Resources

NMAAHC Founding Director Lonnie Bunch highlights stories behind iconic objects in the Slavery and Freedom exhibition

Museum visitors share their stories and reflections on the Slavery and Freedom exhibition

Historians and other experts discuss the impact of the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation

Advancing the understanding of slavery and its enduring legacies, through research, scholarship, and outreach programs

Using innovative technology to preserve, share, and expand access to African American history and culture

Discover ways to celebrate this African American cultural tradition of music, food and freedom

Explore and help transcribe records about the lives of newly freed people during Reconstruction

Search the Museum’s online collection for artifacts related to the history of slavery

A photograph reveals a story of kinship bonds that survived bondage

Enslaved Muslims used their faith and bilingual literacy to build community, resist slavery, and pursue freedom

Clara Ellis Payne’s family heirlooms trace back to ancestors who were enslaved by President James Madison

Search the Museum’s online collection for items related to historical and contemporary activism

Search the Museum’s online collection for items related to education

Search the Museum’s online collection for items related to business, entrepreneurship, and the pursuit of economic independence

Search the Museum’s online collection for items related to religion and faith practices

Search the Museum’s online collection for items related to African American organizations

Search the Museum’s online collection for items related to the history of publishing and the Black press

Oral history interviews with unsung activists of the 1950s and 1960s, produced by NMAAHC and the Library of Congress

A series of public programs presented by NMAAHC examining race, justice, and community activism

Through innovative scholarship, public programs, and collecting, NMAAHC’s Center for the Study of African American Religious Life expands the ways religion is acknowledged and explored

Learn more about our Teaching and Learning Unit and Early Childhood Education Initiative

NMAAHC special exhibition commemorating the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s campaign for economic justice

An exploration of James Baldwin’s life and work as a writer and activist through the lens of his house in St. Paul de Vence, France

Photography and art from the NMAAHC collection reveal how Black women have employed language and voice to demonstrate political power and engage in activism

Discover how the material culture of African American Muslims helps to document the African American religious experience—its diversity, its origins, and its potency in the struggle for uplift and liberation

Learn more about the history and legacy of this groundbreaking Black newspaper

In constructing their own narratives, Black women writers of the 1970s experimented with and expanded traditional boundaries of literature

Explore the Johnson Publishing Collection and celebrate 75 years of Ebony Magazine and the African American experience

Search the Museum’s collection to find object related to Afrofuturism

This illustrated companion book to NMAAHC’s Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures exhibition explores the power of Afrofuturism to reclaim the past and reimagine Black futures.

The Claiming Space Symposium examines Afrofuturist thought across oceans, into land reclamations, up to the stars, through cyberspace, and inward as Black visionaries look to the infinite space within.

Search the Museum’s collection to find objects related to Reconstruction.

This illustrated companion book to Make Good the Promises explores how Black Lives Matter, #SayHerName, antiracism and other current movements for repair find inspiration from the lessons of Reconstruction.

Access millions of records documenting the names and lives of African Americans during Reconstruction.

The Equal Justice Initiative’s report on Reconstruction documents the discrimination and violence against African Americans after the end of slavery.

Explore the newspaper ads formerly enslaved African Americans placed hoping to reunite with loved ones after slavery.

The 13th Amendment formally abolished slavery throughout the United States. But ending slavery was only a first step toward securing full freedom and citizenship rights for African Americans.

Although its promises have not always been upheld, the 14th Amendment has provided a legal basis to challenge discrimination, demand equal rights and protections, and effect change.

More than 150 years after the 15th Amendment was ratified, African Americans are still fighting for equal access to the ballot box.

Explore the proceedings of Colored Conventions from 1830 to 1899 and learn more about Black political organizing in the 19th century.