Celebrating 60 Years At Detroit's Charles H. Wright Museum Of African American History

Forbes

4 days ago

Elonte Davis, 'If You can Make it.'
Charles H. Wright (1918–2002).
M.D.
Medical Doctor. No small achievement for a Black man born and raised in Alabama during the darkest depths of Jim Crow segregation. Every instrument of society at that time was used to prevent African American achievement.
Still, Wright overcame.
He established an OB-GYN practice in Detroit in the mid-1950s, his second stint in the city.
From individual excellence, Wright moved on to hero stuff. He worked to integrate Detroit's hospitals and put his life at risk as an emergency physician during Civil Rights Movement marches in Alabama and Louisiana.
Throughout, he took numerous trips to Africa. He studied African culture and history, and African American culture and history. He started collecting items related to both. In 1965, he opened a small museum in his home to display the collection–the International Afro-American Museum. The museum quickly outgrew his residence and expanded to a trailer.
From those humble beginnings evolved the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.
'He had always been fascinated with the culture and wanted to do something to teach–particularly young people–about their history and about how significant and powerful African nations are and were,' museum president Neil Barclay told Forbes.com.
"Ensuring that generations, especially young African Americans, are made aware of and take pride in the history of their forebears and their remarkable struggle for freedom," Wright explained.
Bear in mind, he was not a trained historian or museum professional. He was a medical doctor. African and African American culture and history were hobbies.
No matter.
'It strikes me how important it is for us to determine, or think about, how we as individuals can improve the planet and the communities we live in,' Barclay said. 'Here was an individual, an obstetrician, and he gets this idea of wanting to share the artifacts he has so that kids will understand, appreciate more about their culture, and it ends up being one of the first and largest African American museums in the country. We think that we don't make a difference, that we can't do anything to make a change in the world we live in, and here's an individual who has totally transformed an entire part of the cultural sector.'
DETROIT - OCTOBER 31: Dignitaries pay the first respects to the late Rosa Parks at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History on October 31, 2005 in Detroit, Michigan. Parks, the woman who refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama city bus in 1955, is credited for sparking the American civil rights movement. Parks will lie in honor at the museum until 5am November 2, and her funeral will take place at 11am at Greater Grace Temple in Detroit. (Photo by Susan Tusa-Pool/Getty Images)
Two memorials symbolize the Wright Museum's significance to Detroit over its 60 years in existence, Detroit's contributions to America, and African Americans' contributions to American history. Rosa Parks lied in state at the museum in 2005. She became an icon protesting segregated buses in Montgomery, but moved to Detroit to live out the remainder of her days following the famous boycott. Aretha Franklin was similarly honored at The Wright following her passing in 2018 and decades defining the Motown sound.
Parks and the Queen of Soul are both buried in Detroit's Woodlawn Cemetery.
'(The Wright has) been significant as a gathering place, as a point of pride, as a place where our community has gathered and has really taught the rest of our friends, our colleagues, our allies, the significance of the African American journey in American history,' Barclay explained. 'We always talk about how African American history is American history. It's a slice of it. It's intrinsic to an understanding of American history, and indeed, we get people, literally all races and ages from around the world, coming to try to understand what it was about African Americans that so influence what America became, and what we now consider to be a democratic ideal.'
What America became and the democratic ideal are under attack today. Much as The Wright focuses on the nation's past, its most important work lives in the now.
In the wake of the Trump administration's efforts to dismantle crucial Civil Rights protections and federal diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, the instruments of society are again being used to derail African American achievement. Black history, voting rights, policing reform, and environmental protections attempting to bring equality to African Americans have all been under daily assault by the administration.
Tragically, as America lurches backwards from enlightenment, uplifting the narratives of Black culture and history have never been more urgent.
'We just continue to tell the truth about the stories that we know particularly from a lived experience that African Americans have had,' Barclay said. 'I don't think that that will go away. Our history is one of resilience, of having to stand up for the truth that we understand and know, and that's what we're called to do in this moment.'
As Wright was called to do in the 1950s and 1960s.
'Whether folks want to call it DEI or not, these are values that we have had for centuries. It has nothing to do with the current rhetoric,' Barclay continues. 'We continue to espouse those values. We continue to put forward that we believe in diverse cultures. We believe in including as many people as possible in the work that we do, and we believe that all people should be treated fairly and equitably. We've believed that for 400 years, that's a story of the fight of African Americans in this country.'
Hard to imagine those ideals are controversial, but here we are. Welcome to America in 2025.
Dominick Lemonious, 'Pray for my City.'
The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History celebrates its 60th anniversary this summer with a special exhibition, 'Luminosity: A Detroit Arts Gathering,' presenting the work of more than 60 present-day Detroit artists, long-departed masters, and selections from the museum's archives all celebrating the rich landscape of the city's Black arts scene. For these artists, creativity isn't just a practice, it's a legacy passed down through generations of Detroiters.
Nearly 100 artworks–paintings, sculptures, photography, woodcuts, prints–honor The Wright's six-decade presence and impact on Black artistry in the city.
