Cultural News

This month's Cultural News features the Leading Culture Destinations Awards, which will be announced at a major ceremony in Berlin on March 4. Known as “The Oscars for museums,” this year’s awards include an incredible shortlist of nominees for the Soft Power Destinations of the Year, which are run in partnership with Lord Cultural Resources.

As January draws to a close and we begin to mark Black History Month, this issue of Cultural News features the International African American Museum. Construction has begun on this prestigious project, which has been designed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners to honour the site at which enslaved Africans were brought into the US. Initially proposed in 2000 and now scheduled for completion in late 2021, the 41,800sq ft (3,900sq m) facility is being constructed on Gadsden’s Wharf in Charleston, South Carolina. It is estimated that up to 80 per cent of African Americans in the US today can trace their ancestry to the wharf.

“For many Africans headed into the forced labor of slavery, Gadsden’s Wharf was the beginning, the landing place, after a treacherous Transatlantic journey. The International African American Museum at this site is an incredibly important opportunity to connect America — especially the nearly 80% of African Americans, that can potentially trace an ancestor to arrival in Charleston — with the stories of ancestors whose names we will never know,” said Joy Bailey Bryant, Vice President at Lord Cultural Resources.

Lord Cultural Resources is proud to be a trusted partner with IAAM, having completed the Business Plan in 2018 in preparation for groundbreaking.

See Our Work with International African American Museum.