Higher Ground: Madam C.J. Walker Museum

The exterior of The Madam C.J. Walker Museum at 54 Hilliard Street, NE in the Sweet Auburn District, Tuesday, January 2, 2024. Photo by Donnell Suggs/The Atlanta Voice On a cold Tuesday afternoon, a group of 15 people walked up to the front window of the Madam C.J. Walker Museum. Located on Hilliard Street, just a block down Auburn Avenue from Ebenezer Baptist Church, the museum is a regular stop on tours through the historic Sweet Auburn District. Those tours don’t always mean business for the museum though.  “Here comes another parasite tour,” exclaimed Ricci de Forest, the owner and operator of the museum. “That’s what I’m dealing with.” The tour guide, a youngish white female, pointed at the window and mouthed something that seemed satisfactory to her guests before moving the group of Asian and white people back onto Auburn Avenue and down the street.& According to the retired hairstylist, curating and managing the Madam C.J. Walker Museum, which was opened by de Forest in 1999, wasn’t part of the plan.  Photo by Kerri Phox/The Atlanta Voice “That was not in my wheelhouse,” said de Forest about opening a museum in honor of one of America’s first Black female...