Burlington County will honor Louise Calloway, founder of its Underground Railroad Museum

Louise Calloway said “it was divinity” that led her to open the Underground Railroad Museum of Burlington County.

“I never set out to be a museum founder,” she said.

Calloway, 92, who has been called “a keeper of history,” is being honored this weekend for her work in Burlington County.

A social worker for 50 years, she helped young people in troubling situations in both New Jersey and Quebec, Canada, where her family lived for six years.

In Canada, she met Black people descended from the “freedom seekers,” who escaped slavery in the United States.

She also met a Cameroonian college student who volunteered at her agency.

Her family’s friendship with the young man led to their move to Cameroon, in west-central Africa, for three years, where she taught school.

Along the way, she collected artifacts from Africa and the United States.

“She’s lived in Canada, she’s lived in Africa, she’s traveled the world,” said Deborah Price, a museum volunteer taking part in Ken Johnston’s “Walk to Freedom,” tracing Underground Railroad stops in South Jersey.

“That’s what helped her understand the Underground Railroad and Black history. It comes through her.

“The seeds that she plants in people’s spirit makes you want to sit down and humble yourself and listen. She’s masterful at telling the story.”

Calloway grew up in Vauxhall, in Union Township, about eight miles southwest of Newark, N.J.

Her hunger for history began as a child, at about age 9, when she often visited the local library and found pamphlets and books about Africa.

She was curious to learn about Liberia, where newly freed Black Americans began to migrate in 1820.

“I loved to read. That’s what I wanted to do, just sit there and read, especially about Africa and Liberia,” Calloway said.

» READ MORE: To honor Harriet Tubman and others, this 165-mile ‘Walk to Freedom’ traces South Jersey Underground Railroad routes

Fittingly, on Saturday, the Burlington County Library will honor Calloway.

“Honoring the Remarkable Louise Calloway” will be an afternoon of music, poetry, dance, and tributes to Calloway and her contributions as founder of the museum, now in Eastampton’s Historic Smithville Park.

“We are presenting her with a proclamation, recognizing her contributions to education and preserving this important piece of history and heritage for our county,” said David Levinsky, a Burlington County spokesman.

Calloway first opened the Underground Railroad Coffee House in 2005, in Burlington City.

It was an informal museum that also offered art exhibits, jazz, and poetry readings, and was located next to the old Wheatley Pharmacy, a stop on the Underground Railroad’s network of “safe houses” for people seeking freedom from slavery.

The pharmacy was built in 1731. In 1831, William J. Allinson, a pharmacist and a Quaker, bought the building at High and Union Streets.

The poet John Greenleaf Whittier, an abolitionist and a friend of Allinson’s, gave speeches opposing slavery on the apothecary’s front steps.

Years later, workers discovered tunnels underneath the store that led to other safe houses and to the Delaware River, where people escaped by taking barges and boats further north to New York and Canada.

In 2013, the original Underground Railroad Coffee House was closed due to financial pressures. By 2015, Calloway’s collections found a temporary location at the Historic Smithville Park in Eastampton, near Mount Holly. The next year, the museum moved to its current location in what was once mill workers’ housing, inside the park, at 803 Smithville Rd. The museum is open Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m., is free to the public, and is staffed by Calloway and other volunteers.

At the museum this week, Calloway said it is important to teach the history of African nations before Black people were enslaved and brought to the Americas.

Although the museum is named for the Underground Railroad, it is actually “an African American history museum,” about all aspects of that history, Calloway said.

» READ MORE: On Walk to Freedom, a stop at a South Jersey church where Harriet Tubman may have brought freedom seekers

There are spaces dedicated to the civil rights movement from the 1960s to more recent protests against police killings of Black people.

She hopes to provide new offerings at the museum: a room for Black Americans’ contribution to music, and a space for discussion groups.

“I’d like for us to gather and talk about this history,” she said. “Perhaps we could have Saturday afternoon conversations.”

Calloway said of the push by some white Americans to ban books and teaching about racism in schools: “It’s just ridiculous.”

“They are trying to tune out the history. They don’t want the true history to be known. They don’t want us to know how powerful we are.”

» READ MORE: A Bucks County school district dropped its diversity program. Black families say the district isn’t acknowledging racism.

She pointed to an exhibit at the museum of the Tulsa, Okla., community known as “Black Wall Street.” But a mob burned the Greenwood District, which had banks, doctors’ offices, and movie theaters, in 1921.

“The fact that we could accomplish this despite all we have been through is truly amazing,” she said.

Telling the truth about history should not make white people feel ashamed, she said.

“There were white people who put their lives on the line to help Black people.” One museum room is devoted to abolitionists, Black and white.

“History tells us who we are, and what we’ve been through, and what we’re still going through today.”

“Honoring the Remarkable Louise Calloway” at the Burlington County Library; Saturday, April 30, 12:30 p.m.; 5 Pioneer Blvd., Westampton, N.J.; Free. 609-267-9660