Wax Museum

Exhibit Learn about Negro Leagues Go see the history of African-American baseball players from the 1800s to the 1960s in Discover Greatness: An Illustrated History of the Negro Baseball Leagues at the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum, 1601 E. North Ave. Hours today are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Call 410-563-7809 or go to ngbiwm.com. FYI Susan Reimer is on vaca tion. Her column returns July 29.

When a visitor descends into the depths of the Great Blacks in Wax Museum to take a look at its exhibit on lynching, the first sound often is silence.Then follow words like: "Oh, my God."Here is the lynching of Hayes and Mary Turner, re-created with life-size figures and oversized horror. Billie Holiday sings "Strange Fruit," a song about lynching, softly in the background.On a sweltering August day, in an East Baltimore neighborhood better known for decrepitude and drug-selling than tourism, a sea of children in the matching T-shirts of summer camp come from as far as New Jersey and New York to see searing images like these at Great Blacks in Wax.Now, with a large new Maryland African-American History museum planned for the heart of Baltimore's tourist district, the founders of the first black wax museum in the country are wondering just what their future will hold.

Mission: To stimulate an interest in African-American history by revealing the often-neglected facts of history; to use great leaders as role models to motivate youth; to improve race relations by dispelling myths of racial inferiority; and to support and work in conjunction with other nonprofit, charitable organizations seeking to improve the social and economic status of African-Americans. The museum - the first wax museum in Baltimore and the first in the nation dedicated to African-Americans - was established in 1983 by Drs. Elmer and Joanne Martin.

Dec. 26: Kwanzaa Celebration. Benefits Great Blacks in Wax Museum. Variety of entertainment, hors d'oeuvres, nonalcoholic drinks, gifts for children under age 12. Great Blacks in Wax Museum, 1601 E. North Ave. 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tickets at the door $5, $3 under 12. Call 410-522-9547.Dec. 26: "Christmas Extravaganza" black-tie ball. Benefits Baltimore Chapter of Continental Societies. Open bar, buffet dinner, dancing. Martin's West, 6817 Dogwood Road. 7 p.m. to midnight. Tickets $55. Call 410-788-1313 or 410-486-7989.

Small-time arrests little cause for joyWere we supposed to be thrilled by the arrest of 39 people in police drug sweep operation? I wasn't. My room mate wasn't.In the past year in our Canton neighborhood, he's had his car window smashed three times and I've had my car broken into once as well. Nearly every night, I hear a car alarm in the distance. It happens so often that when the alarm went off in my roommate's car, we ignored it at first.When I hear that there was ''a police officer on every corner'' just to catch a few losers who have a drug problem, it makes me angry.

A young docent finds confidence, and confusion, at the 0) Great Blacks in Wax MuseumHe knows they are wax. Five days a week, he sees the figures standing motionless and eloquent. He knows they are wax. But the stories the figures tell are so powerful that sometimes their images follow him home, turning his dreams into nightmares.William Redmond is 12 years old. Tuesdays through Thursdays for the past three summers, he has worked as a volunteer at the Great Blacks in Wax Museum interpreting exhibits, selling snowballs at the stand in front of the museum and working in the gift shop.

FINDING YOUR calling can be a major key to happiness, according to Eldersburg author Deborah Dasch.Dasch is the author of a new book, "Find Your Calling, Love Your Life -- Paths to Your Truest Self in Life and Work," published this month by Simon and Schuster."

DOZENS OF STUDENTS and visitors toured the Wax Museum at Freedom Elementary School last week. The "museum" is an annual presentation by third-grade students at the school and is the highlight of the February biography unit.The 150 students worked hard to learn all they could about the people they portrayed. Wonderful points of history were recalled as well as little-known details as the "wax" figures gave their brief speeches.Once again, Cal Ripken was featured in the world of sports, with students portraying coach Knute Rockne, skater Kristi Yamaguchi and hockey star Mario Lemieux also making fine presentations.

In the dim light, the first thing you see is a white slave trader tugging on a iron collar encircling a black woman's neck. He is pulling her closer so that he can brand her bare shoulder.You recoil, even though you know the life-size figures are wax. And you realize that this is not going to be your ordinary museum experience.This is the Great Blacks in Wax Museum, in a renovated fire station on the 1600 block of North Avenue. Rowhouses, some boarded up, surround the building. To the west sits the Eastern District Courthouse, a liquor store and a medical supply business.

