What’s subsequent for Boston’s Museum of African American Historical past? A Q&A with Noelle Trent

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The museum’s president and CEO mentioned its future following layoffs, monetary uncertainty, graffiti, and an incident involving a package deal set on fireplace exterior one among its areas.

For greater than 60 years, the Museum of African American Historical past has preserved and shared Black historical past in Boston and Nantucket, together with by way of historic websites such because the African Assembly Home and Abiel Smith College on Beacon Hill.

However the establishment is now going through a difficult chapter.

The museum has handled racist graffiti at its Nantucket location, a suspected hate crime after a package deal containing Juneteenth-themed puzzles was set on fireplace exterior its Boston campus, and monetary pressure after seeing an almost $500,000 federal grant pulled in 2025. It was later restored after the museum appealed the choice, however the uncertainty led to the layoffs of three director-level staff. 

Noelle Trent, the museum’s president and CEO, took over in 2023. A Boston native and historian, Trent has spent a lot of her profession preserving and decoding Black historical past, together with on the Nationwide Civil Rights Museum in Memphis and the Smithsonian’s Nationwide Museum of African American Historical past and Tradition.

Now, she is tasked with guiding the museum by way of this troublesome interval whereas determining what comes subsequent for an establishment whose mission is to ensure these tales aren’t misplaced.

Boston.com spoke with Trent in regards to the challenges going through the museum, its monetary future, and why preserving this historical past stays vital.

The interview was edited and condensed. 

The place do you see the museum going within the subsequent two or three years, and what do you suppose you want to do to get there?

What do the subsequent two to a few years seem like for this establishment? 

I feel one of many issues that now we have accomplished tremendously properly beneath my tenure has been to reinforce our providing for faculties. Now we have gone from serving 800 college students to someplace nearer to three,000 by way of various kinds of programming, college area journeys, and now by way of a curriculum that’s accessible on-line by way of PBS, which is a partnership that was funded by the Nationwide Belief for Historic Preservation. So I anticipate to see extra of that work. 

My long-term aim has at all times been to make sure that each little one within the communities we serve has not less than one encounter with the museum throughout their Ok-12 schooling. Our extra speedy aim is to finally serve not less than 10% of the Boston public college system. 

I feel we’re transferring in a short time to have the ability to attain that quantity, as a result of this historical past is vital to them. It displays their neighborhood. I feel we’ve seen that they’ve responded to that as properly. 

I do know there are quite a lot of questions round AI. We take a look at AI as a software, utilizing it very conservatively to reinforce our work, to not change any of our great employees or the nice minds who assist us do the programming we do. However I feel there are alternatives for us to assist current the historical past, present folks entry to our collections in ways in which they haven’t had it earlier than (e.g., holograms). 

My final aim is to maneuver from an area the place folks say, ‘I’ve by no means visited that museum,’ or ‘I’ve by no means heard of that museum,’ to creating better consciousness round it. I inform my group we need to go from a hidden treasure to a well known gem. 

The museum has seen some resistance up to now, with the graffiti after which the Amazon package deal incident. Why do you suppose it’s vital we protect this historical past right here in Boston and Nantucket? 

To cite the nice Lonnie Bunch, “African American historical past is American historical past.” We’re a part of this neighborhood. Individuals of African descent, Black folks, have been a part of Boston since its earliest years, and so now we have a accountability to protect not simply buildings, however the historical past of the neighborhood and the individuals who have been right here. 

Our accountability isn’t just to maintain the buildings in form, [although] that’s an enormous a part of the work that we do. However we additionally really feel a deep accountability to ensure folks know who these folks have been, what their views have been, and to current them inside the fullness of their humanity. 

That implies that there’s at all times extra analysis for us to do. 

We can not deny that there’s opposition to this work and that opposition isn’t new, proper? We can not deny that as we do that good work, as we transfer ahead. 

