02/23/2020
Thank you to everyone who visited us during School Vacation Week and a special thank you to the Red Sox Foundation for providing free admission for the week!
Museum of African American History - Boston and Nantucket
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Nestled on Boston’s Beacon Hill and at Nantucket’s Five Corners are some of the nation’s most important National Historic Landmarks. The Museum’s two campuses feature the earliest churches and schools still standing in the land that were built by and for black communities. Each is beautifully restored and worthy of any journey. Our historic sites, talks, tours, videos, collections, and programs are rooted in the past and connected to the present.
From the American Revolution to the Abolitionist and Niagara Movements, experience powerful American stories through a new lens. Come to the Museum, where Frederick Douglass and pioneering activists, entrepreneurs, journalists, educators, artists, and authors organized campaigns that changed the nation.
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The Museum of African American History is New England’s largest museum dedicated to preserving, conserving and interpreting the contributions of African Americans. In Boston and Nantucket, the Museum has preserved four historic sites and two Black Heritage Trails® that tell the story of organized black communities from the Colonial Period through the 19th century.
Mission: The mission of the Museum of African American History is to preserve and interpret the contributions of people of African descent and those who have found common cause with them in the struggle for liberty and justice for all Americans.
02/22/2020
On Friday, February 28th on our Nantucket Campus, the Museum will host a community roundtable: “Hair Love, Chris Rock, & California’s CROWN Act on African American hair and hairstyles.” Join us to watch Hair Love, an Oscar-winning short animated film by Matthew A. Cherry, and listen to personal narratives from black island residents on how their hair shapes their identity and experiences. 5:30-6:00pm
02/21/2020
In this article published in the New York Times on March 3, 1945, Boston’s major baseball teams are warned to integrate or risk not being issued Sunday game licenses.
02/21/2020
Many thanks to the Yawkey Foundations! Their three years of support for the Museum’s educational programs helped make it possible for 18,763 young people to participate since 2017.
02/20/2020
DATE: Wednesday, February 26th I TIME: 5:30 – 6PM
Location: 27 York Street I Free Admission I Donations Accepted
How well do you know African, African American, and black history? Join us inside our Boston - Higginbotham House (built circa. 1774) to test your knowledge of history. In collaboration with the Museum's Director of Education ft Interpretation, L'Merchie Frazier, the Nantucket Associate Director and a guest host will ask attendees 25 questions about black history, with a focus on Nantucket and the United States' African American history. Don't miss what promises to be a fun evening as the Museum rarely hosts events inside our historic house.
Winner will receive The Slave's Cause: A History of Abolition by Manisha Sinha, second place will get a Museum mug, and third place will receive a Museum keychain.
02/20/2020
WGBH
WGBH
#LunchHourLive returns to the Boston Public Library this week as "Eric in the Afternoon" host Eric Jackson sits down with Director of Education and Interpretation from the Museum of African American History - Boston and Nantucket, L’Merchie Frazier, and Bank of America's Vice President of Art & Heritage Program Manager, Kerry Miles, to discuss the MAAH's new photography exhibits "Jazz Greats" and "Jazz Scene in Boston."
If you can't make it to the BPL, stream the entire panel discussion this Thursday at noon right here via FB Live!
02/19/2020
During our “The Color of Baseball in Boston” exhibit in 2012, we exhibited the uniform of Will “Cannonball” Jackman, which is part of the Museum's permanent collection. He wore this uniform at Will Jackman Night at Carter Playground on July 14, 1971.
02/18/2020
#TransformationTuesday During the 2006-2011 African Meeting House restoration, the entire balcony had to be gutted. We think it came out pretty well!
Images Courtesy of Shawmut Construction & Design
02/17/2020
Happy Presidents’ Day! The administrative office is CLOSED today. The Museum on Joy Street is open 10-4pm with free admission to general visitors as part of a generous grant from the Red Sox Foundation!
