As the President and Secretary of the Yoruba Cultural Center, Dallas Inc, we are excited and pleased to announce the opening of our Yoruba Art and Heritage Museum. It is located in 3,000 square feet of space at the permanent location of the Center at 7111 Marvin D. Love Freeway (US-67), Suite 209, Dallas TX 75237.

This museum is a groundbreaking achievement which is the first of its kind, dedicated to the history and culture of the Yoruba people, in North America. Its main goal is to educate and entertain visitors, Yorubas and non-Yorubas especially children, on the beauty and uniqueness of Yoruba history and culture. The visitor to the Museum is taken on a journey beginning with Oduduwa and the ancient heroes of Yorubaland such as Moremi and Oranmiyan. The visitor is introduced to the ancient gods and goddesses of Yoruba – Sango, Osun and Oya – and Ifa, the traditional religion of Yorubaland which is now practiced beyond our shores in Cuba, Brazil and other parts of South America. In brilliantly executed original art works, the visitor learns about different aspects of Yoruba culture from egungun, eyo and Gelede masks to tidbits about our history, including the coming to Yorubaland of Islam and Christianity, the last epitomized by an iconic portrait of Samuel Ajayi Crowther, the person credited with giving us the modern Yoruba alphabet and for translating the Bible into Yoruba. We then come to the modern age with portraits of modern legends such as Obafemi Awolowo, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti and Wole Soyinka, the first African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. The Yoruba Art and Heritage Museum has also tried to integrate Yoruba culture with the story of African-Americans in the United States, telling us for instance how in their different ways, Muhammad Ali, Louis Armstrong and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, like many of their compatriots, have had indelible ties to Yorubaland.

The Yoruba Art and Heritage Museum has been conceived as a top-class museum that tells the unique story of the Yoruba people using original art works in oil and acrylic, audiovisual presentations and cultural exhibits. The Museum is equipped with a modern audiovisual system with surround sound coming from speakers built into the walls, and a big screen TV showing images of Yoruba culture to visitors to the center. Children visiting the Center are given access to laptops and tablets to keep them engaged with videos, cartoons and images of Yoruba culture.

Finally, it should be remembered that this ground-breaking Museum is only one of the nine core programs of the Yoruba Cultural Center Dallas, including the Yoruba language school and the Drum, Dance and Theater classes, that promote the cultural legacy of the Yorubas for people not just in the Dallas area but worldwide. We invite you to visit the Museum, and to support the Museum with an online donation on this website. If you live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area or you happen to visit North Texas, make it a point to tour the Yoruba Art and Heritage Museum with your friends and family. Entrance to the Museum is free for children 18 years and below. For adults, it is $20 per person. Group tours are given a discount. The official Opening of the Yoruba Cultural Center and the Yoruba Art and Heritage Museum will be in February 2021 to commemorate Black History Month.