The most recent incident compelled us to take a obligatory step again and assess the place we’re as an establishment by way of our safety points. What do we have to improve? What wants to vary? That is still a giant precedence. 

If we’re going to proceed to do the work, notably on this social, financial, and historic second, now we have to be absolutely geared up to deal with no matter comes in direction of us. 

How do you stability preserving the museum’s historic mission with evolving to draw new audiences? 

My glib reply may be very rigorously. 

It’s one thing that we proceed to stroll by way of. I feel that’s a bigger query for all historic websites all through the nation. It’s vital that we protect the buildings as a result of we firmly consider within the energy of place.

With the ability to say that you’re standing in a spot the place William Lloyd Garrison spoke, and Frederick Douglass spoke, and the abolition motion on this nation was basically born … is extremely vital. 

And that has worth, but when we get too restrictive with that interpretation, it’s very laborious for folks to see the relevance in their very own lives. So what we’re consistently balancing is wanting on the mission, wanting on the unique intent of the buildings, and looking out on the curiosity of the trendy customer and our trendy viewers. 

Do you suppose that the museum has sufficient monetary assets to proceed transferring ahead? 

Each nonprofit will at all times welcome extra help. That’s basically who we’re. What the final a number of months have made very clear to me is that the panorama of nonprofits in America has modified. The panorama of museums has modified, and, much more so, the panorama for Black museums has modified. 

Now we have to think about our funding and monetary wants within the context of the fluidity we discover ourselves in. The bottom is continually shifting, and so we’re consistently having to make readjustments. 

What I’ll say is, we want continued help as an impartial 501(c)(3) that particularly caters to decoding African American historical past. 

Traditionally, now we have not seen the identical degree of help as our peer museums of comparable measurement. That’s simply the inequity of the system. 

We’re an area that, if folks worth us and need to see us right here 12 months after 12 months, fairly frankly [that] means we want annual help from folks — not simply after we’re in disaster — as a result of we’re vital and so they need to see us right here. 

We’re in an unprecedented time. We’re at a frontier for nonprofits in America. I don’t suppose we all know solidly what the trail ahead is.

What are a number of the greatest challenges that you just’re , and do you suppose the museum will come out stronger and higher due to them?

The group started as a imaginative and prescient of a girl, Sue Bailey Thurman. When she arrived in Boston within the Fifties, she was the one who put collectively what is called the Black Heritage Path, after which started to drag folks collectively to create a museum, which was based in 1964 and established in 1972.

I take a look at what lies earlier than us. So lots of the choices I make every day are knowledgeable by the one query: the best way to maintain this establishment in order that will probably be right here for the subsequent technology. 

Individuals have accomplished super work to maintain this establishment alive during the last 60-plus years; it’s my accountability, for nonetheless lengthy I’m on this seat, to proceed that work and to set it up in order that we may be right here for an additional 100 years. 

My hope is that, sooner relatively than later, we’re in a a lot stronger place to do this. That we are able to arrange these issues that make sure the group’s sustainability. 

You can’t perceive Black America with out understanding Blacks in New England, and extra particularly Blacks in Boston and Nantucket. With out us, you have got an incomplete understanding of this nation and a really vital neighborhood in American historical past. 

Is there something you want to add? 

I’m cautiously optimistic in regards to the future. I can’t predict it, however I’ll say this: within the midst of the whole lot that has gone on, there are at all times vivid spots, like our Juneteenth celebration this 12 months. 

Now we have our MAAH Stone Guide Award [on Oct. 8], which is the biggest e book prize for nonfiction writing about African American historical past and tradition within the nation. 

We obtained recognition from the World Monuments Fund this summer time as one among America’s irreplaceable websites. 

So it implies that even within the midst of some severe challenges, there are vivid spots and hope on this work, and that’s finally what sustains me. 

For data on the best way to donate to the museum, go to maah.org/give.

Beth Treffeisen is a normal task reporter for Boston.com, specializing in native information, crime, and enterprise within the New England area.