Wallace Center for Arts and Reconciliation
The Wallace Center for Arts and Reconciliation is a former cotton plantation in Harpersville, Shelby County, that today serves as a center of heritage and remembrance for the Black and White descendants tied to the land. Originally founded as Klein Arts & Culture in 2019 and rebranded in 2023 under its current name, the organization serves as both a physical gathering place for returning descendants as well as a space for ongoing reconciliation, discussion, and fellowship surrounding the difficult legacy of slavery. The Wallace Center hosts a variety of artistic performances and academic-led programs that foster discussion about the multicultural heritage and history of the former plantation.
Wallace Plantation’s origins are similar to that of many others in the South, in which land speculation and the forced removal of the Creek Indians led to an influx of White settlers and often their enslaved workers. Samuel Wallace, a War of 1812 veteran who also served under Andrew Jackson during the Creek War of 1813-14, explored what is now Shelby County in 1834 and purchased an initial 240 acres. He would slowly add to this land holding over the following years, purchasing the parcel of land on which the Wallace House sits in 1836. The family was in Alabama by 1840, according to the 1840 Census. After construction of the house was completed in 1841, the Wallace Plantation became home to Samuel Wallace, his wife, their five children, and a sizable number of enslaved people, many of whom constructed the house itself. Census records and figures from the Wallace family papers estimate that the number of enslaved people who built and toiled at Wallace Plantation included at least 39 enslaved individuals who were forcibly moved with the family from Virginia. The number of enslaved later increased to upwards of 95 people.
The Wallace family home, or “big” house, was constructed by highly skilled enslaved people in a mix of Federal and Greek Revival architecture styles. The two-story house featured a wide front porch framed by pillars, a central staircase, and large chimneys on either end. Another porch along the back of the house likely served as the primary entrance for the enslaved people who worked inside. The primary entrance faces the roadway and dominates the landscape. A variety of locally sourced materials included bricks from Calera and marble from the famed quarries of Sylacauga, Talladega County. Historically, a variety of outbuildings, including a barn, smokehouse, blacksmith shed, and kitchen, all dotted the landscape. Today, only the root cellar remains.
Those enslaved by the Wallace family worked on the plantation cultivating tobacco, corn, oats, and, eventually, cotton. They also worked in the outbuildings cooking, cleaning, working metal, and preserving food, among other tasks. The Wallace family’s wealth depended on the enslaved people who farmed the land, operated the family’s sawmill, which began sometime after 1839, and performed various jobs within the businesses owned by the Wallace sons.
The Civil War (1861-1865) and Reconstruction brought drastic changes to the Wallace Plantation and the South in general. The emancipation of the family’s enslaved laborers immediately following the war challenged the existing system of free labor that made the Wallace family’s immense wealth possible. Few records exist during this time, but it is likely that some form of tenant farming replaced slavery as a primary labor source. In 1869, the death of Samuel Wallace shifted ownership of the plantation to his son Wales Wallace, who continued grappling with economic changes. Over the next decade, the land holdings shrank, likely a result of the changing labor market as well as the economic depression catalyzed by the Panic of 1873. Wales sold more than 1,000 acres of land by 1880.
Wales Wallace died in 1901, and his family relocated to Columbiana, Shelby County. Numerous renters occupied the former plantation for several decades and still used parts of the land for farming. The Wallace house stayed within the family throughout the twentieth century, with Wallace descendants periodically occupying the house for summers through the 1950s. By 1970, the house was uninhabited and began falling into a state of disrepair.
Following years of vacancy, Nell Gottlieb, a direct descendant of Wales Wallace, returned to the Wallace Plantation in 2018 after inheriting the property. The property at this time included the house and six acres of land. Gottlieb joined Theoangelo Perkins, whose ancestors have post-emancipation ties to the Wallace farm, to form the nonprofit organization Klein Arts & Culture as a way to reckon with the legacy of the house and its decades of slavery. Together, they formulated the goal of using the house as a place that would serve the community rather than be another house museum. As a first step, Gottlieb deeded the property to the newly founded organization and began the early work of inviting people with ties to the house and land. The year 2018 also marked the first official event, a homecoming of Black and White descendants to the Wallace Plantation.
Following emancipation, many freedpeople who left the plantation took on the Wallace surname, creating an easily identifiable thread of those with ancestral roots to the Wallace House. Many of these descendants remained in the Harpersville area and participated in this notable event. They include the Datcher family, a direct line of descendants from Lucy Wallace Baker, who was enslaved by the Wallace family and served as a trained midwife. Baker passed her profession down through the women in her family, providing crucial and lifesaving skills that served countless enslaved and marginalized women. Albert “Peter” Datcher, a community historian and Wallace Center board member, collected numerous materials and artifacts preserving this history as a significant part of the broader Wallace story.
In 2019, preservation efforts for the Wallace House began with work to stabilize the structure and its porches. Craftspeople and contractors replaced rotted wood, rebuilt chimneys with original bricks, and replaced siding and flooring where water damage could not be repaired. In 2023, the descendants at the annual homecoming decided to rename the house the Wallace House, removing the name “Klein,” given years ago by white Wallace descendants, to more inclusively represent both Black and White descendants. The organization became known as the Wallace Center for Arts and Reconciliation to better represent the goals of this community space.
A lengthy partnership between the Wallace board of directors and Auburn University’s public history program, and other descendants, artists, historians, film makers, designers, and journalists local to the Greater Birmingham area led to numerous meetings geared towards establishing a meaningful interpretive plan for the site. The official plan, finalized in 2024, laid the necessary groundwork for determining the types of narratives and perspectives that would form the basis of programming and interpretation at the site. Significantly, the organization chose to focus on the enslaved people in the context of their role in building the Wallace family wealth, their experiences as part of the African diaspora, and the wider significance of their roles in the ongoing efforts of community building and reconciliation. Additionally, the Wallace Center’s plans acknowledge the tensions that exist between interpreting the site for the public and best serving the descendants, with the latter being the more crucial goal.
After the house was stabilized, the descendants began efforts to document the rest of the property. Ground-penetrating radar enabled the discovery of more specific locations of outbuildings for further interpretation by the Wallace Center. Current plans include the installation of “ghost structures,” steel beams that mark the physical location and size of once standing buildings, to provide more opportunities for visual interpretation of the outbuildings and slave quarters. Additionally, the open-air art installation, Bearing Witness: Praise House by Birmingham, Jefferson County, artist Tony Bingham, provides a space for quiet contemplation, much like the rituals that were part of the daily lives of enslaved people. The organization also added an artist in residency cottage and visitor support center to provide welcoming space for visitors and allow artists and historians to stay for longer periods on site to complete their work. The Wallace Center for Arts and Reconciliation continues this important work with many Black and White descendants on its board. A small staff, including its current executive director, Ebony Howard, and programs and facilities manager, Jennifer McCohnell, work closely with the board to host the annual Homecoming event and other lectures and artistic performances. The endeavor is supported by private donations as well as grants from the Alabama Humanities Alliance, the Alabama State Council on the Arts, the Alabama Historical Commission, the Daniel Foundation, and other organizations. In addition, partnerships with various groups, professors, and historians have supported the organization in the ongoing interpretation goals of the center. The Wallace House was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in June 2025.
