My Father Built Atlanta’s First Black History Museum. Now I Lead It.

Dan Moore Jr., 67, is the CEO of the APEX Museum, Atlanta’s oldest Black history museum. The APEX, which stands for African American Panoramic Experience, was founded by his father, Dan Moore Sr., in 1978 and contains artifacts, photographs, and more highlighting Black history and achievement. Moore took over as CEO of the museum in 2024 after his father passed away. 

This account has been condensed and edited for clarity.

My father traveled to Atlanta and met with Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays and chronicled his life — just kind of did a documentary about him. But then he realized in Atlanta, of all places, which was called the Black Mecca, that there was no real museum or institution that carried the history of this fine city. So he decided, at the behest of Dr. Mays, to form collections of life and heritage, which later became the APEX Museum. So my father literally brought to Atlanta, actually to Georgia, its first Black history museum, and Atlanta’s first and oldest Black history museum.

It had to be before maybe ’72 or so when my father came and met with Dr. Mays. I remember being young and asking him how he got to be so old, and my father stepped on my foot. Of course, it didn’t make me shut up, but I have recollections of people like Dr. C.T Vivian, Andrew Young, Mrs. Jean Childs Young, Maynard Jackson — people that were around that I knew had some relevance to this city, but I, as a young person, didn’t really see them as the icons that they were until I grew older. Even with Rev. Hosea Williams and others, who I had the pleasure of not only meeting but actually talking and sitting down with. So there’s a lot of history that came through these doors here a lot of times.

I told someone one time that I kind of felt like I’ve taken that for granted at some point, because he was just my dad, and the other people I thought of as aunties and uncles. I didn’t really see the weight of what they carried until I got older.

I was definitely very proud of my father. I saw him as a person who had strength, but it was a reserved strength. He was definitely a very humble and mild-mannered fellow. He cared for a lot of people. He cared for humanity, but most of all for Black people. I know that in the days that I sat with him, we had a lot of conversations about this entity called the APEX Museum. I never thought that I’d be sitting in his chair, which I’m sitting in now, and actually become the CEO of this institution that we once talked about because I had no intentions of doing this.

I enjoyed working with him on a lot of the films that he did. I did the music for those films. I worked with him on a lot of occasions. I was a musician around Atlanta, so when people were doing banquets, I was generally at the piano. I was around a lot of people that were called dignitaries because of my father. I don’t think I would have been appointed to do certain things in the city if it wasn’t for my dad at that time. So I know that he carried a lot of weight, and I know that even if something were to transpire with him, that it would have been some large shoes to fill. I knew that for sure.