Museum News & Highlights

Reckoning book cover. Bisa Butler's quilted artwork of Harriet Tubman with title in white block letters.

Museum Debuts Its First Visual Art Publication

Featuring nearly 100 artworks, this 224-page hardcover book explores how visual art has provided a rich outlet for protest, commentary, escape and perspective for African Americans.
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Cover of Game Changers: Sports Photographs from the National Museum of American History and Culture

First Book of Sports Photography Available on Sept. 17

"Game Changers: Sports Photographs from the National Museum of African American History and Culture" is the first in the Double Exposure series to include photographs from the Johnson Publishing Company Archive.
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Forces for Change exhibition image

New Exhibition Explores Mary McLeod Bethune's Legacy

“Forces for Change: Mary McLeod Bethune and Black Women’s Activism" connects Bethune’s legacy across time to other Black women who have been inspired by and built upon her work.
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Community Curation

Museum's Community Curation Programs Comes to St. Louis

The Community Curation Project, led by the museum’s Robert F. Smith Center for the Digitization and Curation of African American History, empowers communities to share their family stories by providing the resources and technology to digitize and preserve materials.
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Graphic featuring the phrase "Recliming My Time," which is the name of an exhibition of contemporary Black designers

Space Devoted to Black Design Now Open

The new exhibition features chairs and other works by designers who engage with ideas related to rest, repose, and the history of labor and leisure.
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Image of Charlotte Lyons in the Ebony Test Kitchen, featured in the November 1992 issue of Ebony magazine. Lyons is shown leaning frontward over a counter

Iconic Ebony Test Kitchen Finds a Home at Our Museum

Built in 1972 as a prominent feature of the Johnson Publishing Co. building in Chicago, the Ebony Test Kitchen is where recipes were tested and prepared before they were published in Ebony magazine for home cooks around the country.
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What's Happening at the Museum

A look at all the upcoming programs and events

Edwina Dei-Davis, wearing a black hat and black T-shirt, visited the museum in April

Collection Item Connects Visitor to Her Ghanian Roots

Edwina Dei-Davis, who lives in Ontario, shares her reflections during her first visit to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture earlier this year.

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Sepia toned picture of students at the Hosanna School established in 1867 in Hartford County, Maryland.

Women's Voices: Edmonia Highgate

Edmonia G. Highgate was an educator who fought for integrated schooling. Learn about how she advocated for equality in education.

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