Building a Script

One of the tasks that I was approved to take on during my time at the Ritz was to create a formal tour script for use by docents and community volunteers. The first step I took was touring the museum myself and exploring every detail therewithin, including the animatronic show!

The museum was divided up into four distinct sections. The first was Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing, dedicated to native sons James Weldon Johnson and John Rosamond Johnson, best known as the creators of the Negro National Anthem. The animatronic show displays conversations between the two men in their prime, reflecting on their pasts shortly before James’ premature death. I took notes on the information relayed in this section before moving onto the next section.

The second area of the museum is a mock-up of what a main street in a Black neighborhood in Jacksonville might have looked like in the 1930s, which each room having a storefront or building facade and each filled with artifacts and images from throughout Jacksonville. While these rooms are usually roped off, I had the opportunity to go through each room and photograph artifacts and labels.

The third section is unofficially dedicated to arts and culture, with a large central room filled with photographs by E. Weems, a Black photographer based out of Jacksonville for over fifty years. One branch leads off from this room and first chains to a music and nightlife room, then another dedicated to the Gullah Geechee people of the Carolina Sea Cotton Islands. The other branch led off into a section dedicated to sports and student life at the Black high schools of Jacksonville.

I wrote down all of the information I could collect from the museum, and made notes of questions I had, which I planned to answer myself as I entered the research phase.