Columbus Emerging Museum Professionals declares our opposition to the racial terror and state-sanctioned violence that shape the lives of Black people in the United States. Black lives matter. We share the sorrow and rage of our community and stand in solidarity with protests against police brutality. As we rebuild the Columbus EMP community, we hold ourselves accountable to the work of anti-racist museum practice. This statement affirms our commitment to anti-racist practice and our pledge to use our skills and resources to advance and share knowledge for social justice.
We encourage our members to take action to continue to become actively anti-racist. As practitioners in a field that is predominantly white, in a field with a long history of complicity in systemic racism, we must center our Black, Indigenous, and racialized colleagues, partners, and visitors. We look to groups such as Museums and Race, Museum Hue, Visitors of Color, Museums Are Not Neutral, MASS Action, Incluseum, and the Empathetic Museum, amongst others, as leaders in the field.
Thank you to the Museum Education Roundtable for compiling an incredible list of resources, available on their website.
Here is what we can do right now in Columbus, Ohio:
- Donate to local groups on the ground pushing for transformative justice like BQIC and Columbus Freedom Fund or CashApp $ColumbusFreedomFund)
- Get involved with your local SURJ Chapter
- Sign this petition from Color of Change
- Tell Mayor Ginther and City Attorney Zach Klein to “release arrested protestors and drop their charges.”
- Ginther: 614-645-7671, @MayorGinther, 311@columbus.gov
- Klein: 614-645-7385, @CityAttyKlein, zmklein@columbus.gov
- Register to vote!
Like the Museum Education Roundtable, we acknowledge that much of the framework for organizing how museums can and should respond to injustice has been the labor of people of color, in particular Black women. We thank Adrianne Russell and Aleia Brown (#MuseumsRespondToFerguson); La Tanya Autry and Mike Murawski (#MuseumsAreNotNeutral); and Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw and Andrea J. Ritchie(#SayHerName); Patrisse Khan-Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi (#BlackLivesMatter); and Porchia Moore and nikhil trivedi (Visitors of Color).
In solidarity,
Columbus Emerging Museum Professionals Co-Chairs
Alex Tebben and Alison Kennedy
This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
Columbus Emerging Museum Professionals adapted this statement from statements published by The Mina Rees Library of the CUNY Graduate Center and the Museum Education Roundtable.
Columbus EMP 