Black Museum Struggles to Grow Amid Turmoil : History: Acclaimed L.A. center is beset by a continuing turnover of directors and deteriorating morale.

Six red gallows--chilling symbolism from one of American racism’s grisliest chapters--stand beneath a shimmering celestial tree in the California Afro-American Museum’s sculpture court.

Suspended within nooses hanging starkly from each gallows are glass plates inscribed with what amounts to a meditation on murder: “Killing. Others Killing Ourselves. Killing Ourselves by Killing Ourselves and Others. . . .”

The riveting phrases go on.

Artist Sandra Rowe’s installation is part of “No Justice, No Peace? Resolutions . . . ,” an exhibit mounted to help heal the city after last spring’s riots. Rowe’s piece is a stunning juxtaposition of pain and hope--a metaphor as applicable to the museum as it is to the community.

In its 11-year existence, the state-funded museum in Exposition Park--the largest black museum in the nation--has become the most important focal point for African-American history and culture in the state.

But even as its reputation as a chronicler of the black presence in America increases, it continues to be nagged by a persistent instability at the top.

The institution’s board of directors fired its latest director, Terrie S. Rouse, last week. Since it opened, the museum has had seven full-time or interim executive directors.

Rouse, 40, came to the museum 18 months ago after five years as director of the New York Transit Museum. Before that she had been senior curator at the respected Studio Museum in Harlem.

Personality and policy conflicts between Rouse, the Afro-American Museum’s board and its staff began to surface early in her tenure, and museum insiders said working relationships at the institution were deteriorating daily.

“The majority of the staff supported the board’s action,” said Rick Moss, the museum’s history curator, who was named interim director. “There had been just a debilitating drop in morale.”

Rouse may have lost sight of the fact that her direction came from the board, several board members said. The governor appoints board members to terms of at least four years, and the executive director serves at the board’s pleasure.

Rouse’s firing comes as the museum, once under suspicion as a cultural preserve of the city’s black elite, has been broadening its base in the community and strengthening its ties to corporate sponsors.

A show on Malcolm X three years ago attracted what one staffer calls “a whole new audience” of young people and political activists, and supporters see the museum continuing to grow despite the frequent turnover in the executive office.

“Past changes in directors have not stopped the development of the institution, but anybody would like to see some longevity from a competent director,” said Michael Johnson, an AT&T; community relations official.

AT&T; is sponsoring “Life in a Day of Black L.A.: The Way We See It,” a black photography show set to open April 29, the first anniversary of last year’s civil disturbances. Organized by UCLA’s Center for Afro-American Studies, the exhibit’s images reflect a broad spectrum of the African-American experience to counterbalance what its organizers call the prevailing negative portrayals in the media.

“The museum is a wonderful cultural landmark and it is moving toward having a major impact in the nation,” Johnson said. “It has been gathering much momentum over the past few years and I hope to see any internal difficulties quickly smoothed out.”

A group of elementary school students on a recent tour moved open-mouthed through an exhibit called “Hollywood Days and Harlem Nights,” marveling that black film companies existed before the days of talkies and that pioneer black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux was producing so-called “black-cast” films generations before Spike Lee.

The museum is reeling from a 35% cut that reduced its budget to $950,000, and it is facing another 15% reduction next year. Nonetheless, it has been able to plan several ambitious shows for later in the year with corporate support.

And as planning for exhibitions moved forward, the conflict between Rouse and the board was simultaneously coming to a head. The board voted 5 to 0 to terminate her last week. Two members were absent.

Rouse said that the museum’s board had asked her to resign but that she decided against it.

“Had I resigned, it would have been some kind of admission of guilt,” she said. “I had done nothing wrong. The fact is that folks didn’t communicate with me. . . . They didn’t treat me as an administrator.”

Museum insiders, however, said the failure to communicate rested squarely with Rouse, who they accused of trying to run the museum as though it were her personal fiefdom.

“Her management style can best be described as terrorism,” said one staffer who asked not to be identified. “She frequently threatened to fire staff members, telling them: ‘I will walk you to the door.’ ”

Rouse denied issuing such threats, saying that under Civil Service regulations she could not fire anyone. Museum staff and board members said they had to first point out to her that she could not summarily fire anyone, but they insist that she nonetheless made the threats.

The alleged threats were but one conflict in a cascade of collisions between Rouse, her staff and her board. In instance after instance, Rouse has one version of events while the staff and board offer diametrically opposing accounts.

In the last six months, Rouse said, she attracted about $200,000 in outside contributions to the museum and expanded efforts to undertake cooperative projects with other cultural institutions.

Several board members said they were stunned by Rouse’s fund-raising claim, maintaining that several people were involved in attracting those funds and that the largest grant--$100,000 from TRW Inc.--was set in motion by Anderson Shaw, a board member who works for the firm.

Rouse said friends in the museum community on the East Coast had warned her against accepting the $72,000-a-year director’s job, saying that she was going into “a very difficult situation.”

After about a year on the job, she said, she realized that she was in a “lose-lose-lose situation. It was clear to me that the lines between the board and the staff were not drawn properly.”

She added that she was “constantly being undercut” by the staff and that her authority was “constantly being eroded” by staff members who went over her head to the board.

“I felt we had to stop that process,” Rouse said. “Of course, I was not very successful at that.”

Board President Charlene L. Meeks said Rouse’s firing was “very painful because no one wanted her to succeed more than I did. When we interviewed her, we thought she was a godsend.”

When Rouse’s relationship with the board “started to sour,” Meeks said, “I was personally very disappointed.”

Although the staff, board and Rouse may not agree on details of events during her tenure, their differences were clearly deep. Staff morale had been in a freefall and personality and policy conflicts with the board were continuing unabated, several staffers said.

“You have to have full confidence in the person working for you,” one board member said. “As time went on, the board’s confidence in Ms. Rouse’s judgment and competence was being eroded. I think she got caught up in what she was doing and stopped thinking about how she was doing it. She just didn’t get it. She’s book smart, but not very street smart.”

To have allowed Rouse to remain as director would have jeopardized the museum’s future, board members said.

“No person, personality or personality conflict is more important than this institution,” one member said.

Interim Director Moss said his immediate challenge is to restore staff morale and public confidence in the museum.

“We have a solid group of employees who want to do a good job,” he said. “We also want to keep the ball rolling. We don’t want to lose any momentum, regardless of budgets.”

The museum “is real important as a place that’s focused on us--a place where other people can discover us,” said Sandra Sealy, a researcher at UCLA’s Center for Afro-American Studies. It is important to have an institution like this, especially when we talk about the healing of Los Angeles.”

BACKGROUND

The California Afro-American Museum is in Exposition Park at 600 State Drive, next to the Museum of Science and Industry’s Imax Theater. It is open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Information on shows is available by calling (213) 744-7432. Admission is free. Parking is $3 in lots south of the museum. The museum’s exhibits and programs focus on the art, history and culture of African-Americans and include paintings, photographs, sculpture, film, video, lectures, workshops, seminars and children’s programs.