Charles H. Wright, a practicing gynecologist, was inspired to create an institution to preserve African-American history after he visited a memorial to Danish World War II heroes in Denmark. In 1965, Dr. Charles H. Wright opened the International Afro-American Museum on 1549 West Grand Boulevard in a house he owned. Some of the exhibits included the inventions of Michigander Elijah McCoy, and masks from Nigeria and Ghana that he had acquired while visiting there. The next year, he opened a traveling exhibit to tour the state. In 1978, the city of Detroit leased the museum a plot of land in Midtown near the Detroit Public Library, the Detroit Institute of Art, and the Detroit Science Center.  Groundbreaking for a new museum occurred in 1985, and the museum was renamed the Museum of African American History