In the 1950s, American Foreign Service officer Warren M. Robbins collected African figures, masks, books, and textiles from German antique shops. Upon returning to Washington, D.C., in 1960, he purchased a house on Capitol Hill and opened his collection for viewing. Robbins, without museum, arts, or fundraising experience, believed that the collection could advance interracial civil rights and improve national respect for a major component of black cultural heritage. Starting in 1963, he expanded his Capitol Hill house museum into adjacent townhouses, including the former house of abolitionist Frederick Douglass. The collections eventually occupied nine townhouses and over a dozen other properties near the Supreme Court Building.