02/16/2020
In 2012, the Museum of African American History had “The Color of Baseball in Boston” exhibit on display! This week, we will be highlighting that exhibit in honor of free admission during School Vacation Week, provided by the Red Sox Foundation! Sam Jethroe became the first black Boston Brave in 1950, and won Rookie of the Year honors at age 33.
Image Courtesy of Boston Public Library
02/15/2020
Tuesday, February 25th from 6-7pm: Join us for a night at our Nantucket Campus!
The Museum invites the Nantucket community to a free visitation of the African Meeting House and Boston — Higginbotham House. In honor of Black History Month 2020, we welcome all to a rare event: Night at MAAH Museum.
Associate Director, Kimal McCarthy, will lead attendees in a campus tour of the historic sites and our three outbuildings. Participants are encouraged to bring a flashlight to the historic house. Attendees to this program will be the first to contribute to MAAH’s Nantucket Suggestions Box, which seeks to cultivate ideas on new ways to utilize our island campus.
02/14/2020
Frederick Douglass, whose birth date is unknown, chose to celebrate his birthday on February 14th because he was his mother's "little valentine." Happy Birthday, Frederick Douglass!
02/13/2020
Our Nantucket site is celebrating Black History Month with a week of special programming! Beginning on February 24th at 12:00pm at the Learning Lab at 1 India Street Join Atheneum staff and MAAH’s Associate Director, Kimal McCarthy, for information on library materials focused on black history and to watch interview videos by African American authors. A selection of Nantucket Atheneum books by African American and black authors will be available for viewing and check-out on the main floor of the library.
Admission free and to the public
Image of African Meeting House Courtesy of National Trust for Historic Preservation, Joseph Ferraro
02/12/2020
#OnThisDay in 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded in response to the appalling violence experienced by the black community. Some 60 people (7 of whom were African American) signed the call which was released on the centennial of Abraham Lincoln's birthday. The purpose of the organization was and continues to be "to ensure the political, educational, social and economic equality of minority group citizens of United States and eliminate race prejudice." W.E.B DuBois was the only African American among the organization's executives and established "The Crisis," the official journal of the NAACP. This year, the annual NAACP convention will be in Boston!
Learn more about the organization: http://naacp.org
02/11/2020
Frederick Douglass was one of 32 men to attend the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. He was also the only black person. Douglass was a champion of women's rights his whole life. He spoke at several women’s rights events throughout his life and his daughter, Rosetta, was a founder of the National Colored Women’s Association. On “The North Star,” Douglass’ newspaper, masthead it reads: “Right is of no sex – Truth is of no color.” Image Courtesy of The Library of Congress
02/11/2020
City of Boston
City of Boston
The Black Heritage Trail weaves through Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood and features the historic sites of those who helped free America from slavery. For #BlackHistoryMonth, we give you a virtual taste of what it's like to walk the trail and some of the incredible landmarks you'll see along the way. #MoreThanAMonth
Boston.gov/black-history-bos
Boston.gov/boston-uncovered
02/10/2020
#MondayMotivation
02/09/2020
Thanks to a generous grant from the Red Sox Foundation, general admission to the Boston Campus is FREE during school vacation week (February 17th-21st)! Please call for group and program rates
02/08/2020
We were honored to be one of the 8 historic wedding venues featured in the @BostonGlobeMag article! For more information on how you can get married at the African Meeting House, visit our website at https://www.maah.org/facility_rentals and check out the other historic venues in the article: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/01/17/magazine/eight-historic-new-england-wedding-venues-your-big-day/
Image Courtesy of Shawmut Construction & Design
02/07/2020
#FridayFeeling
02/06/2020
Join us on Nantucket on February 29th for “A Leap Day Revival: Actor Neville Richen as Absalom Boston!” At 3:30pm at the African Meeting House on Nantucket, longtime theater actor and Museum supporter, Neville Richen, reprises his one-man-act as Nantucket’s famous native son, Captain Absalom Boston. Captain Boston is well-known for setting sail with an all-black crew from Nantucket on the Industry in 1822. Post voyage, Boston played a critical role in effecting change for Nantucket Island’s African American community. Neville Richen has lived on Nantucket for many years and over time he has come to personally appreciate Boston’s contribution to black history. A seasoned Broadway actor with behind-the-stage theater experience, Richen revives his interpretation on the life of Absalom Boston in the form of a monologue play.
