The Wallace Center for Arts and Reconciliation

The Wallace Center is a descendant-led organization that addresses the impact of slavery and racial oppression through art, education, and reconciliation. The Wallace Center is located on the original Wallace Plantation in Harpersville, Alabama. We were founded by the descendants of people who were enslaved on or worked the Wallace land, and the descendants of the slaveholders. Our programming transforms the land’s painful legacy into a space for truth-telling and community building through history and education, art, and deliberate dialogue.

The Wallace Center transforms the enduring effects of the painful history and social division that permeates the Wallace land into a space for connection among descendants and the community. These issues are particularly prominent in communities shaped by slavery, where Black descendants experience intergenerational trauma, social and emotional inequality, limited access to resources, and historical erasure.

Built by 39 enslaved people, the Wallace Center is located on the original Wallace Plantation site in Harpersville, Alabama. Our programming transforms the painful legacy of the land into a space for truth-telling, empathy, and community building through: (1) history and education, (2) art, and (3) dialogue, with the intention of preserving the history of those who lived and labored on Wallace land. We work to facilitate healing between the descendants of enslaved people and descendants of the slaveholding family.

Visitors to the Wallace Center learn about the history of the place and the people who lived there. We use the six-acre Wallace Place–includingthe preserved Wallace House, the Wallace Cemetery, where Black and white Wallace ancestors are buried, and the Datcher History House (the ancestral home of a Black descendant family)–as anchors for learning, dialogue, and reflection.