Our mission is to provide a freely accessible collaborative space for preserving and exhibiting artifacts pertaining to Black Iowa history.
Black Iowa & The Nation is an important resource, serving as a hub connecting individuals, local communities, and educators on all levels. While Iowa is the focus, the significance of the website reaches out broadly and nationally, extending to all those interested in American history. The archive, containing photographs, objects and scholarly videos, in combination with the input of voices of strong community and scholarly partnerships, offers an expanded and inclusive way to access, interact with, and also to create history.
Through accessing material culture, we convey a history of Black Iowans that has not been widely recorded. We also contextualize this Iowan history within our national history. In its promise to continually add previously unheard stories to our shared historical narrative, the website undercuts a single narrative of history. Black Iowa & The Nation brings visitors to experience the past through diverse voices and histories.
Black Iowa and the Nation: Deconstructing Historical Silences provides historical facts, but it also does much more than that. It is a source for reflecting and for creative learning. The website archive does not provide you with a single linear pathway through the material. Instead, it invites you to wander through at your own pace, in your own direction, making connections between the past and your present. Ultimately, the website becomes a vehicle helping us to build an egalitarian future together.
Our goal is to continually add to our digital archive which uses material culture as a means to tell stories and histories about our past. Objects and photographs in the archive become vehicles to learn more about experiences and achievements of Black people in Iowa and give an in-depth picture of our nation’s past — and present.
History is an ongoing process. What is told and who tells it is crucial to those who care about the future. Our historical understanding is never finished. Black Iowa & The Nation has “flipped the switch” on whose voices matter by presenting history. Each story gives more breadth to our vision, helps us see our past more clearly; this will become a foundation for greater freedom in our future choices. People who tell history not only relate important facts from the past, they also help shape the future.
Our goal is to gather this vital information before its significance is lost. Interactive platforms allow each visitor to work with the objects of their choice and understand their connections. The website invites you to contribute a digital version of your loved photos or everyday objects that were part of Black Iowan lives. In this way, your objects become part of our shared history and a moment in your life becomes part of the historical record
When you use this website, YOU are an active participant in making connections and building history. This is a living and active archive. Visit Join Our Community to learn how you can add items for others to explore, share stories and photographs of your own, and explore videos and exhibitions created by educators and scholars using items and histories from the community archive.
The histories told by these objects are made available to individuals, students, and educators at all levels, encouraging exploration of the objects to access the many stories they tell when placed in tandem with one another. We are available to help teachers use the website in their classrooms.
History is an ongoing process. What is told and who tells it is crucial to those who care about the future. Our historical understanding is never finished. Each story gives more breadth to our vision, helps us see our past more clearly; this will become a foundation for greater freedom in our future choices.
Professor Emeritus of Art History, Curator, Drake University
Curatorial Projects:
2025 “Race Making: 19th Century American Advertising Trade Cards and Chinese Identity,” Chinese American Museum of Chicago, Chicago, Il
2024 “Integrating The Army: WACs at Fort Des Moines,” Historic Building Iowa State Fair Grounds, Des Moines, IA
2023 “A Thin But Powerful Difference: Race | Embodiment,” Anderson Gallery, Drake University, Des Moines, IA, Curator and Facilitator for Students
2022 Reimagined “Our Town: Reclaiming the Narrative,” traveling exhibition for the Hearst Center for the Arts, Cedar Falls, Iowa
“Decolonize; The Black Imagination: An Exhibition of Stacey Robinson’s Afrofuturism Art,” in conjunction with my j-term class 2022 for Weeks Gallery, Drake University, Des Moines, IA
2021 Reimagined “Our Town: Reclaiming the Narrative,” traveling exhibition for the
Kwanzaa Celebration at Fort Des Moines Museum. The exhibition was held over for Black History Month, February 2022
2020 “Race and Visibility: An Online Exhibition,” co-curated with my class ‘Curating Race: Open to All,’ a navigable exhibition available through January 2021 at
“Race and Visibility: An Online Exhibition,” sponsored by I’ll Make Me a World Iowa, Iowa Events Center, Des Moines, IA, Curator, February 2021
2019 “Visual DisObedience: Iowa Artists Dissent, Propose, Actualize,” Anderson Gallery, Drake University, Des Moines, IA, Curator and Facilitator for Students
Our Town: Reclaiming the Narrative,” traveling exhibition:
“From Advertising to Art: 19th Century Trade Cards and the Unfettered American Imagination,” Hearst Center for the Arts, Cedar Falls, IA, Curator
“Black History in Books,” Collier Scripps Glass Book Shelf, Curator, Education Department, Drake University
“Art and Mathematics,” Collier Scripps Glass Book Shelf, Curator, Education Department, Drake University
2018 “Our Town: Reclaiming the Narrative,” (First Installation) Anderson Gallery, Drake University, Des Moines, IA, Curator and Facilitator for Students
2017 “Apparatus: The Technology of Seeing Worldviews,” Anderson Gallery, Drake University, Des Moines, IA, Curator and Facilitator for Student Curators
“Overcome: Civil Rights,” exhibition and video installation, with guest artists Mendi and Keith Obadike, Drake University, Des Moines IA, Curator
2016 “The Signifying Object: Selected Photographs from the Edward J. Williams Collection,” Stony Island Arts Bank, Chicago, IL, Curator
“Portrait Photographs: Selected Photographs from the Edward J. Williams Collection,” Stony Island Arts Bank, Chicago, IL, Curator
2015 “Are We Global Yet? The Art and Politics of Public Space (including the virtual),” Anderson Gallery, Drake University, Des Moines, IA, Curator
“Travelling Without Moving: A Site Specific Artwork by Matthew Sontheimer,” Weeks Gallery, Drake University, Des Moines, IA, Curator
“Redefining Foreign: Postcards from Near and Far,” The Wesley House, Des Moines, IA, Facilitator for Student Curators
2014 “Dialogues: a Conversation Between African Objects and Contemporary Prints,” Steve Vail Fine Arts Project Room, Des Moines, IA, Curator
2012 “Projecting Identity,” Anderson Gallery, Drake University, Des Moines, IA, Curator and Facilitator for Student Curators
“Ape + Rope + Pray + 8!: Appropriation and Sampling in Visual Culture and Music,” Anderson Gallery, Drake University, Des Moines, IA Curator and Facilitator for Student Curators
2010 “Cultural Intersections in the Colonial Period,” Exhibition Curator, Anderson Gallery, Drake University, Des Moines, IA, Curator
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