Mama's Attic- African American History Center and Doll Museum

09/01/2026

In 1998, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in partnership with the Strong museum, which is considered the largest museum of dolls toys a play things, reproduced five of its famous and historic dolls. The only doll reproduced in a Black version was the Grace Stoney Putnam original doll which was later named Bye-Lo. The version of doll reproduced by the Met has all he features of the original on display at the Strong down to the clothing. The doll could be ordered in Black or white. As with all is the special commissioned reproductions, this doll is limited in hard to find. Last week I not only found one, but it is the ever more rare Black one. The doll goes on exhibit at Mama's Attic- African American History Center and Doll Museum next month.

08/20/2026

Wishing all youth a safe and successful school year!

08/19/2026

Tomorrow, August 20, marks 407 years since the “20 and odd” Africans arrived at Point Comfort in the English colony of Virginia. Many mistakenly say they arrived at Jamestown, but they actually landed at Point Comfort—157 years before America became a nation.

These men and women had been kidnapped from Africa and placed aboard a Portuguese slave ship. English privateers attacked the ship and took some of the Africans before sailing to Virginia. Although they had been enslaved by the Portuguese, Virginia in 1619 had not yet established the system of racial chattel slavery that would later exist. Some early Africans eventually gained their freedom, worked for wages, owned property, married and established families.

Over the following decades, Virginia passed laws that increasingly took rights away from Black people and created a system in which slavery became lifelong, hereditary and based on race.

But there is another side to the history of Point Comfort that I find just as important.

More than 240 years later, during the Civil War, the area became a place where enslaved Black men, women and children escaped to freedom under the protection of the Union Army. Thousands settled around Fort Monroe in what became known as the Grand Contraband Camp, building one of the earliest Black communities of the Civil War era.

That is why Point Comfort means more to me than simply where Africans first landed in Virginia.

It is a place where our people arrived after being stripped of their homeland and freedom, but generations later it became a place where Black people sought freedom and began building a community of their own.

Point Comfort is not just where we landed. It is also part of the story of where we survived, became free and began again.

08/09/2026

Mama’s Attis is please to add an authenticated autographed Opal Lee Barbie doll to its collection. The doll will be on exhibit in our Barbie Annex.

08/07/2026

I purchased the official transcripts of a hearing in 1927with D. C. Stephenson, Grand Wizard of the Indiana K*K. He was serving a life sentence for second degree murder. When the Governor refused to cut his sentence and free him, he agreed to testify about all the political officials on his payroll. A bitter Stephenson exposed politicians on the Klan payroll—releasing records that implicated and led to the indictment of Governor Ed Jackson and other state officials and the demise of the Indiana K*K.
These transcripts came from the Estate if the Court Reporter Norman E. Metcalf and were of interest to me to confirm the extent to which members of the K*K had infiltrated most aspects of governmen

08/06/2026

Buyer Beware!
I purchased an antique doll from Stanley Ray Stevenson, Jr. in Louisiana whom I was referred to by someone who I assumed was trustworthy. Well it’s been nearly two years of consistent communication and lies as to sending me the documentation authenticating the doll through provenance.

Today after stringing me on for two years he tells me he is going to write the letter himself. When I purchased the doll he claims to have a letter from the old lady from whom he purchased the doll attesting to the fact it belonged to her mother who was enslaved. Why on earth would I trust his attention. Well I’m out of $600.00. It was an expensive lesson but one I was forced to learn.

08/06/2026

Mama’s Attic will be on the road this weekend headed to Owensboro/ Crofton Kentucky for the Black Community’s 8th of August celebration. The 8th of August is an annual celebration and is considered to be one of the oldest Black freedom celebrations in the United States.

The celebration has its roots in August 8, 1865, when Union troops and officials announced emancipation in areas where slavery had continued after the Civil War ended. This was two months AFTER, the enslaved men and women learned of their freedom in Galveston Texas leading to Juneteenth celebration.

Although the Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863, it only applied where the Union could enforce it. Kentucky, a Union slave state, was exempt from the proclamation, and slavery there did not legally end until the ratification of the 13th Amendment in December 1865. Nevertheless, August 8 became the day many Black Kentuckians associated with the practical arrival of freedom.

08/05/2026

Today we welcomed visitors from Atlanta, Florida, and Oklahoma to our African American History Center, Doll Museum and Barbie Annex .

08/02/2026