After nearly 12 years, Christy S. Coleman, CEO of the American Civil War Museum (ACWM), which has a location in Appomattox, has announced she will be leaving the position effective Jan. 16.

She leaves the museum to assume her new role as executive director of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation. Coleman came to Richmond to serve as CEO of the American Civil War Center (ACWC) at Historic Tredegar in 2008, after leadership roles at Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.

The ACWC was among the first in the United States to explore the Civil War from Union, Confederate and African American perspectives when it opened in 2006. As a fairly new enterprise, she had the task of ensuring the young museum’s ongoing sustainability, expand its programs and grow its audiences.

In 2013, Coleman, along with S. Waite Rawls III, announced the creation of the American Civil War Museum — the merger of the museum at Historic Tredegar with the Museum of the Confederacy. Together, they helped chart the course for the museum and its new mission as co-CEOs until 2016.

That year Rawls was appointed president of the American Civil War Museum Foundation to oversee its fundraising efforts, and Coleman was named as sole CEO. In May 2019, the American Civil War Museum opened its award-winning new building and highly acclaimed exhibitions after raising more than $47 million to support the new facility, programs, exhibitions and ongoing operations.

“As bittersweet as it is to leave the museum, I’m very excited about what comes next,” Coleman said, commenting on her time leading the museum. “It’s been my distinct pleasure to work with a remarkable staff and board for the past 12 years. I’m immensely proud of the work we’ve accomplished together and the service we’ve provided to our local and national communities. I can only hope we’ve been able to do what we set out to do — to broaden the conversation about the importance of the Civil War to our shared past in more complete and nuanced ways. But the time has come to pass the reigns.”

The museum’s board of directors will appoint a committee in January to conduct a national search for the next Chief Executive Officer of the American Civil War Museum.

“We are thankful for Christy’s visionary leadership and the bar she’s set for us all,” said ACWM Board Chair Dr. Ed Ayers. “We wish her much success in her new leadership role at the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation as their new executive director.”

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