How has the first year been? 

The first year has been absolutely mad and absolutely wonderful. We’ve had over 200,000 visitors. When we were planning what it would look like for visitors to move through the space, we wanted to create the kind of visitor experience that would feel full but wouldn’t be overwhelming. We have created a space for people to engage with the work, with the exhibitions, the content on the walls, the art and the objects. That intentionality has led to conversations between strangers.

People sort of hover close to one another to hear and share information. You don’t see that every day in a narrative museum. This work is 23 years in the making. Seeing that manifest, and in many instances, even better than we could have envisioned, has been really incredible. 

People have conversation in the exhibits? 

I’ve been visiting museums my entire life. I could count on my hand the number of times I struck up a conversation with a stranger over a Manet or a Romare Bearden. You might have a conversation with someone you already have an existing relationship with or in the context of a program where discussion is encouraged. But not between two strangers that have come with separate groups at two different times and just happen to converge in a particular space. 

It has been surprising when folks kind of build an informal museum community. It is usually intergenerational discourse during which a family has come together. You can hear grandparents describing or explaining an experience that’s very personal to them. They are a living, walking historical experience. It is an important reminder when I’m doing the more mundane museum work. Here’s this father and son, and they are looking at this incredible story. The father is able to describe with humanity, passion and a delicateness what they are reading. We get a lot of reminders for why we do this work. 

What is new at the museum? 

The public might think about museums as fixed and unchanged. Our core exhibitions are for the most part unchanged. We have had some additions and will continue to intentionally update certain spaces, particularly with our art. 

Our special exhibitions gallery has already turned over five times since opening. This will change often. The next exhibit will open in December. Visitors will experience a transformed space. But the core space is updated with new art. Our curatorial team continues to look at and evaluate the other stories that we can tell, using art to create new conversations and new opportunities for interpretation. 

The museum is more than exhibits. Can you talk a little about the work that is beyond the museum? 

We offer webinars, especially through our Center for Family History*, which is both gallery and family genealogy center. We also facilitate offsite programming, and we partner with others in the area. I’m excited about a partnership with the Charleston Literary Festival* to bring Nikki Giovanni to town*. In February, we will have the annual Awakening of the Ancestors. It is a musically centered program that engages questions around the Gullah Geechee community. There’s always something happening. 

BlueCross was an early supporter of the museum. What does that support mean for the organization? 

BlueCross was a supporter before the museum was a museum. That means BlueCross believed in an idea, in a vision. It is incredibly important to have the corporate support because it encourages and inspires others. It offers a layer of legitimacy to the project. And it’s more than just the exhibitions. That support helps facilitate our Center for Family History. It is a vote of confidence and faith in the institution. And for that, we are incredibly grateful. 

Anything else you’d like people to know? 

As a First Voice Museum, we are designed to share and elevate the international or African American diasporic experience through the lens and from the vocalized perspective and expression of African American people and peoples of African descent. We’re a private nonprofit, but we are built for the public. We’re public trust, and we are designed to be available and welcoming to our entire community, to be able to be in conversation, to be a point of sharing and a point of reflection. 

We encourage our visitors, no matter what you look like or what your personal background, to be able to embrace their experience here. I know for some folks when they think about difficult conversations, that can feel intimidating. But I encourage people to come, whether for a visit to the museum generally or for a program that you think would be a cool, fun time. Think about the museum space as a space that is for you, because it is. 

*These links lead to third-party websites. Those organizations are solely responsible for the contents and the privacy policies on their sites.