The Rutherford B. H. Yates Museum, Inc. (RBHY), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, was formed in 1996 in response to a plea from Olee Yates McCullough, M.A., the daughter of Rutherford B. H. Yates Sr., who built the house at 1314 Andrews in 1912 and was the owner of the Yates Printing Co.  Rutherford was the son of Rev. Jack Yates, one of the founders of Freedmen’s Town and the first full-time pastor of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church.  

As an educator who had attended Spelman College and received a Master’s degree from Columbia University, Olee recognized the historic and cultural value of her family home and of Freedmen’s Town.  She asked us to save her home and other homes from demolition and to restore them as museum houses for future generations.  She was determined that all children should know about the people who built Freedmen’s Town:

“The children need to know about the first doctors, lawyers, dentists, teachers, blacksmiths, and the inventors of the 19th and 20th centuries.  All children need to walk into the homes and churches that the freedmen built, and walk on the streets they paid for and installed.”