Christy Coleman is leaving Richmond to become executive director of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, a state agency that operates museums that focus on the original English colony at Jamestown and the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown.

Ms. Coleman, who has served as president and chief executive officer of the American Civil War Museum in Richmond since 2008, will take on the new post Jan. 1.

The first woman and African-American to lead the Yorktown agency, Ms. Coleman will succeed Philip G. Emerson, who is retiring after 28 years. Her starting salary is $148,019.

The foundation tapped the Williamsburg native based on her previous leadership roles at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American His- tory in Detroit.

Along with raising the profile of the Richmond museum, Ms. Coleman also is responsible for orchestrating the incorporation of the Museum of the Confederacy into the former American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar along the James River in Downtown. The resulting American Civil War Museum tells the story of the Civil War from a wider and varied perspective, including African-Americans and Native Americans.

Ms. Coleman also served as co-chair of the Monument Avenue Commission that was chosen by Richmond Mayor Levar M. Stoney to recommend what the city should do with the monuments to Confederates on Monument Avenue.

Ms. Coleman will take over a foundation that played a leading role in the 2019 400th anniversary of the first legislature in Virginia and the arrival of the first enslaved Africans.

In a news release announcing her new appointment, the foundation lauded Ms. Coleman as a nationally respected commentator and recognized authority on the cultural and educational importance of museums and historical places.

“Christy Coleman’s professional accomplishments and perspective will be invaluable in writing the next chapter of JYF’s long and storied history, and we’re all looking forward to having her experience and creativity guiding the next generation of programming,” said outgoing House Speaker M. Kirkland Cox, chairman of the foundation’s board.

Ms. Coleman stated she was drawn to the foundation by the engaging, inclusive programming the foundation has developed, citing a revamping of the Jamestown Settlement’s gallery to incorporate new research on the first Africans and on Native Americans. She also cited recent exhibits on the contributions of women to Jamestown and on the role of African-American soldiers in the victorious Battle of Yorktown in 1781 against British Gen. Charles Cornwallis that led to America’s independence.

“The leadership of this place has been committed to doing things the right way, and it has received many well-deserved accolades,” Ms. Coleman stated. “My goal is to build on this strong foundation and to continue to tell powerfully relevant history that is inclusive and compelling.”