The Beale Street Hoodoo History and Folklife Museum in Memphis

The Beale Street Hoodoo History and Folklife Museum is located on the top floor of the historic A. Schwab overlooking Beale Street in Memphis Tennessee. The museum boasts over 400 pieces of ephemera, art and artifacts related to African and African-American spiritual and healing traditions. Exhibits include:

Learn about Delta Blues musicians and the connection to Hooddoo culture.Look through the museum window and see the location where the Hooks Brothers studio took this famous studio photo of Robert Johnson in the 1930’s. Learn about Hoodoo cultural language and it’s coding within the Blues. 

See photographs, documents and texts that tell the stories of the men and women who kept the tradition of healing and spiritual wisdom alive through slavery and segregation. Historically significant figures from Dr. Lyncha Johnson to Aunt Caroline Dye. 

The museum features exhibits that tell the story of the roots of Hoodoo as born in the healing and spiritual traditions of Africa. Art, masks and artifacts from Africa help tell the story.

Visitors can see a recreation of a spiritual supply shop in the Delta. Antique furniture used on Beale Street to house spiritual supply products are used to exhibit a number of oils, powders, herbs and candles used in Memphis spiritual traditions.