BROOKLYN MUSEUM AND SMITHSONIAN PRESENT "SAVE OUR AFRICAN AMERICAN TREASURES"

Brooklyn Museum and Smithsonian Present
“Save Our African American Treasures”

Saturday, July 20, 2013
11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Brooklyn Museum
Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin Pavilion and Lobby
200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11238

Free and open to the public

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Brooklyn Museum will co-host “Save Our African American Treasures: A National Collections Initiative of Discovery and Preservation,” a daylong program to help New York-area residents identify and preserve items of historical and cultural significance.

Participants are invited to bring up to three personal items for a 15-minute, professional consultation with experts on how to care for them. The specialists will serve as reviewers, not appraisers, and will not determine an item’s monetary value. Objects such as books, photographs, ceramics, metalwork and textiles no larger than a shopping bag (furniture, carpets, firearms and paintings are excluded) can be reviewed.

“We are extremely proud to bring ‘Save Our African American Treasures’ to New York City and of our partnership with the Brooklyn Museum,” said Lonnie Bunch, director of the Smithsonian museum. “Whether it’s Weeksville, Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers or the Harlem Renaissance, New York City has been steeped in African American history from before the Emancipation. We encourage people to become aware of what they have, to protect it and to preserve it so the story of the African diaspora in this country can be told.”

The “Treasures” program also includes the following activities throughout the day:

Gallery Tour: Kevin Stayton, the Brooklyn Museum’s chief curator, will offer a tour of selected galleries in the building. Preservation Presentations: learn how to preserve clothing and textiles, family photographs and papers. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions. Hands-on Preservation: participants will learn how to properly store letters, pack garments and prepare photographs for preservation storage and presentation.

For more Treasures event information, visit nmaahc.si.edu/Programs/NYTreasures, email treasures@si.edu or call (877) 733-9599.

For more Treasures event information, visit nmaahc.si.edu/Programs/NYTreasures, email treasures@si.edu or call (877) 733-9599.

“Save Our African American Treasures” is made possible with support from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE UNDER CONSTRUCTION

CLICK HERE TO VIEW VIDEO

Here's your chance to look into the future! Click on this link to find a very special video I hope you will view.

The video connects you to an exciting two-and-a-half minute computer animation — known as a “fly-through” — that takes you through a conceptual rendering of Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture.

 

 

 

The video dramatically depicts what your support is helping to create. It is a vision that you can truly be proud of!

 

 

Beginning with a montage of African American history makers, the video flies over our beautiful National Mall in Washington, D.C. You’ll see the Museum itself taking virtual shape at 14^th Street and Constitution Avenue NW, right across from the Smithsonian's American History Museum. Then you’ll go inside for a “guided tour” of galleries, exhibitions and more, ending with a view of the building glowing with lights at night.

 

 

 

What makes this video so exciting is the knowledge that, thanks to you and your fellow Charter Members and Supporters, the museum building is rapidly becoming a reality. Construction is underway and our doors will open in late 2015!

 

 

 

You are playing a tremendous role in building the National Museum of African American History and Culture already. I offer the heartfelt gratitude to you from all of us here at the Museum.

 

	All the best,
	Lonnie G. Bunch Director

P.S. I hope you’ll forward this message to friends and family who need to know that, finally, African American history and culture will be getting a much deserved and long overdue place of honor on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Again, thank you!