In 1922, Mr. Spady arrived from Townsend, Virginia to be the teacher for the colored children.

He married a woman whose family had migrated to Delray in the late 1800s.

Her name was Jessie Green, she was a teacher as well.

And the two of them finished building this house in 1926.

And this is where they lived.

And we're actually sitting right now in what used to be the Spady's living room.

In 1992, Vera Farrington, who full disclosure is my mother, retired from the Palm Beach County School System.

In 1993, began volunteering at the Delray Beach Historical Society.

She would assist people in finding what they were looking for, and then she would go back and look for information pertaining to Black people in Delray.

And she realized they did not have any.

So she contacted her colleague, Charles Spencer Pompey, who was an historian in Palm Beach County.

And they started talking about the Black history of Delray and realized that it exists, it just is not in the collection at the Historical Society.

So they put out an all call to the elders in the community at that time, they eventually named that group, the Founder's Board, and they started meeting and talking about their memories and the historical activities and events that took place here in Delray Beach.

And then they started bringing in their documentation.

They brought in birth certificates and marriage licenses and diplomas and business receipts and everything that they had that was evidence of the life they lived here in Delray Beach and their ancestors.

So they finally now have this large collection of materials, took it to the historical society with the intention of including it in their archives.

And they were advised to take on this material and the narratives that go with it as a separate project because the thinking was if the Historical Society had accepted the information, filed it away, who would know?

She had no inkling of how to establish a museum, but that wasn't going to stop her.

She had been an educator her whole life.

And this was part two, another way of educating.

What we learned very quickly was our audience was not Black people.

We had been sharing our own stories with our children all along.

Who needed to know that there was a history of Black people in Palm Beach County was everybody who was not Black.

There were details of Black history that we did not know, and there was so much more to the story that Black people did not know.

But there are people who were born and raised in Palm Beach County who didn't even realize that there was a Black history because all of the publications about the history of Palm Beach County and Delray Beach indicated that the first settlers here in Delray were European settlers.

And so immediately we had to start righting the wrongs of the written word.

And not only writing them, but convincing people that they were right.

And the way we did that was with our documentation.

Black history is American history.

All we are talking about, all we are sharing and collecting is another perspective, another side of that history.

And our goal is to make sure we share that history so that people have an entire holistic knowledge of the history that we share here in the United States.

Many of the early homes here in Colored Town were built from lumber that washed up on shore.

And to date, I have only been able to find one remaining home in our community that was made from that lumber.

We've had multiple exhibits over the years, all with the idea of bringing different segments of our community in, people with different interests, to learn about Black history.

And we have lately started showcasing local African American and/or Caribbean American artists.

This particular exhibition features a fabulous local artist by the name of Kandy Lopez.

Kandy is a fiber artist.

She paints and she also works with textiles.

All of her art really depicts individuals, regular everyday people in the community and the environments in which they live, for instance, this particular piece where she depicted an elderly lady walking down the street of her neighborhood.

And you can see an outline of some of the buildings where she lives.

We hear all the time people coming in and saying, "Oh, I have such a feeling of warmth when I come in here.

There is such a feeling of welcome when I walk through the doors here."

And I firmly believe, and this is just my belief, that the spirit of Solomon Spady, especially based on what his students, his former students have told me, is pleased with the work that we do here, is pleased with the fact that the place that he built to live in is now being used to continue to educate people, just like I know that Vera Farrington and C Spencer Pompey are pleased with the work that we are doing here at the Spady Museum, which is to continue to educate.

It was their life's mission, and we are continuing their legacy.

This is a place where we want everyone to feel free to walk through the door, ask questions, not feel intimidated, not feel blamed, not feel shamed, but to feel like they can come in here and get their questions answered or minimally have a conversation about whatever the topic is, Black history related, and walk away knowing a little bit more, or having at least a starting point to learn more about the history of people of African descent in the United States.

I don't want any child to grow up, matriculate through school here in Palm Beach County and not at least be aware that Black history exists here in Palm Beach County and I know where I can go and learn more.

And that's what I want for the future of the Spady Museum.