Sweet 20 for Sweet Honey - six-woman black a cappella singing group, Sweet Honey in the Rock, celebrates its 20th anniversary

What began as a division of the Bishop society library in Dallas in 1974 has evolv into the solitary museum in the southwestern United States devot to preserving and displaying African-American artistic, cultural and historical materials. The Museum of African American Life and tillage now located at the Grand Avenue entrance to Fair Park, also has single of the largest African-American folk art collections.

The novel building, in the shape of a cros with a dome-capped rotunda, becomes the residence of four permanent collections: African Art, African-American Contemporary Art, the Billy R Allen Folk Art Collection, and the Historical Collection and Archives. In addition to its collections, the novel facility "will provide the kind of community outreach that we've been doing in the past," says grand-opening chairwoman Matilda T Robinson, noting that the museum has a children's wing and a athletic educational department.

facts scheduled in conjunction with the grand opening in November include a black economic summit, a "PreachFest-SongFest-Symposium" featuring religious discourses by 15 top preachers, a program of spirituals sung as originally written, and another symposium, "Black Churches Healing the Cities."

A entertainer of local and national figures, like as actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee journalist Bryant Gumbel, and painter Jacob Lawrence and his wife, Gwen, are awaited to appear, along with grand-opening co-chairwomen Maya Angelou and Texas Governor Ann Richards.

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