Meet the Midwesterners Preserving Black History and Shaping Culture

This Columbus-based performer, choreographer, and educator is committed to uplifting Black history through dance and scholarship.

This Madison family home–turned Creator’s Cottage is helping its Black neighbors find story-filled, artistic remedies to Alzheimer’s disease.

Chicago photographer and social justice artist Tonika Lewis Johnson is the recipient of the prestigious $800,000 no-strings-attached grant.

Photographer Asa Featherstone, IV reflects on his instant film photo series—started as a way to meet people during an artist residency—and how it became a celebration of everyday stories.

Jetter works broadly across cultural genres to continue her family’s long legacy of promoting Black history and culture in a town where it’s otherwise dwindling.

Carolyn Mazloomi, now in her late 70s, has been quilting for decades. She calls the art both a passage and keepsake for stories—of struggle to survival and success.

With Deeply Rooted Produce, Dazmonique Carr cultivates crops and a community of local food growers and consumers.

Mercedes Yarbrough (AKA Mizz Mercedez) creates culturally relevant comics to help kids of color see their history through a positive lens.

After the impacts of dwindling industry and a failed highway project, jazz is seeing a revival with help from local musicians, students and university.

The city’s venues provided respite from the grind of industrial life—embracing the joy of music, dancing, and community.

In the 1970s and ’80s, artists like Ohio Players, Zapp, and Lakeside came out of the Buckeye State and brought funk into the mainstream of American music.

Zach Van Harris Jr. is ensuring African American stories aren’t left out of South Dakota’s past — or its future.

BUTTER blends art, economic justice, and reparations together for an unforgettable weekend of Black excellence and Black joy. 

As a child, Milwaukee artist DeMar Walker was captivated by a mural on the side of a building: the former home of an organization called the Inner City Arts Council. Now the artistic director of Ko-Thi Dance Company, Walker is capturing the stories of the elders who contributed to this historic space for Black arts and celebrating the legacy of its foundational work.

The church was the center of Black life in Athens, and now Mount Zion Baptist Church Preservation Society is restoring it to be a gathering place for the area’s Black residents.

A mixed-media celebration of art and family at the Peggy R. McConnell Arts Center.

The Bloomington-based director of IU’s African American Dance Company continues a long lineage of dance, community, and exploration.

Artist Jill Wells’ murals transform ordinary buildings, uplifting Black culture.