Latest news with #MuseumofAfricanAmericanHistory
Axios
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
Museum of African American History uses AI to share Black history
The Museum of African American History is using AI to share the stories of iconic Black Bostonians. Why it matters: The museum is expanding its use of AI beyond its Frederick Douglass hologram in hopes of bringing new life to the museum's artifacts — and thus to the telling of African American history in Massachusetts. State of play: The "Black Voices of the Revolution" exhibit opened Tuesday in the Abiel Smith School with two interactive, AI-based displays. One lets visitors hear from historic Black women, including Elizabeth Freeman, one of the first enslaved people to successfully sue for their freedom in Massachusetts. The other lets visitors interview the museum's collection of primary sources, pulling details from the collection to answer questions and prompts like a chatbot. What they're saying: The exhibit "is an opportunity for us to tell a unique story of the American Revolution from the African American perspective," Noelle Trent, the museum's president and CEO, tells Axios. Trent says the partnership with TimeLooper has enabled the museum to use AI in an ethical manner to share these stories. Zoom in: The exhibit examines six topics, ranging from slavery to relationships with indigenous people to Black print culture, per a press release. The exhibit not only shares African American perspectives around the American Revolution, but also highlights other issues African Americans faced at the time, whether as enslaved people or freed communities. If you go: The museum is open the rest of the week, including July Fourth.
Boston Globe
24-06-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Trump's DEI assault leaves Boston's Black cultural institutions in peril
Now 'we're cooking with hot grease,' she recalled thinking. Trent embarked on a plan to hire new staff and expand its field trips program, a sure way to increase revenue and elevate the museum's profile. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up But then the rug was pulled out. Amid the new Trump administration's frenzy of culture-altering cuts, a letter arrived this spring from the grant's provider, the US Institute of Museum and Library Services. The award was cancelled, the letter said, in part because it 'no longer serves the interest of the United States.' Now, Trent said, the museum's future is uncertain, including an outside chance it will have to close. Advertisement The Museum of African American History had a $500,000 federal grant canceled. Brett Phelps for The Boston Globe Similar cuts at cultural institutions across the country have wrought damage far and wide. But the Trump administration's drive to abolish diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and, seemingly, to quash all efforts to illuminate Black experience, have hit Black cultural groups especially hard. Advertisement 'It has been an attack since January on this field,' said Vedet Coleman-Robinson, head of the Association of African American Museums, adding that corporate bookings and overall visitor numbers have fallen since Trump mounted his sustained assault on DEI efforts. 'While we have stamina, and while we are tenacious, I think that everybody is just trying to get to the next day.' For many, it is a moment of profound cultural whiplash. Black groups that saw a surge in interest in their work after the murder of George Floyd must now contend with the Trump administration's assertion that their elevation of Black culture is racist. And while other organizations can now simply soft-peddle, or even table, DEI initiatives, Black cultural groups are often mission-driven to present Black narratives of nuance and complexity. 'There's a target on my back,' said Trent, whose museum has campuses in Boston and Nantucket. 'We're all trying to figure out how to survive.' The effects are being felt well beyond the world of museums. Front Porch Arts Collective, a Black-led theater company in Boston, and Castle of our Skins, a Black musical arts group, were among a small cohort of up-and-coming New England cultural groups that recently lost sizable awards from a National Endowment for the Arts pilot program meant to support groups that had shown a ' Led by co-producing artistic directors Maurice Emmanuel Parent and Dawn M. Simmons, Front Porch has thrived in recent years. The theater troupe, which regularly works with more established companies to co-produce shows about the African diaspora, has sextupled its operating budget and now has seven employees, three of them full-time. Advertisement Dawn M. Simmons and Maurice Emmanuel Parent, co-producing artistic directors at Front Porch Arts Collective, had funding terminated by the NEA. Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff The $130,000 NEA grant was going to help them create a permanent home in Roxbury, fund salaries, and offer free community and education programs. Boston-based Castle of our Skins has made similar strides. The group, which collaborates with artists and organizations to present African diasporic music, garnered two NEA grants last year totaling $140,000. Then, in December, the group secured its own performance and events space to be built in the Lower Roxbury/South End neighborhood. Castle of our Skins co-founder and artistic director Ashleigh Gordon compared the last year to the 1980s-era video game 'Paperboy.' 'The whole point is that you're supposed to deliver the paper to someone's doorstep, and there's like a car, and a lawnmower, and a snake, and all these things sort of jumping out,' she said. 'We just want to build our organization, and then there's these things being thrown at us, which present their own Pandora's box of stresses.' Simmons (center) and Parent (foreground) at a rehearsal last year for 'A Strange Loop." Nile Scott Studios Front Porch's Parent said he began to worry their NEA funds might be in jeopardy after president Trump won the November election. 'I just kind of saw the writing on the wall,' said Parent, who like other grant recipients in the NEA pilot program received half the funds up front. He noted that part of the company's mission is 'to advance racial equity through theater.' 'Look at the population of people that run the organizations receiving these grants and the populations being served.' The Institute of Museum and Library Services grant cancellations Advertisement For Trent, whose Museum of African American History had already received a portion of the canceled grant, that includes whether schools will come for field trips at all. 'Is visiting us now a high risk activity?' she asked. 'Is there potential, given the circumstances, for a school to lose federal support?' Black leaders said they've also been frustrated by the Trump administration's stated position that DEI efforts are discriminatory. 'We are a Black theater company, but we have never said we're only for Black people,' said Parent. 'Having knowledge of our community makes our entire Commonwealth better, just like having knowledge of all communities makes us all better.' Simmons, who will become 'Somebody who's telling predominantly white stories wants us to come, wants us to see all of those stories,' she said. 'They think that there is a place for us there. Why would the reverse not be true?' Meanwhile, Parent, like many nonprofit leaders, has been watching closely Harvard University's showdown with president Trump, who's floated the idea of stripping the school's nonprofit status. 'Take nonprofit status away from organizations, and we would all fold,' he said. 'People get tax breaks for giving to us. If that goes away, we don't have enough revenue to keep going.' But Castle of our Skins executive director Ciyadh Wells said her organization will remain 'steadfast in our mission.' 'Our organization has been threatened, but we are going to continue,' said Wells, whose organization lost a total of $80,000 in canceled grants. 'If anything, it makes us double down.' Advertisement Castle of our Skins honors Fredrick Douglass with a performance at the Museum of African American History. Heather Diehl for the Boston Glo On a recent Sunday afternoon, Gordon and other Castle of our Skins musicians performed for a small crowd at the African Meeting House on Beacon Hill. The program -- which included works by Black composers interspersed with excerpts from Frederick Douglass's speech 'What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" -- was at once celebratory and defiant. It was just the sort of program the museum's founder, Sue Bailey Thurman, likely envisioned when she founded the museum nearly 60 years ago. 'This whole idea starts from a woman who arrives in 1953 and thinks that Black history in Boston should be marked and preserved,' Trent had said while seated in the Meeting House a few days earlier. 'You don't want to be the leader who had to close it down.' Ashleigh Gordan, viola player for Castle of our Skins, honored Fredrick Douglass with a performance at the Museum of African American History. Heather Diehl for the Boston Glo Malcolm Gay can be reached at
Axios
16-06-2025
- General
- Axios
New England site uses AR to preserve history this Juneteenth
An augmented reality-based website will help visitors peel back the layers of a historic — and nearly forgotten — burial ground in Portsmouth. It's one of several ways the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire is commemorating Juneteenth. The big picture: The African Burial Ground's AR project is the latest effort in New England to use emerging technology to bolster historic preservation and storytelling. The Museum of African American History launched an exhibit in February featuring an AI-powered hologram of abolitionist Frederick Douglass. The stories of Holocaust survivors will be retold long after they're gone thanks to holographic video displays in the upcoming Holocaust Museum Boston. State of play: The AR platform will be unveiled Thursday at Memorial Park to celebrate its tenth anniversary, says Janice Hastings, who oversees