Black History and Culture - Google Arts & Culture (2024)

1. Changemakers You Should Know

From Hallie Quinn Brown, Charlene Carruthers, Angela Davis, Pauli Murray, to Bayard Rustin, Barbara Smith, and William Still, learn more about these historic heroes with theSmithsonianNational Museum of African American History and Culture.

2. Who was Joseph?

3. How Olmec Toys Reshaped the Toy Market

4. Meet Gerald “Jerry” Lawson

Explore with the Strong National Museum the life of Gerald “Jerry” Lawson, the video game engineer and entrepreneur who changed the way we play.

5. The Radical Art of Nellie Mae Rowe

A preeminent and underrecognized figure of 20th-century American art, celebrate Rowe and learn more about how she uses her practice as a radical act of self-expression, and liberation for a Black woman artist living and working in the American South.

Active from 1501 until the 1860s, or over 360 years, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade affected the lives of an estimated 12.5 million Africans who were forced from their homes and transported across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas.

Between 1710 and 1808, Charleston received an estimated number of 809 slave ships and 152,000 enslaved African captives on voyages that took an average length of 63 days.

Regardless of how they were preserved, each story is essential to connecting to and understanding their journey.

The design of this space is intended to encourage you to remember, reckon with, and reflect upon the past while understanding that it is our duty to our ancestors to reclaim the future.

Tide Tribute

The Tide Tribute is sacred ground, a tribute to the many enslaved Africans who did not survive the journey across the Atlantic Ocean.

Millions of enslaved men, women, and children were transported to and from these ports on slave ships. Enslaved Africans were viewed as cargo, tools to be taken and sold to the highest bidder.

To maximize their profits, enslavers would often pack their prisoners as tightly as possible. Beneath the water, these figures represent the thousands of enslaved whose forced journey brought them to the shores of Gadsden’s Wharf.

Designed to mirror the rising and falling of the tide, the tribute pool’s water levels fill and drain at different times of the day. These are the same tides that carried the ships full of captured Africans onto this land as they were brought onto the shore for processing.

Outlined in a one-dimensional display of bricks on the ground, the storage house tells the story of how enslaved Africans who arrived at Gadsden’s Wharf were viewed and treated. To their oppressors, these individuals were livestock, or animals looked upon as an asset.

Historical records show that during a particularly cold winter season in the early 1800s, over 700 enslaved Africans perished in this storage house from the severe weather conditions waiting to be sold.

The statues are facing toward the water; they are facing back home.

And finally, to the outside of the first granite wall, is an inscription on the outside. An excerpt from the Maya Angelou poem, “Still I Rise.” “Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave. I am the dream and hope of the slave. I rise. I rise. I rise.”

Cut into the shape of badges, these frames were created to honor and memorialize the enslaved who worked as skilled laborers.

A popular practice in Charleston during the period of enslavement was for enslaved craftsmen to wear these badges when they were loaned out to other enslavers or individuals who required their skills.

At the exit of the sweetgrass field, are the Water Drop Teardrop Planters. These beautiful installations are filled with brush and grasses native to the Lowcountry.

Man from Naples, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1982

Click on the dots to zoom in

Dance is more than the pirouette of a ballet dancer and the fast-footed rhythm of tap. Each movement has a history, each angle wordlessly expresses an emotion, and a whole story can be embodied in a single step. In honor of Black History Month, Google Arts & Culture takes a look at top dance companies and individuals who use their talents to create a moving commentary on the black experience.

The stories being told by these dancers and choreographers uphold the fact that black dance doesn’t stand independently of black history, but rather wordlessly expresses the narrative of a people through movements, productions, and an individual’s career. Their work raises social issues with their choreography, strengthens community through their programming, and uses history as a source of inspiration.

The performances created by these dancers are connected to the most iconic places, people, and events in history; with them you can explore themes spanning activism, women’s rights, LGBT intersectionality, and iconic literature and art.

Discover how Arthur Mitchell, the first black principal dancer of New York City Ballet was inspired by the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to provide the children of Harlem with the opportunity to study dance and transform their lives by establishing the Dance Theatre of Harlem.

Watch clips of choreographer Reggie Wilson’s reinterpretation of writer Zora Neal Hurston’sMoses, Man of the Mountainor learn the story of how the Lindy Hop was born in Harlem.

The story of black danceisthe story of black history and culture.