The Pope House Museum Foundation
Built in 1901, the Pope House represents life for a prominent African-American family in the early 20th century. The house was built by Dr. Manassa Thomas Pope (1858-1934), one of the first graduates of the Leonard School of Medicine at Shaw University, an officer in an all-black volunteer unit during the Spanish-American War and a candidate for mayor of Raleigh in 1919. Occupied by family members until 2000, the house contains a remarkable collection of original furnishings, artifacts and documents that date back to 1851.
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The Foundation was established in December, 1999, for the purpose of preserving, restoring, and opening to the public the home built in 1901 by Dr. M.T. Pope, an important African American citizen of Raleigh, North Carolina. The Pope House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is an Official Project of the Save America’s Treasures Program. The Pope House Museum Foundation is a private 501 (c) 3 tax-exempt non-profit organization, and is not under the auspices of any governmental agency. We hope to be able to raise the necessary funds to restore the Pope House, build an Education and Visitor’s Center, and open to the public in the near future.
The area where the Pope House stands today in southeast Raleigh has gone through several transformations since the early 1800s. The original state governor’s “palace” was placed at the end of Fayetteville Street on the site of the present Memorial Auditorium, and it was thought that fashionable residences would be built nearby. The palace in fact stood on that property from the early nineteenth century until after the Civil War, but the area to the east was slow to develop.
A few substantial homes were constructed by white families, most notably the 1855 Bagley House on East South Street. However, Rev. Henry Tupper moved Shaw University to a lot across the street from the Bagley home in 1870, and soon many new African American residents, drawn to Raleigh after the war, settled in the area. An 1872 aerial view of the city shows a number of small frame houses in the neighborhood, including several on the 500 block of South Wilmington Street (which were replaced sometime before 1896 with a 3½ story brick warehouse).
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