special projects for the trail. Visitors, who will get a link to the platform on-site, will see pages pop up on their phone as they walk from one bronze statue to the next, telling the history of abolitionism and the African Burial Ground in Portsmouth. At the center of this story is a piece of history nearly lost. More than 200 enslaved people's graves lay below the cement roads and were overlooked until city workers came across five coffins in 2003. (That discovery, and the efforts of local advocates such as Valerie Cunningham, ultimately led to the park's creation.) How it works: The AR platform tells stories ranging from the 1779 petition to abolish slavery in New Hampshire to efforts to preserve the African Burial Ground's legacy in the last two decades. What they're saying: Telling this history in a state known as majority-white keeps alive the often-forgotten stories of New Hampshire's communities of freed Blacks and their contributions, says JerriAnne Boggis, the trail's executive director. "It's not just Black history. The history that we look at, the history that we share, is part of the American culture," Boggis tells Axios. This year, the organization is focusing on "reclaiming the past" and "reshaping the future" as it celebrates Juneteenth. The organization last week hosted discussions featuring Black descendants of founding fathers. It also unveiled a headstone honoring Dinah Chase Whipple, who founded the first school in New Hampshire for Black children and married Prince Whipple, a Revolutionary War veteran. Friction point: That programming is harder at a time when the Trump administration is cracking down on anything labeled as diversity, equity and inclusion. New Hampshire passed a law barring the teaching of "divisive concepts," limiting lessons on race and gender. A federal judge struck down the law in May. Schools that once sent students on tours have shied away from the trail's programming, Boggis says. Yes, but: Boggis says the trail is intent on preserving history and sparking dialogue.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Trump's cultural overhaul throttles local arts, humanities programs nationwide
For 60 years, Boston's Museum of African American History has transported people to the past, letting visitors to a 200-year-old meeting house see where abolitionists like Frederick Douglass spoke and walk through halls where young Black soldiers once rallied to fight in the Civil War. But recently, the museum's history programs for schoolchildren were put at risk after the Trump administration canceled its federal grant, saying in a letter that the funding 'no longer serves the interest of the United States.' 'I will forever remember that line,' the museum's director, Dr. Noelle Trent, told CNN.'We were very much embedded into key moments of this country's history. How is that not of interest to the United States and the American people?' The museum had won a $500,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, one of the agencies at the center of President Donald Trump's cultural overhaul, to build its capacity to support school trips and educational programs. Now, the museum is planning for a future without the funds, Trent said. In Washington, Trump has forged ahead with efforts to exert control over which cultural pursuits the government backs, from taking the reins of the Kennedy Center to targeting 'improper ideology' at the Smithsonian. But his administration's push to align federal support with his cultural agenda – and combat what he sees as 'woke' ideology and 'anti-American propaganda'– has extended beyond the nation's capital. It has left museums like the Museum of African American History in Boston as well as libraries, archival projects, arts programs, and film festivals reeling after the IMLS and the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities canceled tens of millions of dollars in federal grants. Trump, who has promised to scale back the size of the federal government, has asked Congress to eliminate the agencies. If Congress grants his request, it will amount to an unprecedented gutting of federal support for arts and humanities. The National Endowment for the Arts helps fund everything from free music and theater programs to film festivals and literary magazines. The National Endowment for the Humanities supports research, historic sites, book programs, and museum exhibits. And the IMLS, which Trump deemed 'unnecessary' bureaucracy in March and ordered 'eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law,' pays for job training programs, interlibrary loans, and free e-book and audiobook services for libraries in rural areas. Several lawsuits across the country are challenging how the Trump administration is gutting or overhauling the grant programs at IMLS, NEA and NEH. The challengers have prevailed in some of the cases, but the administration is seeking to reverse the rulings against it. The African American history museum in Boston received a letter from IMLS on Wednesday indicating that the agency will adhere to a court order earlier this month from a federal judge in Rhode Island requiring it to reinstate grants. However, the reinstatement of the grant is contingent on an appeal, which is pending, the letter said. Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has touted some of the cuts on social media, declaring that NEH grants will be 'merit-based and awarded to non-DEI, pro-America causes' going forward. A lawsuit filed by the American Historical Association and other groups alleges that two DOGE employees 'demanded lists of open NEH grants and then indiscriminately terminated the vast majority of the grants.' Conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation have long argued that arts and humanities programs shouldn't receive taxpayer money because they have enough financial support from private sources. The Trump administration has already started to redirect federal funding towards cultural initiatives the president backs. A portion of canceled NEH funds will help pay for The National Garden of Heroes, a sculpture garden Trump first floated in 2020. Slated to be completed in time for the nation's 250th anniversary next year, it will feature '250 great individuals from America's past,' according to a release. 'We're going to be honoring our heroes, honoring the greatest people from our country. We're not going to be tearing down. We're going to be building up,' Trump said in February. The IMLS, NEA and NEH did not respond to a request for comment on this story. As the Trump administration shifts its priorities, arts advocates say programming for children is at risk. In Nebraska, String Sprouts, a 'no-to-low-cost' music education program hosted by the Omaha Conservatory of Music, had received an NEA grant for a decade. Now, the group may be forced to scale back the number of classes it offers, according to Neidy Hess, the conservatory communication's manager. In New York, Opera on Tap's Playground Opera program, which immerses students in low-income communities in production and performance, will also have to be dialed back without federal support, co-founder and general director Anne Hiatt told CNN. Meanwhile, the South Dakota Humanities Council lost $950,000, or 73% of its total budget. While it will be able to continue some programming, it may have to stop its Young Reader Program, which provides free books to third-graders, said the council's executive director, Christina Oey. Oey's group is one of the 56 councils across the country that saw their general operating and support grants slashed in April. She said the National Garden of Heroes project won't have the same kind of reach as the programs and events councils put on, particularly in rural communities. 'Yes, a monument is educational. It can provide learning opportunities, but you have to travel to that. I mean, I can attest to that in South Dakota: Mount Rushmore is five and a half hours away from me, right?' she said. 'If you fund the humanities, you also fund programming that can change, that can travel, that can be in your community.' While South Dakota Humanities Council has received some emergency funding from the Mellon Foundation, a private foundation for the arts and humanities, some councils that are more reliant on federal funds say they could close if Congress grants Trump's proposal to gut the NEH. National History Day, a nonprofit that hosts a nationwide competition for students in grades 6-12 to present their own historical research projects, may not have as many participants without federal support, executive director Cathy Gorn said. 'Kids, when they study history effectively, they learn empathy, and we really need a whole lot more of that in this country, in this world,' Gorn said. 'And so, losing this opportunity is a real crisis for American education. For Trent, the museum director in Boston, the impact of the Trump administration is more than federal funding cuts. She said corporate support started drying up after the president took office, a trend she blames partly on his efforts to quash diversity, equity and inclusion programs. When asked why taxpayer dollars should go to museums like the one she leads, Trent said they make communities unique and leave a positive impact on visitors. 'There are places all across this great country, that have really great programs, that have qualitatively changed to peoples lives,' she explained. On a recent trip to the museum, seventh grader Excel Alabi found herself moved by the stories about young people around her age fighting to end slavery in the Civil War. 'They were fighting for us. I think that's really beautiful,' she told CNN. 'When I was starting school, it was just like 'People are going to war to fight for rights.' I didn't know that it was teenagers trying to fight for their families too.' 'It's important for kids to learn history because it's just such a big impact on what we've been through,' she added. 'I think we should face those tough subjects because those tough subjects are the reason why we're here.' CNN's Tierney Sneed and Emily Condon contributed to this report.
