Six museums. Four continents. A four-year traveling exhibition.

One enormous question: How have slavery, colonialism, and Black freedom-making shaped who we are and how we live? The question transcends borders, cultures, races, and nations. It demands inclusive, thoughtful, courageous storytelling. And it invites visions of a shared, transformed future.

What will your role be?

In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World

This first-of-its-kind exhibition will invite millions around the world to contemplate and understand the reverberations of racial slavery and colonialism in our world — and to witness and reflect on acts of resistance, resilience, and Black freedom-making. 

In Slavery’s Wake will open at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington, D.C., in December 2024. The exhibition will present visitors with significant artifacts, profound personal stories, interactive and multimedia experiences, specially commissioned art, and immersive, multilingual historical narratives — all thoughtfully designed to engage audiences in reflection and conversation.

Over the course of the next four years, this exhibition — its artifacts and artworks — will be painstakingly crated and safely transported from one partner museum to the next, reaching new communities of visitors in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Cape Town, South Africa; Dakar, Senegal; Brussels, Belgium; and Liverpool, England. Accompanying the exhibition will be expanded programming and additional components specially created for each of these host cities. Historians from Brown University will invite residents in each host nation to engage in conversations on topics related to themes of slavery, memory, race, and place, and to have their own oral histories recorded and added to a shared archive.

Together with our museum partners across the globe, the National Museum of African American History and Culture is enormously honored to be entrusted with this story. We invite you to invest in this historic initiative.

NMAAHC’s First International Traveling Exhibition — and a Remarkable Partnership — Will Reach Millions in Six Nations on Four Continents

  • December 2024 — June 2025:
    Washington D.C., United States
  • 2025:
    Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
  • 2026:
    Cape Town, South Africa
  • 2026:
    Dakar, Senegal
  • 2027:
    Tervuren, Belgium
  • 2028:
    Liverpool, England

The Visitor Experience

The exhibition itself will consist of six distinct sections, but the experience will extend into public programs and opportunities to engage digitally. Click through the tabs below to learn more about the full In Slavery’s Wake visitor experience.

Section 1
Section 1: Introduction — The Wake

We are living in the wake — or the legacies — of the global histories of colonialism and racial slavery. Understanding histories of oppression, as well as histories of freedom, is essential in creating freer, more just futures.

The introduction experience orients visitors to the themes of the exhibition and to the guiding metaphor of the wake. A large, projected introductory film and an immersive passageway set the emotional tone of the exhibition. Visitors will be presented with an interplay between key tensions: past/present, local/global, personal/systemic, and freedom/oppression.
Section 2
Section 2: Roots of Inequality

The intersecting systems of colonialism and racial slavery that converged in the late 15th century set the uneven foundations of our modern world. Over time, these systems transformed global economies, ravaged communities and natural environments, and shaped justifications of racism and anti-Blackness.

This section moves visitors from the evocative introductory space into an area that offers historical grounding. Visitors will learn about the emergence of systems of slavery and colonial expansion, and will trace the development of destructive systems and practices still felt in our world — from economic inequalities, resource extraction and environmental destruction, racism and Anti-Blackness, and physical and psychological violence.
Section 3
Section 3: Navigating the Wake

Enslaved, colonized, and liberated people refused to be dehumanized, defining and making freedom on their own terms. Their actions — large and small — shaped local and global communities and created a long tradition of Black freedom-making that continues to reverberate and inspire to this day.

This section highlights the ways that Africans and people of African descent, once swept into the wake of racial slavery and colonialism, navigated these systems. Anchored by personal stories, this section puts lived experience and works in the foreground. Fractured stories will be made more whole through an assemblage of narrative text, artifacts, quotes, graphics, and artistic interventions.
Section 4
Section 4: Universe of Freedom

Freedom is not a single practice or an exact destination, nor is it anchored by a single milestone event. Enslaved and colonized peoples created freedom-making traditions that encompassed constellations of actions, practices, and beliefs.

The artistic heart of the exhibition, this section will allow visitors the physical and emotional space to reflect on this history and those who both navigated the wake and made freedom. The artist Daniel Minter worked closely with the curatorial team to create a large-scale, immersive installation that explores a diverse universe of freedom-making expressions and offers space for contemplation and imagination.
Section 5
Section 5: Old Practices in a New Era

Following emancipation, violent practices that had been developed under racial slavery and early forms of colonialism were adapted and re-inscribed across former slave-holding societies and colonial Africa. Today, our local and global communities continue to be impacted by the ongoing wake of these histories.

This section situates visitors in the historical continuation of the wake. It connects the dots between the global issues of our present and the histories of racial slavery and colonialism. Visitors will encounter a large map-graphic that visualizes the ways the mistreatment of people continued to be intrinsically linked to the mistreatment of the environment in the late 19th and 20th centuries.
Section 6
Section 6: Building Futures

In the ongoing fight for freedom, Black communities have drawn on — and continue to be inspired by — the ideas and practices of ancestors and historic freedom makers. Understanding histories of oppression and practices of freedom-making is essential in imagining and crafting freer, more just futures.

From anticolonial revolution to #BlackLivesMatter, the fight for freedom, equality, and justice has evolved and continues to this day. This culminating section of the exhibition invites visitors to explore the variety of ways freedom fighters and descendant communities have navigated the ongoing wake of slavery and colonialism.
Programming
Programming

Interrogating the history of slavery, colonialism, and freedom — and their continued relevance — is an ongoing collaborative project. Thoughtfully planned programming will be offered in every host city, bringing professional historians and curators together with museum visitors and whole communities.

Special on- and off-site programming will be offered in conjunction with the exhibition. Organizers will invite communities to convene and explore ideas surfaced in the exhibition — augmenting the core content and extending the experience of learning, witnessing, and reflecting. New narratives and oral histories offered by individuals in each host location will be recorded and assembled into a shared archive for future reflection.
Digital Content
Digital Content

Access to the exhibition’s powerful storytelling will be extended via custom-built digital experiences. The unprecedented scale and quality of this global collaboration means that previously unheard stories will now be brought to every corner of the world.

Online audiences will have the opportunity to explore multi-lingual stories and narratives built from video interviews, oral histories, animations, and footage of significant environments. Those who visit the exhibition in person will have the ability to access additional digital content via their mobile device. Our aspiration is to invite millions to witness and take part in the ever-unfolding history of freedom-making and resilience — wherever they are.

Partners

Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture Center for the Study of Global Slavery
Washington, D.C., United States
Co-Convening Partner and Venue

Brown University
Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice
Providence, RI, United States
Co-Convening Partner

Museu Histórico Nacional
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Partner and Venue

Iziko Museums of South Africa
Cape Town, South Africa
Partner and Venue

Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire
Dakar, Senegal
Partner

Musée des Civilisations Noires
Dakar, Senegal
Venue

AfricaMuseum
Tervuren, Belgium
Partner and Venue

International Slavery Museum
Liverpool, England
Partner

Project Financials

The National Museum of African American History and Culture is seeking philanthropic investments totaling $6,000,000 to support the groundbreaking international exhibition In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World. This remarkable undertaking promises to bring thought-provoking and profoundly meaningful experiences to millions of individuals and families across the globe. Our philanthropic partners can help ensure the exhibition, its components, and related programmatic offerings are developed to the highest standards for quality, and transported expediently and with fitting care to every host community.

A memorandum of understanding (MOU) among all participating institutions governs the sharing of certain costs — for example, expenses related to “standing up” the exhibition in each location, and local programming related to the core exhibition. The exhibition’s design and development to date have been made possible by an allocation of budgets from the Smithsonian Institution.

Thank you for your consideration.

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