It meant that visitors would be reminded that there was a society here before Roger Williams. This very room at one point was Indian property. A child may have played here once. A family might have made it home. History should surprise and Heritage Harbor will do that, added Walter Stone, of the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society.
People know the gains blacks made in the civil-rights movement.
But the fall of Jim Crow barriers also hurt black merchants, who had built their businesses on a captive audience, Stone said. That was one message he hoped the museum would deliver. Goddard is a member of one of Rhode Island's oldest families. Goddards have raised money for generations. They were there during the Civil War to campaign for the new Rhode Island Hospital.