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NMAAHC HONORS THE KEEPERS OF BLACK HISTORY
02.25.26. Compiled + Edited by JANEL ST. JOHN
As the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture approaches its tenth anniversary in 2026, it opens the year with an exhibition that speaks directly to legacy, stewardship, and cultural survival. At the Vanguard: Making and Saving History at HBCUs, just opened as a celebratory homage of the pivotal role historically Black colleges and universities have played in collecting, preserving, and interpreting African American history - often long before mainstream institutions recognized its value. Drawing from five HBCU museums and archives, the exhibition brings lesser-known but foundational stories to the National Mall before embarking on a national tour.
For more than a century, HBCUs have served as the first - and often only - major collectors of works by Black artists, safeguarding cultural memory at a time when segregation barred many artists from art schools, galleries, and museum collections altogether. At the Vanguard foregrounds this legacy through artifacts, archival materials, photographs, and artworks that reflect Black intellectual excellence, activism, scientific innovation, and artistic achievement across generations. The exhibition features extraordinary holdings from Clark Atlanta University, Florida A&M University, Jackson State University, Texas Southern University, and Tuskegee University - institutions whose collections have quietly shaped the foundations of American cultural history.
“This exhibition honors the legacy of HBCUs as cultural and educational powerhouses,” said Shanita Brackett, acting director for NMAAHC. “Through these collections from our partner institutions, we see the breadth of Black intellectual excellence, activism, and artistic achievement, reinforcing the vital role HBCUs play in shaping American history.”
White Nursing Uniform with Cape, 1940s
Florida A&M University Meek-Eaton Black Archives/FAMU Hospital Collection
Historic Marker, Jackson State College for Negro Teachers, ca. 1950
Margaret Walker Center,
Jackson State University
Untitled Folk Scene (Jitterbugs), ca. 1942, William H. Johnson (1901-1970), Oil on cardboard,
Clark Atlanta University Art Museum, Donation from National Collection of Fine Art
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Opening during the nation’s 250th anniversary and under the museum’s theme, Welcome Home: Our Legacy Continues, At the Vanguard underscores how American history has been preserved not only by national institutions, but by HBCUs that understood - early and unequivocally - that these stories mattered.
Archival photographs by HBCU-trained and/or staff photographers, including Doris Derby, Chester Higgins, Earlie Hudnall Jr. and P.H. Polk, document student activism, campus life and African American cultural movements. The exhibition also features a selection of artwork collected by HBCUs, including works from John Biggers, Elizabeth Catlett, Robert Pruitt and Renee Stout. One of the few known color videos of George Washington Carver, whose scientific ingenuity at Tuskegee revolutionized agricultural practices, will also be on display.
HBCUs’ records of achievement, resilience and creativity represent defining moments in American history. As stewards of culture and innovation, their museums and archives ensure that future generations can access these invaluable stories. As debates over whose histories belong in national institutions continue, At the Vanguard stands as a timely reminder that many of America’s most vital stories were preserved long before they were officially sanctioned.
The exhibition will be on view thru July 2026 before traveling to select locations across the country through 2029.
How HBCUs Preserved America's Cultural Memory
DEREK FORDJOUR'S AIRBORNE DOUBLE, 2022, featured in the exhibition
Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary Art, is an homage to HBCU bands.
Acrylic, charcoal, cardboard, oil pastel, and foil on newspaper mounted on canvas, 60 x 100in., Frances Fine Art Collection, Courtesy of the artist, David Kordansky Gallery, and Petzel Gallery, New York, Photo: Daniel Greer, @Derel Fordjour
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Long before major museums began reckoning with the absence of artists of color in their collections, HBCUs were already doing the work - acquiring, preserving, and teaching from these artworks out of necessity and conviction. Today, as institutions move toward presenting complete art historical narratives, they increasingly turn to HBCU collections to make those exhibitions possible.
Recent examples underscore this trend. The Phillips Collection drew extensively from the Howard University Gallery of Art for its current exhibition, Out of Many: Reframing an American Art Collection. At Tate Modern in London, four paintings on view in Nigerian Modernism are on loan from the Hampton University Museum, from their Modern African collection. Hampton has also placed on loan, two paintings by Akinola Lasekan and a painting by Simon Okeke. Lasekan was featured in the Chrysler Museum of Art's 2024 exhibition, I Am Copying Nobody: The Art and Political Cartoons of Akinola Lasekan.
Talladega College, which has housed Hale Woodruff’s landmark Amistad and Underground Railroad murals since their creation from 1939 - 1940, recently sold the works as part of a historic new partnership to secure the school’s future. This highlights both the cultural value of these works and the financial pressures HBCUs continue to navigate as stewards of national heritage. When the Museum of Modern Art mounted Charles White: A Retrospective in 2018 - the artist’s first major survey in three decades - key works were loaned from Howard. White’s deep ties to Howard, where he served as an artist-in-residence in 1945 and as a distinguished professor in 1978, reflect a broader truth: HBCUs have not only preserved American art history - they have authored it.