Image of Absalom Boston courtesy of Nantucket Historical Association
02/05/2020
Today we honor Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, author, poet, public speaker, & suffragist! Born in 1825, Watkins Harper published her fist collection of poems Forrest Leaves in 1845. She became increasingly involved in the abolition cause after her home state of Maryland passed a fugitive slave law which allowed even free blacks to be sold into slavery. She then went on to speak publicly against slavery and became an Underground Railroad conductor. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper gave lectures and toured with the American Anti-Slavery Society alongside Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison. She continued writing poems, short-stories, novels, and co-founded the National Association of Colored Women which sought to improve the lives of African American women. Watkins Harper was a supporter of the American Woman Suffrage Association, founded in Boston. She supported the 15th Amendment, which gave black men the right to vote. Other suffragists, such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, were not supporters of the amendment. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper once said, “When it was a question of race I let the lesser question of sex go. But the white women all go for sex letting race occupy a minor position.” She also said in a speech at the 11th National Women’s Rights Convention in NYC in 1866, “While there exists this brutal element in society which tramples upon the feeble and treads down the weak, I tell you that if there is any class of people who need to be lifted out of their airy nothings and selfishness, it is the white women of America.” Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was not mentioned in Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony’s “History of Women’s Suffrage.”
02/04/2020
We were delighted to have Eric Jackson, Bill Pierce , Terri Lyne & Matt “Sonny “ Carrington on our panel for “Celebrating Jazz Through the Decades” last week! Thank you to our speakers, JazzBoston for providing reception music, and everyone who came to the event
02/03/2020
Wendell Phillips, a Boston abolitionist born in 1811, was known as abolition’s “golden trumpet.”
Phillips practiced law in Boston, but gave up his promising career to dedicate himself to the radical transformation of American Society. He gave lectures at the African Meeting House, wrote for “The Liberator” newspaper and donated funds to the cause of abolition. Phillips was also a supporter of women’s rights. He attended the National Convention of Women’s Rights in 1850 in Worchester, Massachusetts. In 1846 he wrote to “The Liberator”, “I have always thought that the first right restored to woman would be that of the full and unfettered control of all her property and earnings, whether she were married or unmarried. This, too, is, in one sense, the most important to be secured. The responsibility of such a trust at once develops character and intellect, and goes far to afford the hitherto mission and indispensable motive to education. Next in order of importance and time, comes the ballot. So it has always been with all disfranchised classes; first property – then political influence and rights; the first prepares for, gives weight to, challenges, finally secures the second.”
02/02/2020
Our sculpture “In Memory of Mary Turner As A Silent Protest Against Mob Violence” by Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller is part of the “Black Citizenship in the Age of Jim Crow” exhibit! This exhibit, curated by the New-York Historical Society, is now travelling and is currently on display at the Atlanta History Center through June 30th! Check out the sculpture while it’s on-view!
https://www.atlantahistorycenter.com/explore/exhibitions/black-citizenship-in-the-age-of-jim-crow
02/01/2020
Happy Black History Month! We will be posting everyday this month, starting with a quote from the father of Black History and founder of Negro History Week, which would later become Black History Month, Carter G. Woodson.
01/31/2020
#OnThisDay in 1865 the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude, was passed by the House of Representatives by a vote of 119 to 56. The 13th Amendment would be ratified by the Senate on December 6th, 1865. Image Courtesy of The Library of Congress
01/30/2020
Thanks to a generous grant from the Red Sox Foundation, admission to the Boston Campus is FREE during school vacation week (February 17th-21st)!
