Guilford County's High Point Museum Opens Black History Month Exhibit

High Point Museum is hosting "To Form a More Perfect Union," an exhibit curated by Effley Howell of the Thankful Heritage Museum that centers on a 2005 United States Postal Service 10-stamp series honoring civil-rights milestones. The show is installed in the museum’s education classroom at 1859 Lexington Avenue in High Point and is free and open to the public.

The exhibit presents enlarged reproductions of each of the 10 stamps, with written narratives explaining the significance of the events depicted. Archival photographs, signage and additional historical information accompany the stamp reproductions. The display also includes Jim Crow–era signs and other artifacts from the civil-rights era. The stamp series highlights events such as the Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins, the Selma march and the Voting Rights Act of 1965; the series designer is identified as Ethel Kessler. Effley Howell framed the stamps as accessible records of civic history: "When you start looking at the stamps, it's like, this is something important," and added, "But hey, I can have the stamp. It's an easy way to collect history."

The exhibit is intended for a broad audience. Families, students, educators and community members are encouraged to visit; some student-led tours will be offered by students from North Carolina A&T University in Greensboro, and visitors may view the exhibit on their own. High Point Museum regular hours are 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. each day except Sunday and Monday. The opening event hours were listed as 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on one calendar posting. Admission is free and no registration is required.

Event listings differ on specific dates. Some schedules list the opening on a Saturday in early February and give a run through the end of February, while another local listing reports the exhibit continues through March 7 and notes a March 7 program on the life of Frederick Douglass. For readers planning visits, the museum calendar and event contacts should be checked before traveling; event contact listed for the museum calendar is Tamara Vaughan at tamara.vaughan@highpointnc.gov.

The exhibit ties national civil-rights milestones to local history, underscoring Guilford County’s place in the movement and offering a tangible civic-education tool ahead of local elections and community engagement efforts. Educators and civic groups can use the exhibit’s narratives and artifacts to frame classroom lessons or voter-engagement programming that links historic struggles over access and representation to contemporary voting patterns and policy debates. The museum’s combination of visual storytelling and student participation signals a practical civic resource for neighborhoods and schools seeking locally grounded history.