History of African American Fundraising Collecting Initiative at the National Museum of American History

Since the nation’s beginning, African Americans have been philanthropists, supporting communities and advocating for social justice. As fundraisers, they have mobilized philanthropic resources of time, money, and testimony and played an integral role in shaping American fundraising practices while facing hostility toward independent Black institution-building and systemic racism’s constraints on wealth accumulation. In celebration of Black Philanthropy Month, the National Museum of American History goes behind the scenes to learn what curators and research interns are finding in the collections. Discover how Acoma Gaither and Sylvia Marshall interpreted these objects telling the long and complex history of Black giving and their connections to the museum’s new History of African American Fundraising Collecting Initiative.