Behind the music, dancing, and family-reunion atmosphere that filled the Philadelphia Zoo on the night of Aug. 19, another conversation was taking place among the hundreds of Black museum leaders gathered from across the country.
Money.
Who will pay to preserve Black history as government support becomes less certain? Can individual donors and foundations fill the gap? Can small museums survive the financial pressures faced by institutions with larger endowments and donor bases? And can Black museums build something more valuable than another grant: financial independence?
Those questions followed museum executives, historians, fundraisers and preservationists to Philadelphia for the 48th annual conference of the Association of African American Museums, which brought out 700 people through Sunday, Aug. 23.
For some institutions, the answer increasingly begins outside Washington.
“We have not gotten a dime from federal funding,” said Jarred Howard, CEO of the National Juneteenth Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.
Yet the planned museum has raised $55 million toward a $70 million capital campaign, leaving $15 million to go.
“America is supportive of what we’re doing,” Howard said. “We’re really excited about that fact.”
Howard’s numbers offer just one example of how a major Black cultural institution is assembling the money it needs without depending on Washington.
The Texas Legislature has provided $11 million for the project, he said, and museum officials are already discussing additional state support.
Howard said the institution would welcome federal funding but does not expect any in the current political climate.
“We would certainly love to have a contribution from the federal government,” Howard said. “But the state of things right now is such that we probably wouldn’t get it if we pursued it.”
So, the museum is concentrating its energy where officials believe it can produce results.
“We try to be strategically committed to those things that are going to produce outcomes for us,” Howard said.
That strategy is increasingly important as Black museums confront an old financial problem under new political circumstances.
President Donald Trump’s administration has targeted diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives across the federal government and has pushed for changes in how the Smithsonian presents race, slavery, and other aspects of American history.
Lonnie G. Bunch III, the 14th secretary of the Smithsonian and founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), attended the festivities, even as the institution he leads remains in the administration’s sights.
“I’m doing the best I can,” Bunch, a historian, said.
‘If We Build Together, We Can Support Each Other’
Museum leaders gathered at the Philadelphia convening said the political climate has complicated a funding landscape that was never particularly generous to Black institutions.
“It has always been challenging for African American institutions to receive funding, support and help,” said Jillian Patricia Pirtle, CEO of Philadelphia’s Marian Anderson Museum and Historical Society.
Now, she said, it is even harder “because of what is currently happening in our country.”
But Pirtle said that pressure has also heightened the urgency for institutions to collaborate rather than compete for every available dollar.
“We believe that if we work together, if we build together, we can support each other and we can get those to reach out to help,” she said.
Dr. Ashley Jordan, president and CEO of the African American Museum in Philadelphia, said some of that help is already coming from elsewhere.
“I think in the absence of a source such as the federal government, federal funding through the arts, we’ve seen individuals and foundations really come forward to help in this missing gap that we see,” Jordan said.
Memberships are another critical piece.
“For a lot of our organizations, our membership drives are so important to our work every day,” Jordan said.
That matters particularly for smaller museums that lack multimillion-dollar endowments or national fundraising operations.
For those institutions, losing a grant can mean more than trimming an exhibition budget. Money pays for staff, building maintenance, insurance, collections, preservation, educational programming, and the costly work of properly storing fragile documents, photographs, clothing, and artifacts.
It can determine whether a museum expands or merely keeps its doors open.
A representative of Philadelphia’s Paul Robeson House & Museum said the small house museum has been fortunate to retain support from donors and funders, while acknowledging that other institutions may be experiencing something very different.
The conference itself, the representative said, provides an opportunity to find financial partners.
“How might there be opportunities for partnership, for fundraising opportunities?” the representative said. “That’s more important now than ever as well to be able to support these organizations, small, medium, large.”
‘We’re Not Asking Anybody for Anything Anymore’
The emerging financial strategy is not simply about finding another foundation whenever a government grant disappears.
Some Black Museum leaders are thinking much bigger.
Deborah Omowale Jarmon, the CEO and director of the San Antonio African American Community Archive and Museum (SAAACAM), described plans for a 103,000-square-foot cultural center that would include a hotel, speakeasy, event space, theater and auditorium.
Those additions are not merely amenities but are potential revenue streams.
“We’re not asking anybody for anything anymore,” she declared. “Because we just don’t want to be at the table. We want to own that table.”
The line drew applause, but behind it is a serious financial proposition.
For generations, many Black cultural institutions have relied on a mix of government grants, philanthropy, memberships, corporate contributions, and individual donors. Each source is vulnerable to shifts in political leadership, corporate priorities, or the economy.
Owning revenue-generating assets could change that equation.
The National Juneteenth Museum offers another model.
Howard said the museum attracted substantial support in politically conservative Texas by framing Juneteenth not as a partisan cause but as an American story of freedom.
“The Juneteenth story matches the story of America,” Howard said. “They tell us that the bedrock of America is freedom. Juneteenth is all about freedom.”
“So, it’s not white, Black, left, right, D, R,” he said.
That approach has helped secure $11 million from the state and $55 million toward the overall campaign.
But not every museum can mount a $70 million capital campaign.
That reality was evident throughout the conference, with representatives of institutions ranging from nationally known museums to small historic houses gathered in the same space.
For some, the next major donor could be a foundation. For others, survival depends on memberships, admission revenue, partnerships, private contributions, or on persuading people who have never donated to a museum that preserving Black history is worth paying for.
“It’s a story that resonates with everybody,” Howard said.
‘Our People Are Showing Up’
Sylvia Cyrus, executive director of the D.C.-based Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), said funding remains a major concern for organizations engaged in this work.
But she has noticed another development.
“Our people are showing up,” Cyrus said.
Sometimes, she said, unexpected support arrives, “a little gem” that helps keep the work moving forward.
The reason may be that the national fight over Black history has made the financial stakes easier for ordinary people to grasp.
“This history belongs to each of our families,” Cyrus said.
For Black museums, that could be the most important argument in the next phase of fundraising.
The institutions are not merely asking donors to pay for buildings, display cases and archives. They are asking people to finance the survival of a history that museum leaders increasingly believe cannot be left to whoever happens to control Washington.
In San Antonio, the response is to build businesses alongside a museum.
In Fort Worth, it is a $70 million campaign assembled without any federal contribution so far.
Elsewhere, foundations, memberships, individual donors, and partnerships are being asked to carry more of the weight.
And the message coming out of Philadelphia was increasingly clear: preserving Black history costs money, and the people entrusted with that history are seeking ways to ensure its survival does not depend on a single government, grant, or benefactor.
“We don’t just want to be at the table,” said Jeff May Jr., the chief administrative officer of the San Antonio museum. “We want to own that table.”
