‘Top 5 scary’: Man goes to the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum in Baltimore. Then he goes into the basement

Content Warning: This story contains descriptions of violence against Black people that may be disturbing to some readers.

A TikToker known as Buddha (@buddhawiththetutta) is warning viewers about what awaits in the basement of Baltimore's National Great Blacks in Wax Museum—an experience he ranks among the “top five” scariest of his life, anchored by the museum's unflinching Emmett Till tableau.

‘Rest in Peace, Emmett Till; Rest in Peace, Everybody'

Responding to a comment on another post about Baltimore school-trip experiences, Buddha says he was surprised by a viewer who described the museum as a good time.

“Bro, ain't never been down in the basement,” Buddha says, warning first-timers about what he calls a “top five scary” experience.

He describes the museum's chronological layout as beginning with the transatlantic slave trade, running through the Civil Rights era, and ending—at least during his visit—with a Barack Obama exhibit. But it's the basement, and its Emmett Till centerpiece, that lingered for him: “Rest in peace, Emmett Till; rest in peace, everybody.”

A Brief Retelling

Emmett Till was a boy from Chicago visiting family in Money, Mississippi, in August 1955. A mob of white men tortured and murdered the 14-year-old for allegedly whistling at a white woman.

His mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, insisted on an open casket, forcing the country to confront her son's murder. His killing became a galvanizing catalyst for the Civil Rights movement.

The Museum

The National Great Blacks in Wax Museum, at 1601 East North Avenue in East Baltimore, opened in 1983 as the country's first wax museum devoted to African-American history. It has over 100 figures spanning ancient Africa, the Middle Passage, and the modern Civil Rights era. The basement lynching exhibit, which carries a parental advisory, is the space visitors most often describe as unforgettable.

“The story's not being told [elsewhere] quite the way we tell it,” explained a guide to roadsideamerica.com. “Sometimes people don't like to go into the pain of the struggle. They kind of skim the surface. We make no apologies.”

Let's see what the people had to say.

‘Try the African American History Museum in DC'

The comments section had many people who had gone to the museum and said they remain affected by what they saw.

“I still think about the black wax museum basement .. and I went in 7th grade,” said one person.

“The woman in the basement is named Mary Turner; she was lynched while pregnant and her baby was cut from her body and murdered,” said another person. A white mob lynched Turner near Valdosta, Georgia, on May 19, 1918. The crowd brutally murdered her because she demanded justice after her husband, Hayes Turner, was lynched the day before.

For her trouble, the mob found her, tied by her ankles and hanged upside down from a tree, where they cut out her baby and crushed it to death, then shot her hundreds of times.

Down in the Basement

The museum's founders, Drs. Joanne and Elmer Martin, have long refused to soften what they show. A 1999 Baltimore Sun feature on the lynching exhibit observed that “the first sound often is silence” as visitors descend the stairs. Speaking with WMAR-2 News for the museum's 40th anniversary, Dr. Joanne Martin recounted a child's reaction. Upon looking at a photograph of two little white girls in Sunday dress at a hanging, she asked, “Why would their mama let them come to a hanging?”

AllHipHop reached out to Buddha (@buddhawiththetutta) via TikTok direct message and comment. We also emailed the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum. This story will be updated if they respond.

@buddhawiththetutta #fyp #baltimore #nationalgreatblacksinwaxmuseum #9to5ers ♬ original sound – Buddha