Job Listing: African American History Program Outreach Coordinator 

The Outreach Coordinator will also serve as the liaison between the Community Advisory Council (CAC) and the historical society. They will be responsible for dialoguing with the CAC to determine community needs, assess how LCHS may assist with those needs, and solicit guidance and input from CAC members on AAHP programing. The Outreach Coordinator will work closely with the Executive Director and Visitor Programs & Services Manager to ensure accurate and timely expenditure tracking and that CAC/AAHP commitments and potential programs are within the grant budgets and guidelines. 

The Outreach Coordinator will provide front-line service to members and visitors and occasionally may assist LCHS staff with the coordination of volunteers and light museum duties. Hours will typically fall within our public hours of Monday - Friday, 10:00 am - 4:00 pm, but will involve the occasional weekend and evening hours (1-2 times per month). LCHS email addresses and access will be assigned by the Executive Director after hiring. 

• Community Outreach: Works to facilitate community engagement for African American history, both within the African American community and the county at large. Coordinates, schedules, and oversees Community Advisory Council meetings, and works with the CAC to produce constructive feedback for projects, programs, and events carried out by LCHS. Ensures visitors and members are actively engaged with quality customer service in person at the museum and visitor center or through phone calls, emails, and correspondence. Prepares monthly progress reports for the Executive Director and Visitor Programs & Services Manager on the status of the AAHP activities, contacts/outreach, and events.  

• Programs and Events: Helps plan, implement, and market educational programs and events for the African American History Program including, but not limited to, Juneteenth and Black History Month. Maintains programs and events calendar for AAHP in coordination with the Executive Director and Visitor Programs & Services Manager. Collects program data including audience attendance, evaluations, and volunteer input and compiles recommendations to Executive Director and Visitor Programs & Services Manager. 

• Marketing: Develops content for and manages social media for AAHP programs, events, and updates. Assists with the input of program and event information to online community calendars and submission of the program and event information to local media to include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube. Creates and distributes print and digital media for advertising of AAHP within the grant budget. 

• Publications: Researches and writes, or assists with coordinating, contributions for each quarterly LCHS newsletter and each annual magazine related to African American history in the county. 

• Other Museum Roles: May help recruit, train, and supervise volunteers, especially those assisting with genealogical research, oral histories, and public programs. May assist with research requests and genealogical workshops for, including but not limited to, descendants of enslaved Louisans. 

Preferred Qualifications:

Minimum one year of cumulative work experience for a nonprofit organization and/or a public history institution. Knowledge of public history practices/methods and professional skills or abilities related to one or more of the following is preferred: museums, archives, libraries, historic preservation, K-12 education, digital history, and/or oral history. Bachelor’s in History, Public History, Museum Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, or a closely related field is preferred, but not required. 

Founded in 1966, the Louisa County Historical Society (LCHS) is a 501©3 non-profit organization with a mission to bring to light, preserve, and share the history of Louisa County. Our vision is to enlighten the present by illuminating the past in order to inspire the future. We share the stories of past Louisans through our museum exhibitions, educational programs, publications, research assistance, digital resources, and care of our growing collection of buildings, documents, and artifacts. 

LCHS operates the Sargeant Museum of Louisa County History and the Heritage Farm Living History Site located in Louisa, Virginia. LCHS holds over 20,000 records and over 1,000 artifacts in its collections as well as a growing number of oral histories. The Purcell Research Library located in the Sargeant Museum contains numerous resources on local history and genealogy. LCHS hosts many educational programs and special events throughout the year and participates in community events and other outreach initiatives.  

The Sargeant Museum’s permanent exhibits include Native American history, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, early transportation, education, and government, and an exhibit created with funding from the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation telling the story of the journey of women and African Americans toward equal rights in Louisa County. Our current temporary exhibit is “Freedom of Choice,” the exhibit manifestation of our oral history project. The exhibit documents contextualizes, within the larger Virginia narrative, the integration of the local high school in 1965, documented with voices of the students who attend and integrated Louisa County High School that year. 

The Heritage Farm is a growing living history site located behind the Sargeant Museum of Louisa County History. The structures on the property help us achieve our goal to bring the history of Louisa County to life! We use them for special programming such as our open-hearth cooking workshops, herb guild, and free family days. The Michie House and Smoke House were relocated to our property and restored in 2013. The Trevilians Schoolhouse was relocated to our property and restored in 2017. 

During a typical year, we welcome around a thousand museum visitors, many of whom are visitors from outside Louisa County. We reach hundreds more through our programs, events, and outreach activities. Additionally, thousands of online users visit our websites to look for historical information on Louisa County. 

LCHS is governed by a Board of Directors and staffed by a full-time director and part-time volunteer and program manager, and numerous volunteers. Grant-funded projects, such as our current African-American History Program and Archive Digitization Program, are staffed by temporary part-time staff and interns. 

In 2020, the Louisa County Historical Society received a grant from the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation to support the pilot years of a program dedicated to African American history. Since its inception, the AAHP’s main objective is to improve Louisa County’s understanding of the lived experiences of African Americans in ways that both acknowledge the painful components and celebrate the triumphant moments in the struggle for racial equality. While the AAHP focuses on engaging the African American community specifically, the program seeks to build relationships between all residents in an effort to convey a truthful narrative of the county’s past and create a dialogue for all residents today. With support from a Community Advisory Council (CAC), LCHS sees continued interest and need for developing programming focusing on community building with and representation of our residents in our programming and in our archives. This means expanding our reach by focusing efforts on a publicity campaign to increase the public’s exposure to the content of our oral histories both through social and print media, and by going out into the community with programming geared toward increasing representation of all Louisa residents in the archive. 

The Louisa County Historical Society is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate in employment on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, national origin, veteran status or any other basis covered by appropriate law.