As the city of New Orleans celebrates its 300th anniversary, the Amistad Research Center is assisting efforts to ensure that the city’s African American history and heritage are recognized. The Center has contributed to a multi-organizational effort to create a series of citywide exhibitions and programming events throughout the community.
Amistad’s current onsite exhibition, entitled “The Things We Do For Ourselves: African American Civic Leadership in the Crescent City,” runs from through September 28, 2018. This exhibition is detailed in a recent blog post by Reference Archivist Chianta Dorsey. In Fall 2018, the Center will host an exhibition open house and lecture related to the topic. Amistad will round out the tricentennial year with the exhibition “‘A Peculiarly Segregated City...’: The Civil Rights Movement in New Orleans,” which will run from October 8, 2018 to February 22, 2019.
Both exhibitions are being held in conjunction with Amistad’s role in the New Orleans Arts & Culture Coalition (NOAAC). NOAAC is a coalition of community organizations that has sought to ensure that New Orleans’ African American experience is represented in the city’s tricentennial celebrations. The coalition has produced citywide exhibitions and programming on this topic, with the main exhibition, entitled “African Heritage of New Orleans: 300 Years in the Making,” opening at the Historic New Orleans Collection in the French Quarter on June 1, 2018.
The exhibition features artwork, historical documents, and artifacts collected in three galleries to tell the story of the colonial and enslavement period, Reconstruction Era, and the Civil Rights Movement in New Orleans. Contributing to the exhibition are: The Amistad Research Center, Southern University at New Orleans’ Center for African American Studies, The Dillard University Ray Charles Program in African American Material Culture, The Historic New Orleans Collection, LaBelle Gallerie, Louisiana Civil Rights Museum, The Louisiana Creole Research Association, Louisiana Museum of African American History, Louisiana Research Collection at Tulane University, The McKenna Museums, New Orleans African American Museum, New Orleans Jazz Museum, New Orleans Public Library, OperaCréole, The Plessy and Ferguson Foundation, Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans, and Xavier University of Louisiana.
The opening reception at the Historic New Orleans Collection boasted close to 200 people and the exhibition has been viewed by over 480 visitors since the opening. Details on the main exhibition, satellite exhibitions, and related programming can be found here.
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