Tina Turner will receive her own long-overdue spot in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this month. At the schoolhouse she has turned into a museum, there are many lessons learned. Town & Country speaks with the museum’s director and interior designer for the October 175th Anniversary issue, on newsstands now, to learn about how the museum came about, what visitors love most, and how Turner’s legacy continues to grow.
Sonia Outlaw-Clark, director of both the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center and the Tina Turner Museum on the one-room schoolhouse that has been refurbished as the museum: “There’s so much history in that building. We really wanted to preserve the legacy of that school, because not only did Tina attend it, but for so many Black children in that part of the county, that was their only chance for an education back in the 1800s.”
Outlaw-Clark on what the museum visitors gravitate towards: “They love seeing her picture from her senior year They had all the students that year say what they wanted to be, and she lists ‘entertainer.’ ”
Outlaw-Clark on how Turner’s rise from the cotton fields of the rural South to the pinnacle of pop culture is the quintessential “American dream story”: “If she can do that, anybody can do anything. You just have to have that perseverance and that sense of who you want to be.”
Stephen Sills, interior designer and longtime friend of Turner on the singer: “She has a tremendous energy, and she’s so intelligent. She’s five steps ahead of you. She doesn’t think of herself as the greatest rock & roll star in the world. She is very humble, but at the same time very powerful.”
Link:https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/a37678267/tina-turner-museum/