Museums Advancing Racial Justice Convening: About Us

This work is a partnership between the Smithsonian Institution and the Science Museum of MInnesota through the Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past Initiative made possible by funding from the Bank of America.

We recognize that our ability to thoughtfully host this convening at the Science Museum of Minnesota is made possible by the formally and not always formally recognized work of individuals and organized groups of people dating far back into this history of museums and cultural organizations presence within the United States. Many museums and cultural organizations exist as intentional acts of racial justice, telling the stories of people and communities that have been resisting racial inequities throughout history. These institutions and the people who lead them, regardless of their size, notoriety or access to financial resources are essential caretakers, preventing important pieces of our racialized history across the United States from being forgotten. Museum professionals have also led many movements and coalitions in recent history who have pushed racial justice work forward within and beyond our museum institutions. 

As project leaders from the Science Museum of Minnesota, our work on this convening stands on the shoulders of colleagues we have come to know over the past 15-20 years. We recognize the foundational work of developing the Race: Are We So Different? exhibition and associated community-based programming that has been led by SMM colleagues and our Museum Access & Equity department since 2007. As museum staff who have come into the museum field over the past 5-10 years Our convening planning work has been impacted and informed by the racial equity focused work of collectives such as Museums & Race, Museums as Sites for Social Action, Museum Hue, Incluseum, Museums Respond to Ferguson. We acknowledge and appreciate the work others have and are doing to advance racial justice across the United States.

We have done this work in our local community and shared it with the many institutions who have hosted the exhibition. Now we want to come together as a community of museum and cultural organization practitioners to learn from each other and take collective action to keep advancing racial justice work through our organizations.  

The project is being implemented with heavy contributions from groups of expert advisors nationwide: one group advising on the application process, another advising on content development. Additionally, this project has a dedicated group of evaluation professionals.

Project Leads

Deborah Mack - Director, Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past - Smithsonian Institution

Joanne Jones-Rizzi - Vice President, Science, Equity, and Education Division - Science Museum of Minnesota

Travis Helms - Project Director, Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past - Smithsonian Institution

Robby Callahan Schreiber - Director, Museum Access and Equity - Science Museum of Minnesota

Kendra Eull - Executive Assistant, Science, Equity, and Education Division - Science Museum of Minnesota

David Valentine - Program Manager, Museum Access of Equity - Science Museum of Minnesota

Liz Hughes - Project Manager, Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past - Smithsonian Institution

Advisors

Elisabeth Callihan - Application Advisor - Mississippi Museum of Art

Jennifer Himmelreich - Application Advisor - Institute of Museum and Library Services

Robert Luckett - Application Advisor - Margaret Walker Center, Jackson State University

Ahmad Ward - Application Advisor - Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park

Aletheia Wittman - Content Advisor - Museum Consultant

Leslie Walker - Content Advisor - Smithsonian Institution

nikhil trivedi - Content Advisor - Art Institute of Chicago

Brenda Tindal - Content Advisor - Harvard Museums of Science and Culture

Contributors

Evaluation

Pei Koay - Assistant Director, Research & Evaluation, Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past - Smithsonian Institution

Evelyn Ronning - Research and Evaluation Associate - Science Museum of Minnesota

Marjorie Bequette - Director of Research and Evaluation - Science Museum of Minnesota