In a polarized society, genuine discussions around history can be hard to start—even for museum professionals. For Lance Wheeler, the Vice President of Learning and Engagement at Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, the best approach he’s found is to be open about how history can be difficult. As he explains, “I tell people all the time: even as someone who has two history degrees, ‘History is boring, right?’ And I say that because if you can’t find yourself in the story, it doesn’t matter. Because, sadly, the way history is taught in our country is about dead white men, dates, and wars.” But the boringness of traditional history education also contains a potential solution. He says, “I think once we find our narrative and our own stories, that’s when it becomes personal and more engaging.”
At 34, Wheeler has over a decade of professional experience working as a curator, public historian, and nonprofit practitioner. And today, as he expands his practice through study in the Antioch MBA, he is dedicated to rethinking how museums run and operate.
At the Wright Museum, the second-largest African American history museum in the country, Wheeler is helping to carry out its mission of uplifting African American stories and sharing the experiences of Black people in the U.S. “Coming out of the Civil Rights Movement, African Americans were being portrayed in ways that didn’t reflect our truth,” explains Wheeler. “Museums like ours were created to correct that narrative.”
Wheeler is responsible for a team of eight museum practitioners and oversees educational programs and tours. “My day-to-day is truly to inspire my team,” he says. “We’re not just educators or docents or tour guides—we are museum practitioners. So we practice. We tweak our tours. We are thinking about how we actually convey our message, who our target audience is.”
A Dedication to History Across Generations
For Wheeler, conversations about history were at the forefront of his upbringing. His mother ran errands for the Black Panthers as a child herself, and conversations about her experiences continued to be present in his own childhood. Wheeler began to locate his own stories in history beginning in high school. He was helped and encouraged by many people in his life, especially two key mentors: a high school history teacher, Patricia Dello, and his college mentor, Brenda Tindal, PhD. They both helped foster his interest in history as a career path. As he says, “I took my first civil rights class, and I was like, ‘Yeah, this is what I want to do.’”
Still, as a young college graduate, Wheeler felt apprehensive about what exactly he could do with a degree in history. It was when he found out that he was going to become a father that he decided to pursue a career in history. “My son, Landon, solidified that this is what I wanted to do,” says Wheeler. “Because in order for him to know who he is, I must do my job as a historian. How do I prepare this Black boy to be a Black man in America? And that is through history.”
Wheeler also recognizes the weight of his role as a young Black museum professional in a predominantly white industry. But he has had the encouragement of many Black leaders. He says, “I had individuals like Myrlie Evers-Williams, Congressman John Lewis, and other civil rights veterans tell me and my colleagues, ‘We did the hard work. Your job is to make sure our stories are told in this museum.’”
With a sense of responsibility to accurately tell stories in mind, part of Wheeler’s work revolves around facilitating conversations that history cannot shy away from. “The ’40s, ’50s, ’60s—people are comfortable talking about that history,” says Wheeler. “Then you get to the ’70s and ’80s, and people start feeling uneasy.” The radicalism of figures like Malcolm X and the Black Panther Party can make some people uncomfortable. As Wheeler explains, “The more modern it gets, the more uncomfortable people become. But if museums aren’t engaging with the uncomfortable parts of history, what are we doing?”
A Decision to Grow as an Executive
With such a long list of accomplishments in curation and museum leadership, why pursue an MBA? For Wheeler, the degree is a means to an end: his goal is to become the CEO of a cultural institution. That requires understanding and participating within the business side of museums.
Many professionals in the world of museums opt for a PhD, but Wheeler realized he might want to focus on developing his financial and strategic acumen instead. He had some open conversations with experienced Black museum professionals, and these reinforced for him that an MBA, not another degree in history, would be the key to advancing his career. “You actually need to know the numbers and the language of how to run a business,” he says. “Museums are businesses, even though people don’t think of them that way.”
For Wheeler, it’s an opportunity to broaden his skill set, too. “Everybody wants to be a curator,” he says. “But in reality, it’s hard to get those jobs. So how do you diversify yourself? What you’re really going to need to climb up that ladder is the business acumen.”
Drawn to Antioch’s Grassroots History
As Wheeler was deciding what school to attend, he began considering Antioch University. He was drawn to the liberal arts foundation, and what he calls the “grassroots thinking” consistent with Antioch’s mission for social justice. “For me, I always wanted to make sure that a program aligned with my thinking,” he says, “and Antioch has always been standing in that gap, pushing right from a grassroots perspective.”
As an MBA student, Wheeler has found particular value in the coursework and discussions with classmates. He enjoys applying business principles to the museum field, and he’s found himself questioning why cultural institutions lag behind in adopting strategic innovations used in the private sector. Recently he took the class “Strategy, Innovation, and Resilience,” and he took what he was learning about the private sector, including strategic planning and holistic thinking. He thought, “Museums should be doing this too.”
Wheeler has also impressed his teachers in the Antioch MBA. Doug Lynch, adjunct faculty in the program, says that Wheeler has fully immersed himself in coursework and is a strong participant in the asynchronous discussions that happen on forums and weekly assignments. Lynch teaches “Principles of Triple Bottom Line,” which Wheeler says has been one of his favorite of the MBA so far.
For Wheeler, the idea of leading an organization is all about the combination of serving people and advancing the mission, which, of course, requires maintaining financial viability. As a leader in the nonprofit world, it’s clear that his motivation in pursuing the MBA isn’t just financial gain. In large part, it’s about inspiring others. “My goal to be a CEO is not monetary,” says Wheeler. “You get more money, that’s great. But, for me, it’s truly showing individuals that look like me that you can do this work. There are Black museum professionals who exist, and I’m just standing on the shoulders of individuals who did the work before me.”
As our country continues grappling with how to tell its own history, Wheeler is clear that he sees museums as sites of conversation, reflection, and growth. Even when that means calling out the museum for something it could have done better. “I tell people this all the time: your job is to criticize my work. Your job is to hold my feet to the fire.” And the flip side of that, he says, “My job is to also tell you what a museum is. Our cultural institutions are being attacked, so what is the role right now? Are we going to be silent or are we going to actually use our voice?”