01/28/2020
The Museum of African American History will open at 12pm today.
01/27/2020
We’re still buzzing from the full house we had at Faneuil Hall to celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.! Thank you to everyone who came out to support us and the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras Intensive Community Program, a wonderful partner in this fabulous event.
01/24/2020
Published #OnThisDay in “The Liberator” in 1862, Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic” lyrics. “Battle Hymn of the Republic” was formerly “John Brown’s Body.”
01/22/2020
Spirit & Song: Handel and Haydn Society performs Emancipation Proclamation Concert - The Bay State Banner
Thank you to everyone who came to our annual Jubilee Day concert at Trinity Church! It was Handel & Haydn's 2500th concert! A special thank you to the Bay State Banner for this write up and pictures.
https://www.baystatebanner.com/2020/01/08/spirit-song-handel-and-haydn-society-performs-emancipation-proclamation-concert/
On Dec. 31 at Trinity Church in Boston, the Handel and Haydn Society performed its 2,500th concert. Fittingly, it was the annual Jubilee Day Concert celebrating the emancipation of slaves in the United States, this year sporting its new name, the Emancipation Proclamation Concert.
01/22/2020
Thank you to Jazz Boston for supplying the music for our reception tonight we loved the Laszlo Gardony, Ronald Mahdi & Yoron Israel trio!
01/21/2020
Bill Pierce, Matthew “Sonny” Carrington, Eric Jackson, & President & CEO of MAAH Leon Wilson get ready for our event “Celebrating Jazz Through the Decades!”
01/21/2020
We had a fabulous time celebrating MLK Day with the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras! Thank you to all who came out
Thank you to everyone who helped us completely fill the Great Hall at Faneuil Hall for our annual MLK, Jr. Tribute Concert in collaboration with the Museum of African American History - Boston and Nantucket. This was such a beautiful day with people from all over the community coming together to honor the legacy of MLK. Fantastic job to our musicians, readers, speakers, and all of our audience members who contributed their voices in the sing-a-long. We think MLK would have been so happy to see what was created at Faneuil Hall yesterday by everyone present.
Photo Credit: Kelly Davidson Studio
#BYSO #ICP #MuseumOfAfricanAmericanHistory #MLK #MLKDay #FaneuilHall #Concert
01/21/2020
TONIGHT at 6:00pm
Register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/celebrating-jazz-through-the-decades-tickets-88560870949
01/20/2020
Tonight at 6:00pm at Summer Street Baptist Church | One Summer Street on Nantucket : The Nantucket Interfaith Council and Museum of African American History invites you to celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. King as a community on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Come to this event to hear the words of Dr. King, see artistic performances, and learn from personal reflections on how messages of Dr. King has impacted speakers individual. The Museum’s associate director and Northeastern University doctoral candidate, Kimal McCarthy, will welcome the audience and share a brief reflection.
01/20/2020
TODAY at 1:00pm at Faneuil Hall, join us and the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras Intensive Community Program for the annual Day of Celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr!
01/19/2020
TOMORROW at 1pm at Faneuil Hall: Join the Museum and the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra’s Incentive Community Program to celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
01/18/2020
We are 3 days away from our “Celebrating Jazz Through the Decades” event! This event is free and open to the public! Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/celebrating-jazz-through-the-decades-tickets-88560870949
01/17/2020
Monday, January 20th at 6:00pm at the Summer Street Baptist Church on Nantucket: The Nantucket Interfaith Council and Museum of African American History invites you to celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. King as a community on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Come to this event to hear the words of Dr. King, see artistic performances, and learn from personal reflections on how messages of Dr. King has impacted speakers individual. The Museum’s associate director and Northeastern University doctoral candidate, Kimal McCarthy, will welcome the audience and share a brief reflection.