'Arcing across six decades, the artworks are shared in a collective light that reveals (Detroit's) extraordinary urban experiences and distinctive sorrows,' Ann Arbor, MI based exhibition guest curator, Vera Ingrid Grant, founding director of Harvard University's Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African and African American Art, told Forbes.com. 'Shown in abundance, together, they offer shared histories, personal memories, and intense dreams and anxieties of our past, present, and future. This congregation of artworks presents an astonishing vista of storytelling marked by startling tensions and at times a powerful stillness. It's a paradoxical story of vulnerability and resilience that still continues.'
Grant has split the presentation into halves: 'DayLight' and 'NightLight.'
'Some of the arrays depicted scenes from an ordinary day, social life, kinship and home—or moving about and working in the metropolis of Detroit. These tableaus seemed to belong in 'DayLight'–a gallery that resounds with a boisterous and eclectic energy,' she explained. 'Alternately, some scenes felt imbued with features of stark and alternate visions–sober histories, strategies of healing, and validations of faith. They called for a more solemn setting and a more austere and traditional installation we managed in 'NightLight.'
Artworks engage in universal themes of love, social critique, stories of families, and neighborhoods, but also subjects specific to Detroit.
'For these 60 and more artists of Detroit, you see in their vision the impact of migrations, the endurance of the city's imposing industrial structures–in various states of resilience, decay, and a promise of a beckoning renaissance–but you also feel the differing personal and community mappings and movements in the city of who goes where and when, and where in the city there may be infrastructure and where there may be none,' Grant explained.
Throughout the exhibition and the museum, Detroit's position at the forefront of a national and international dialogue regarding the profound influence of African American history and culture are revealed.
'Luminosity' will remain on view through March 31, 2026.
Mario Moore, 'These Are Not Yams But They Are Damn Good,' 2025. Oil on Linen 51 1/2 x 42 in 130.8 x 106.7 cm (MM018)
The exodus of manufacturing jobs from America left Detroit on the mat for decades. Those who stuck out the hard times have finally gotten the city back on its feet. More than that, Detroit today belongs in the conversation for most exciting city in America.
Black artists and the city's cultural institutions have been at the forefront of that transformation and continue leading it.
Through August 10, 2025, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit presents 'Code Switch: Distributing Blackness, Reprogramming Internet Art.' Spanning multiple galleries, this interdisciplinary presentation highlights Black contemporary artists' impact on new media and cultivation of technology in arts and culture.
'Code Switch' brings together artists from across the globe to showcase the varying expressions of technology and the internet's impact on contemporary art, honoring Black cultural legacies in the field of new media and time-based practices.
The presentation expands as a contemporary group exhibition celebrating Detroit as an integral meeting place where Black people have always been, and continue to be, pioneers in new media art and technologies. The city's deep history with sound—where techno was popularized in America—offers a framework for exploring the interconnectedness of Black people, bodies, and machines.
Through July 30, 2025, Library Street Collective brings LaKela Brown and Mario Moore together in a joint exhibition exploring economic and community power through the lens of their shared Detroit heritage. Their work reflects a deep appreciation for the city's transformation while raising questions about who benefits from its growth. Through distinct yet complementary practices, Brown and Moore investigate the ways Black communities have historically cultivated wealth, resilience, and culture beyond mere financial capital.
At the heart of the exhibition is their collaborative bronze coin sculpture, a striking 60-inch relief. Each artist sculpted one side–Moore's featuring a profile portrait of Brown, and Brown's adorned with a bouquet of collard greens–underscoring the significance of plant life in the formation of Black identity. The coin serves as both an artifact and a provocation, prompting viewers to consider who holds value in today's society.
Alongside the collaborative sculpture will be individual works by both artists.
Moore's paintings draw from 17th century Dutch devotional art, reframing them to celebrate Black culture–with garlands of plants significant to the Black diaspora such as watermelon, hibiscus, and periwinkle surrounding subjects like a Black urban farmer couple. Brown's wall-based sculptural relief works are rooted in ethnobotany and Black aesthetics, drawing inspiration from plants and foods that are at the forefront of her childhood memories.
Another Detroit sculptor, Austen Brantley, continues a hot streak of major public commissions with a new statue of Joe Louis commissioned by the City of Detroit set to on the Joe Louis Greenway in August of 2025.
Detroit's rising African American artists push boldly into the future on the shoulders of giants like Wright. Giants like Njia Kai and George Shirley. That duo will be celebrated at the GhostLight Arts Initiative's inaugural GhostLight Gala, taking place on Sunday, June 29, 2025, at the Garden Theatre. The event will celebrate five seasons of the Obsidian Theatre Festival, launch a bold new chapter for GhostLight's mission-driven work in the performing arts, and recognize two legendary figures in Detroit's arts community.
Kai has been a leader in the Detroit arts and culture scene for decades, programming events that have uplifted Black cultural traditions. Affectionately known as 'Mama Njia' to many, she has mentored and trained countless young artists and producers across Detroit.
Shirley was the first African American tenor to perform a leading role at the Metropolitan Opera, a professor at The University of Michigan, and a National Medal of Arts recipient.
Proceeds from the Gala will help support GhostLight programming including the Obsidian Theatre Festival, Young Artist Workshop, Detroit Artist Fellowship Program, Neighborhood Engagement Programming, and Encore Michigan.