Carver 4-County Museum

Dear Friends:

    Welcome to The Carver Center campus in Rapidan where the Carver  4-County Museum is housed in the original library of the historic George Washington Carver Regional High School (GWCRHS).    

     We are excited to again participate in GivingTuesday2025, especially since this is our first full year as an independent IRS 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation.  Previously, we were a program of the alumni association for the GWCRHS. 

     We have something exciting to share with you - our documentary will debut in October.  Its title is Citizens All:  A 4-County History of the George Washington Carver Regional High School, and we are eager to show it to the community.  More information to COME.   

     Before we tell you about the other exciting things happening with us, let us first remind you of our mission and values.

    Our mission is to document, celebrate and share the educational, social, cultural and military history and accomplishments of students, faculty and administrators of George Washington Carver Regional High School, the only institution of secondary education that served minority children in the four-county region of Culpeper, Madison, Orange and Rappahannock counties from 1948-1968.

     Our core values are citizenship, stewardship and partnership.

 PREPARING FOR the 250th ANNIVERSARY - 14 Months of Exhibits

We're building on our existing exhibit, Liberty, Labor and Langston, based on the Langston Hughes poem, Let America Be America Again

John Trumbull, "Signing of the Declaration of Independence 1776" (image courtesy Yale University)

Opening October 10, 2025 is "We Declare," an exploration of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, adopted June 12, 1776, and the Declaration of Independence, adopted 3 weeks later, and our responsibility to be informed citizens in modern America.  

In 2026, we will have a series of traveling exhibits to each of the four counties we represent: Culpeper, Orange, Rappahannock, and Madison.  Titled, "On This Land," we trace four sites from the revolutionary period to the present, noting how that land has improved/changed over time.  We found that all roads lead to Carver.  Yes, descendants from each of the four targeted lands were students at the George Washington Carver Regional High School.

Last, 2026 will not be complete with an exploration of voting.  That exhibit, "I Cast as Citizen," opens in the Fall and invites the public to share stories of voting and their concept of citizenship.  We will display and share on social media those comments as a unifying community experience.  

OUR SUMMARY

     We began 2025 as a new, independent IRS 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation registered in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  We opened in February, 2019, as a program of the George Washington Carver Regional High School Alumni Association (GWCHRSAA) and since then, we have had more than 45 in-museum, virtual, and traveling exhibits.  Our most popular traveling exhibit is "U. S. Colored Troops" in which we research and present African American men born in specific Virginia counties who joined and fought on the side of the Union in the Civil War -- even before most of them could vote.  We are forever grateful to the GWCRHSAA for incubating our efforts.

        Our museum is located in the original library of the school, now called The Carver Center.  We are administered by a 10-member Board of Directors.  Since 2016, they have contracted with a curator who helps to execute our mission through exhibit preparation and marketing.

OUR ADMINISTRATION   

     The members of the museum's governing board are:  Dr. Hortense Hinton-Jackson (President);  Jane C. Pollard (Secretary); Charlotte B. Carpenter (Treasurer); Marlene G. Ware; Charles C. Jameson; William H. Lewis; Brenda Price; Ruth Irving Carroll; Bettie Turner; and Denise Turner. 

     Our curator is Ms. Terry Miller.  

     We invite you to visit us on our website at http://www.carver4cm.org, email us at carver4cm@gmail.com, and like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/Carver4cm.