The Community Curation Platform connects African American communities across generational divides by preserving our history through the sharing of stories, photos, and videos to the Museum’s digital community collection.

Important guidelines to read before submitting your story 

Thank you for considering submitting a story to our online community collection. Before submitting your story, we ask you review the following guidelines to ensure your story will be submitted in a format we can accept, review, and publish.

All decisions about the publication of submitted stories are at the sole discretion of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) site administrators. Submission of your story via our online platform does not guarantee publication on the website or other Smithsonian websites. You can increase the chances your story will be selected for publication by adhering to all requirements and guidelines listed below:

Only Submit Stories You Know You Have Permission to Publish 

If you are submitting the story on behalf of someone else, please make sure you receive permission from the person or entity who owns the content and intellectual property rights for the material(s) you will be submitting. While you will retain ownership of your submission, by submitting content you give the Smithsonian (and those authorized by the Smithsonian) permission to use it for educational, promotional, or other non-commercial purposes. For additional details, please refer to our Terms and Conditions for Submissions.

Be sure to read and understand All Terms of Use 

Before submitting your story, please check all of your story materials to ensure they comply with the Terms and Conditions for Submissions as well as the Smithsonian Institution’s Privacy Statement and Terms of use. Some important restrictions to be aware of are:

• Children under the age of 18 are not permitted to submit stories to the website.  Only a child’s parent, guardian, or teacher with permission may submit stories on behalf of a child.

• We also prohibit the submission of story materials that include full names, photographs, or other personally identifiable information of children who are currently under the age of 18, unless you have obtained prior written consent from a parent or legal guardian. Please note that historical photos of young children (provided they are no longer under age 18) are acceptable. If your image includes children who are currently under the age of 18, you must upload written parental consent (e.g. signed release form) prior to uploading the file(s). A parent/guardian and participant release form can be requested by emailing rfs-info@si.edu.

• You may also choose to obtain the permission of any other people who appear in a photograph that you include in your story and keep a copy of their consent in your personal records. A participant release form for images can be requested by emailing rfs-info@si.edu. 

• You will not submit content that is off-topic, partisan-political, contains personal attacks or expletives, or is otherwise abusive, threatening, unlawful, harassing, discriminatory, libelous, obscene, false, pornographic, or that infringes on the rights of any third party.

• Media files may NOT include full names, photographs, or other personally identifiable information of children currently under the age of 18, unless you have obtained prior written consent from each child’s parent or guardian. A release form may be requested by emailing rfs-info@si.edu.

• All submissions are collected via the Community Curation Platform and subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. 

• You agree to the Smithsonian’s website terms of use, available at https://www.si.edu/Termsofuse, which are incorporated here by reference.

You may remove a story from the CCP at any time by logging into your account and choosing 'Delete' on the story you wish to remove. If you would like to request removal of a story, please email NMAAHC staff at rfs-info@si.edu.