Boo."Friends" (8 p.m.-8: 30 p.m., WBAL, Channel 11) -- Chandler's grate-on-your nerves girlfriend, Janice, asks a question that gets them all thinking about when they first got together (and were jTC only making $30,000 an episode). Look out, gang, it's flashback time. NBC."Diagnosis Murder" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., WJZ, Channel 13) -- Dr. Sloan is nearly killed in a terrorist attack, but never fear: Guest star Tracey Gold is on hand to get to the bottom of all the nasty goings-on. CBS."Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., WNUV, Channel 54)

Two wax statues at the heart of a dispute swirling through the nation's oldest African-American sorority are sitting in a Baltimore museum - and they apparently cost nowhere near as much as the outlandish sums cited by critics alleging malfeasance by organization leaders. Joanne M. Martin, co-founder and CEO of the Great Blacks in Wax Museum, seemed perplexed yesterday at the attention the museum has gotten in the wake of a lawsuit filed by members of Alpha Kappa Alpha, America's first black sorority and one of its most prominent, against the current president.

Exhibit Learn about Negro Leagues Go see the history of African-American baseball players from the 1800s to the 1960s in Discover Greatness: An Illustrated History of the Negro Baseball Leagues at the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum, 1601 E. North Ave. Hours today are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Call 410-563-7809 or go to ngbiwm.com. FYI Susan Reimer is on vaca tion. Her column returns July 29.

FAMILY JOHN PAUL JONES DAY Celebrate the father of the American Navy, John Paul Jones, and learn about his contributions during the American Revolution at a wreath-laying ceremony on Saturday at his crypt beneath the U.S. Naval Academy Chapel. Afterward, there will be a flag-raising ceremony accompanied by a musical presentation from the Fife and Drums of Prince William III and cannon demonstrations. There will also be children's activities such as a scavenger hunt, knot-tying and paper hat-making.

Brian Stokes wore a Dodgers baseball jersey with the number 42 on the back. He tried to stand as still as a figure in a wax museum -- until a group of his schoolmates approached and pushed a button. Then Brian turned to the note cards he had prepared and told his friends all about Jackie Robinson. Brian, a fourth-grader at Randallstown Elementary School, was one of more than 20 children who portrayed African-American historical and cultural figures yesterday in the school cafeteria. They wore costumes and used homemade props to bring to life figures like Benjamin Banneker and Thurgood Marshall -- and Maya Angelou, Bill Cosby and Oprah Winfrey.

Open mike At Great Blacks in Wax Museum Tonight at 7, head to the Great Blacks in Wax Museum, 1601 E. North Ave., for "3rd Thursday," an open-mike poetry/short sto ry event. Jonathan Gordon is the host. Admission is $3 for adults and free for children 12 and younger. Call 410-594-1818 for more information. FYI Kevin Cowherd is on as signment. His column does not ap pear today.

Barf-bag baroque - that's the new House of Wax, the third movie about a disfigured sculptor who uses real bodies to make wax sculptures. (The title comes from the 1953 3-D remake, which starred Vincent Price; the original and best was the 1933 Mystery of the Wax Museum.) This version plops the central gimmick into a slasher movie and then tries to improve on past success with excess: Every aspect of the plot gets doubled or embellished with ridiculous rococo. The mad artist, Vincent, now has an evil twin named Bo (Brian Van Holt plays both)

WASHINGTON - Education and outreach programs at the Great Blacks in Wax Museum in East Baltimore got a boost last night when the U.S. Senate, as expected, approved a measure that would pour $5 million into the cultural center's coffers. The House approved this week an identical bill to help expand civil rights and violence-prevention initiatives at the nation's first wax museum honoring African-Americans. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski and Rep. Elijah E. Cummings introduced the National Great Black Americans Commemoration Act of 2003, which would add Justice Department money to state, city and private funds aimed at expanding exhibits, facilities and programs at the Baltimore museum, which drew 220,000 visitors last year.

A major expansion of a museum that honors African-American history and, in part, celebrates tearing down the walls of segregation began yesterday when the first crumbly wall came down to make way for construction. Sitting in the seat of a piece of heavy construction equipment, Mayor Martin O'Malley operated a giant metal arm that took a bite out of the first of 48 East Baltimore buildings that are being torn down to make way for the expansion of the Great Blacks in Wax Museum. The museum attracts a quarter-million visitors a year with its wax figures of great leaders, inventors and religious figures, as well as scenes from the slavery and segregation eras.

Facing serious financial problems, the Contemporary Museum has closed the exhibition space at its Centre Street headquarters and is beginning a new fund-raising campaign to save the institution. The museum's staff will remain in the building, however. Nonetheless, board chairman Michael Salcman vigorously insisted upon the institution's continuing viability. "As Mark Twain once said, reports of our demise are greatly exaggerated," he said, adding that he hopes the gallery will re-open in a year.

Vivat! St. Petersburg and Black History Month converge this evening in celebration of Alexander Pushkin, the nonpareil Russian poet, at the Great Blacks in Wax Museum. Pushkin (1799-1837), a world literary figure considered comparable to Shakespeare, was the great-grandson of an African slave named Abram Hannibal, who was brought to Imperial Russia as a boy from Turkey. Hannibal became a favorite of Czar Peter the Great, a brilliant engineer and an illustrious general. Peter's daughter, Empress Elizabeth, granted him vast estates and thousands of serfs.