The Museum of Social Justice & Contemporary Activism
The Museum of Social Justice and Contemporary Activism (MSJ) is a national museum exclusively dedicated to exhibiting and incubating activism in the United States and beyond. Our inaugural Racial Justice Collection (“collection” or “inaugural collection”) will collect, curate, and exhibit materials from racial justice movements, past and present.
While the collection will include materials from a wide range of racial justice movements and organizations, it will emphasize radical formations that are often excluded from the mainstream story of black freedom struggle. Materials will include, but not be limited to: posters, pamphlets, clothing, protest signs, videos, photography, campaign documents, memorabilia, and meeting notes. The project is threefold.
This may take the form of an art exhibit, an immersive experience, or a children friendly gathering, such as an activist “show and tell” where the materials serve as educational tools for young people and their families. This project addresses the problem by curating and caring for the aforementioned materials that are currently unorganized, stuck online, or subject to co-optation by elite institutions.
PROBLEM ANALYSIS
It is a problem that easily goes unnoticed: our movement’s most precious materials are collecting dust, vulnerable to weather conditions, or stuck online. Who will collect and care for them? The lack of a national effort to curate racial justice movement materials impacts current generations of activists, students, and educators, as well as future generations who will inherit the responsibility to continue the tradition of freedom struggle.
Historically, racial justice organizations such as the Black Panther Party, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee preserved their materials, recognizing the value of activist archives, for internal purposes of strengthening the work of the organization, and external purposes of strengthening the vision of the movement.
Because of their intentionality, contemporary activists, students, and the like have the luxury of learning about and being inspired by their campaigns, papers, visions, art, and culture. Yet, even these materials, particularly those from more radical formations, are either unorganized, co-opted by elite institutions, or left out of the mainstream narrative. As such, the stories of our struggles and strivings, are not told by those who authored the movement.
Impact
First, the collection will help build the gallery wing of the Museum of Social Justice. The gallery will feature physical and virtual exhibits from the inaugural collection that showcase the history, urgency, and possibility of social justice activism.
Additionally, MSJ will use the collection to shift the public’s understanding of and engagement with educational, cultural, and political figures and campaigns from the past and present. Our visitors will learn about new heroes, struggles, and solidarities that emerge from Black and multi-racial activism in the United States and beyond.
Building this collection for the public not only contributes to their individual learning, but also functions as a safe harbor for the types of racial justice education, like Critical Race Theory, that local governments are currently banning throughout the country.
