of my personal collection,” he said. “At the beginning, I had about 3,000 items I had collected over 45 years. I just wanted to share it with small groups in and around Southern New Jersey, and that’s how it got started.”

Photo Courtesy of Ralph Hunter

As stated by Hunter, today the museum archives have over 30,000 items, showing remarkable growth over the span of 23 years. He enjoys providing others with opportunities to explore, research, and ask questions about the massive archive of items that have been collected.

“It’s pretty important to me to let folks know the history is here,” he stated. “We built towns like Atlantic City and places in Southern New Jersey throughout Cape May County, Camden County, Burlington County, and throughout New Jersey.”

Hunter noted that the local community has responded positively to the history represented in the museum, and students from schools throughout Southern New Jersey come to visit. “The community feels a kinship with the museum because it's a place where they can come and bring not only their children but their visitors who come to our region.”

As with any endeavor, there are ups and downs, and building and sustaining a museum comes with its fair share. “The biggest challenges that a curator or a director of the museum would have is to make sure that people know that we exist, to make sure that we have an opportunity to have our electronic version of the museum put together,” Hunter said.

Weather presents another obstacle when the travel exhibit is visiting over 100 schools, churches, and universities. January, February, and March are some of the busiest months for the travel exhibit. The schools are provided information in advance of the visits, and the teachers are educated by the museum staff on how to make presentations to the students. Around 900 students a day can view the exhibit, and this method proves to be more cost-effective for the schools.

Photo Courtesy of Ralph Hunter

“That’s a great opportunity for those kids to understand the importance of what took place in African American history—not only in New Jersey, but international history as well,” Hunter commented.

Despite the sweep of grant funding cuts enforced by the current administration, the African American Heritage Museum of Southern New Jersey Inc. continues to flourish. Generous sponsors and honorary fees provide financial security for the museum.

The museum has internship programs every summer.

“We have the pleasure of working with Stockton University, and we work with the county organization, where they provide us interns in the summertime to work on projects for the rest of the year,” he explained.

“And this summer, we're able to work on a project that will enable us to take our traveling museum and turn it into an electronic version.”

He continues, “So we can be in 100 different cities with five different exhibits a day. Every three or four hours, we can flip it to another organization.”

Hunter hopes his museum will leave a legacy of how African Americans made their mark in the world.

“The whole thing, in my whole journey, is having people understand the importance of the history of their forefathers, so that when they have that opportunity to tell their story, their story was foretold by generations that came long before them,” he said.