01/16/2020
"Much of the power of our Freedom Movement in the United States has come from this music. It has strengthened us with its sweet rhythms when courage began to fail. It has calmed us with its rich harmonies when spirits were down." -MLK on the power of Jazz
Join us in 4 days!
Address
46 Joy St
Boston, MA
02114
General information
Admission: Adults- $10 Youth (13-17) and Seniors (62+)- $8 Members and Children 12 and under- Free Group rate (20+ people)- $3.50 per person in group Hours: Mondays-Saturdays 10AM-4PM Twitter: https://twitter.com/MAAHMuseum Instagram: https://instagram.com/maahmuseum/
Opening Hours
| Monday | 10:00 - 16:00 |
| Tuesday | 10:00 - 16:00 |
| Wednesday | 10:00 - 16:00 |
| Thursday | 10:00 - 16:00 |
| Friday | 10:00 - 16:00 |
| Saturday | 10:00 - 16:00 |
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Videos
Q&A with our esteemed artists!
Our John Hancock MLK Summer Scholars are presenting at the Robert Gould Shaw and the MA 54th Regiment Memorial!
Jazz Before Sunset
Check out this video from the first Jazz Before Sunset concert on June 30th! Thank you to everyone who came out, we hope you enjoyed the show. The series continues at the African Meeting House on Nantucket on Saturday, July 28th. Hosted by Kathy and Neville Richen, the concert series will feature popular musicians like-- Nigel Goss (bass), ECliff Graves (drums), Aidan Sherry (guitar), Jason Sullivan (guitar) and friends taking the stage. Concerts will take place the last Saturday of every month May thru October at the African Meeting House. Please join us and bring friends and family to enjoy a delightful evening with this spirited jazz quartet. You don’t want to miss a chance to experience live music in this space! Admission by donation; suggested donation: $10 #ACK
Living Legends Awards
The African Meeting House: A Living Ancestor
Check out this poem the amazingly, talented poet, Regie Gibson, wrote about the African Meeting House! This video was first shown at our Annual Living Legends Awards Gala last year.
Check out this acrostic poem our John Hancock MLK Summer Scholars made as the opening to their Black Heritage Trail poetry video! They chose words that they felt described Black History
#TBT to Regie Gibson at the African Meeting House in July! For this performance, Regie performed spoken word inspired by the African Meeting House. September 28th, Regie will return and perform alongside Castle of our Skins in Black Orators: By Word and By Pen. Get your tickets today: http://ow.ly/ybJC30ezMfw
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Our Story
The Museum of African American History inspires all generations to embrace and interpret the authentic stories of New Englanders of African descent, and those who found common cause with them, in their quest for freedom and justice. Through its historic buildings, collections, and programs, the Museum expands cultural understanding and promotes dignity and respect for all. .
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Comments
Caribbean roots? You don’t want to miss this
I am surprised that more information is not mentioned on your page about the 54th Mass. Reenactors, Company A, They are the ones that are sill keeping the true story of the 'Regiment' alive. They have been active since the movie 'Glory' premiered, and are still here in Readville, Mass to 'Represent'
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Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant was an inspiration to many great men including Nantucket's own Legendary Football Coach Vito Capizzo and Football greats from Nathan to Namath. Together with Hank Erwin (who will speak after the film), they change the face of a team, a community, & a nation. FREE
Join I Am Harriet! We Want to Hear From EVERYONE at the Community Listening Session! There are Alternatives! NO More Luxury Condos, called Tubman Place! Did you help build the Harriet Tubman ~ Brick by Brick -- We REALLY want to hear from you! What programs did you take, did you get your GED here, did you go to the daycare that used to be at the Harriet Tubman, what events, art exhibits, political or community meetings did you attend or host at the Harriet Tubman House, What Memories do you HAVE ~ WE WANT TO HEAR IT ALL! We Are All Harriet 💛