- The four women you see in this mural behind me are a part of a rich history here in Utah.

From one of the first black female pioneers to the first black woman in Utah to graduate from college.

In fact, there's so much history to explore that one group is taking these history lessons on the road.

(upbeat music) - I can make a little U-shape.

My name is Liz Lambson and I'm the Executive Director of the Utah Black History Museum, as well as an artist.

So George Floyd was murdered and the world blew up.

And the Black Lives Matter movement started taking off again.

And that's how I met Lex Scott, who was at the time, the leader of the Black Lives Matter, Utah chapter.

And she had this concept of taking a school bus and painting it and creating a mobile museum with it.

And so she invited me to paint this bus.

(upbeat music) Growing up, oddly enough, I took a lot of art lessons but I specifically took cartooning lessons, caricature lessons, and I loved animations.

I love bright colors so I definitely knew it would be really colorful.

And with this, I really also wanted to appeal to children.

A big audience of ours is school children.

Kids especially appreciate vibrancy and art that's accessible.

You know to have a pop-up museum that we can take anywhere and we have a mission and a goal to go around the entire state and share Utah's black history and national black history with all the people of Utah.

(bus driving) (group chattering) So we like to teach people about what's happened in our state.

You'll learn a lot there about pioneers, explorers.

Let's take some time to look at our artifacts and display and I hope you enjoy the museum experience.

(audience clapping) - Diversity is growing in Utah and I can definitely tell even over the last five years, we have more students of color.

I want my students to be able to see themselves within the curriculum.

There has been a black presence here even though it might not be very large there's always been a presence here.

I want them to know about the black pioneers.

I want them to know about the obstacles that the people who came before us had to face and how they overcame them.

And how we are now here in a more multicultural population.

- I was reading a poster and it was talking about the LDS church and its participation in slavery.

- Well, I knew we had slaves here but I didn't think it was as big as it was cause you hear about it everywhere but you don't really hear about it in Utah.

- Something interesting that I learned while we're here that kind of inspired me was when they opened up the NAACP organization here in Utah and Ogden.

Cuz when I've been living here, I felt kind of ignored.

When I try to voice my own opinions on like race issues and like my school or like just in the world.

And to know that there's a community looking out for me, it was comforting.

- I hope that my students will be motivated and encouraged by seeing the different artifacts.

I feel like this is a way for them to connect back to the community and find their roots here in Utah.

- I like that they decided to showcase the culture cuz not a lot of schools are deciding to, you know give out information about Black history.

(upbeat jazz music) - Utah Black History Museum turns one today.

It's our birthday and we are celebrating one year on the road with our mobile museum bus.

- It's so important that we preserve and capture our history for future generations so they can see from and how our ancestors also help build this nation and this state.

I am Utah State representative Sandra Hollins and I represent District 23.

I came out today because I wanted to see this wonderful collection of black history in the state of Utah.

And so when I was invited to be here, of course, I said absolutely.

I want to see this, I've got to see this.

- This section of our exhibit was prepared by a historian Taran Mitchell.

So we have pioneers, explorers, artists, writers and then Sandra Hollins.

- I didn't even notice that.

- You are part of our exhibit.

- Wow.

- Yes.

- That came as an absolute shock that I was featured there but I'm so honored.

I was so honored.

- Can you tell us a little bit more about this bill that you helped pass addressing slavery in Utah?

- I was surprised to learn that slavery was still in Utah's constitution as it is in the 13th Amendment of the United States.

And so when I found out about it, I set out to remove it.

So I wrote a resolution, it went on the ballot.

And the people in Utah voted 80% to remove it from Utah's constitution.

The majority of the people agree with it, so - Yes.

Wonderful.

Well, let me show you some more of our museum.

So you knew Joe McQueen - I knew Joe McQueen.

I have listened to him, went to his concerts and I decided to throw him a hundredth birthday party up at the Capitol.

And yet he met the governor and we had a lot of people from the community came out and celebrated him.

- Kind of the fascinating thing about history, here he is a poster in our exhibit but he's someone that you knew.

- Yes, yes.

- And it's awesome to have people like Joe, having been in our community really representing the culture from which it came.

It's hard to find artifacts- - Yeah - that are uniquely representative of Utah's- - Yes.

- history.

But this is part of Utah's specific black history.

There was a restaurant called the Coon Chicken Inn.

- Uh huh - And it was on Highland Drive in Salt Lake City.

Just sort of perpetuating this idea of having the black servant - Yes.

- Cooking for you.

And then setting it up in the form of a restaurant - Uh huh - you know with what is now a very offensive title and offensive branding.

- Yes.

- There's a lot of heavy material when you look at black history.

But we do wanna emphasize and highlight the Black joy and the Black excellence and - And look how far we've come.

- Yeah.

Yes.

You know, I got involved by painting the bus but I told everyone that I would not paint it if it was just gonna sit in a lot.

And so I was really determined to do all I could and contribute all I could to actually get it on the road and actually see it come to life.

It feels really fulfilling to have been so well received by the people of Utah in the past year.

I feel like the work that we're doing is making a difference.

Happy Birthday Utah Black History Museum.