09/03/2026
As this country moves through its 250th commemoration, we are all being asked to sit with a harder question. What does 250 years mean when your ancestors arrived here in 1619, more than 150 years before there was a country to celebrate? That is not a question with one answer, and it belongs to all of us to reflect on and discuss together.
That question is at the center of A Compromised Freedom: 250 Years of Black Life in Virginia, on view now.
Late last month marked the anniversary of the arrival at Point Comfort. About twenty and odd Africans, as John Rolfe recorded it, the first documented on this land. That moment came and went quietly for most people. It should not have.
Thank you to everyone who held something. A ceremony, a program, a post, a moment of silence, a conversation at your own kitchen table. Acknowledgment and remembrance are not small acts. They are how a date stays alive instead of passing us by.
The anniversary passes. The work does not...
Join us at Black History Museum of Virginia- open Wed thru Sat 10am to 5pm for this powerful exhibition while it's here.
Wednesday through Saturday, 10 AM to 5 PM
122 W. Leigh Street · Jackson Ward
blackhistorymuseum.org
This is The White Lion, the ship that carried them. Come remember with us, and come learn something you did not know.
About the artist and the making:
The White Lion was built in 2025 by Marcus Dueñas inside Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt and Nottoway Correctional Center in Burkeville, between February and April of that year.
He built it from toilet paper, instant coffee, powdered creamer, bedsheet threads, floor wax, and black acrylic paint. Everything within reach, and nothing more.
He has said that making it under constant threat of confiscation was itself an act of resilience, and that in a place designed to limit individuality, art became a way to preserve his humanity.
Inspired by Nikole Hannah-Jones’ The 1619 Project and on loan from her collection.
Check out our Black History Museum of Virginia- open Wed thru Sat 10am to 5pm gift shop!