Boston Globe
03-04-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
‘Working on hope': Executive order ushers in era of uncertainty for cultural organizations
The little-known agency awarded $8.5 million to Massachusetts institutions in fiscal year 2024 — supporting everything from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners and the Museum of African American History to local historical societies and Zoo New England. Advertisement The full extent of the order remains unclear, but on Monday the IMLS placed nearly all of its roughly Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Massachusetts library and museum leaders said lack of clarity has thrust their organizations into a state of profound uncertainty. Grant recipients say they're unsure whether they'll receive the rest of their awarded funds, which often come as reimbursements, making it difficult to chart a course forward for critical programs and initiatives, many of which they've already launched. 'There's a lot that we just don't know,' said Noelle Trent, president and chief executive of the Museum of African American History, with locations in Boston and Nantucket. The museum, which Trent said has an annual operating budget around $3 million, landed a $500,000 IMLS grant last year, its largest federal award in recent memory. Advertisement The grant was intended to help fund four full-time positions that would develop field trip offerings, outreach, and programming at the museum's historic sites. The Museum of African American History is one of numerous Massachusetts-based cultural organizations that may be affected by President Trump's changes to the Institute of Museum and Library Services. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff/file 'It's daunting because we're not sure if we will receive the remainder of the money,' said Trent, whose organization received a tranche of the grant prior to the executive order. 'Our intention is to move forward, because this was the linchpin to our growth as an organization.' The state's largest single IMLS grant recipient — at $3.6 million last year — is the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners. The MBLC uses the funds to support a variety of statewide programs, including research databases, the interlibrary loan service, and the ebook platform LEA. MBLC director Maureen Amyot said cuts to its IMLS funding 'would be felt across the entire state.' 'These services are so heavily used by residents that cuts to the funding would have an impact on every single community,' she said. 'These are services that it would be really difficult for us to absorb into our budget.' Barb Fecteau, a librarian at Beverly High School, said nearly every one of her students uses the research databases the Board of Library Commissioners provides with IMLS support, calling them 'paramount.' 'This is something that's available to every kid in the state,' said Fecteau, who is also president of the Massachusetts School Library Association. She added that most districts wouldn't be able to afford the databases on their own. 'It's just a huge amount of resources we'd be losing.' Advertisement An MBLC spokesperson said Thursday that while some states have received letters to inform them their IMLS grants are terminated, 'we have not received ours yet.' She added that the state agency is planning to cut some services, though the reductions will not immediately affect interlibrary loans, research databases, or the ebook platform. Established in 1996, the The executive order has been criticized by numerous national library and museum groups, which have urged the administration to reconsider. In a statement immediately following Trump's order, the American Library Association called the order ' The agency's board has also weighed in on the matter, stating in 'All such statutory obligations may not be discontinued or delayed under an Executive Order or other executive action,' wrote the board. The IMLS did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Following his installation last month as IMLS's acting director, Sonderling said the agency would 'focus on patriotism, ensuring we preserve our country's core values, promote American exceptionalism and cultivate love of country in future generations.' Changes to the IMLS come as President Trump has sought greater influence in the cultural sphere, taking particular aim at 'wokeism.' He seized control of the Kennedy Center in February, and last week he signed a separate Advertisement Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, executive director and chief executive of the Peabody Essex Museum, said the IMLS has awarded the Salem institution more than $2.4 million over the past 25 years, including two recent grants totaling $500,000. 'IMLS funding plays a crucial role in supporting PEM's mission,' Hartigan said in a statement to the Globe. She added that the awards have gone toward things such as public accessibility and educational programs for area students. 'Without this support, museums like ours — and many others across the country — could face challenges in maintaining the high standards of care, scholarship, and accessibility that our visitors rely on.' Sebastian Belfanti, executive director of the West End Museum, is concerned about a $75,000 award from the IMLS. Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff Any potential loss of funding would be particularly hard for smaller organizations, some of which rely on IMLS grants to finance staff positions or implement growth-related programs. Boston's West End Museum received a $75,000 grant last year, a sizable award for the neighborhood museum with an annual operating budget of around $500,000. Executive director Sebastian Belfanti said the grant, which funds numerous pilot programs, is key to the museum's long-term growth plan. 'They're not programs that we have any intention of canceling,' said Belfanti. He added that he received notice late Wednesday night that the NEH had terminated a separate $25,000 award to the museum. Belfanti said if the IMLS award doesn't come through, he'll be in the difficult position of having to fund-raise once an event or program has ended. 'We are just working on hope,' he said. 'It isn't a viable strategy to stop.' Advertisement Malcolm Gay can be reached at
