On Monday night March 24, 2014, in a reception room on the 52nd floor of the 55 story Bank of America Tower in Manhattan, the Bank of America, represented by its’ Chief Executive Officer Brian Monyhan and other top executives, hosted a very special reception. The occasion celebrated the birth of the new Museum of African American History and Culture now under construction on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.. Brian Monyhan opened the reception by announcing the Bank’s decision to contribute an additional 1 million dollars toward the project’s 500 million dollar budget. This contribution brings the total amount contributed by Bank of America to 2 million dollars and the total amount raised thus far for the project to 410 million dollars of the 500 million dollar budget. Groundbreaking for the museum took place 4 months ago and construction is well underway.
To commemorate the celebration, and in addition to the 1 million dollar contribution, Monyhan announced the gift to the museum of “Daufuskie Island”, the exhibition of photographs produced by Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe during her photographic documentation of the Gullah culture thirty five years ago. The Gullah community had thrived as a society of freed African people who had been enslaved during the antebellum years on the sea islands off the coast of South Carolina. The slaveholders moved away from the islands during the civil war leaving the plantations in the care of the formerly enslaved Gullah people. At the close of the Civil War the Gullah people were given the opportunity to buy plots of land that had been subdivided by the union army for this explicit purpose. This community grew and prospered on the islands for many years in relative isolation after the war ended. In so doing the Gullah people were able to preserve “more of their original African language, and cultural heritage than any other community in the United States”. During the early twentieth century a series of natural disasters along with increasing contact with the outside world brought attention to the islands. Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe began the work of documenting the Gullah culture in 1977-1981 as the Gullah culture was about to be completely absorbed into the twentieth century world of tourism and mega-resorts. Twenty-five years later a collection of Moutoussamy-Ashe’s photographs was sponsored by Merrill Lynch as a traveling exhibition of the Gullah culture. The book “Daufuskie Island: Photographs by Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe” with Foreword by Alex Haley, was originally produced to accompany the traveling exhibition. This book has been updated with additional photographs from Moutoussamy-Ashe’s collection, a new Preface by Deborah Willis, Ph.D., and an epilogue by Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe. The work came into the possession of Bank of America when the company acquired Merrill Lynch in 2009. As a result of the Bank of America’s gift of the exhibition to the museum this unique and priceless work of art by Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, depicting the Gullah culture and the memory of the Gullah people, will now be preserved and secured into the distant future at the National Museum for African American History and Culture.
Lonnie Bunch, Director of the new museum, the man for whom the reception was held, spoke to the A-list gathering of board members, financial executives, business entrepreneurs, wealthy contributors, and to the scholars, historians, and artists who study and produce work in the African American culture, about his journey and his vision for the future of the museum.
In 2003 the indefatigable Congressman John Lewis, after 18 failed attempts, succeeded in moving his fellow congressmen to pass the act that created the National Museum of African American History and Culture as one of the museums that make up the Smithsonian Institution. The congressional act provided for the appropriation of $250 million in federal construction financing with another $250 million to come from the private sector to complete the $500 million budget. The museum is to be devoted exclusively to the documentation of African American life, art, history, and culture.
Lonnie Bunch was named as the founding director of the new museum. Bunch is no neophyte to the museum business. During the 1980’s he was curator and program manager for the California Afro American Museum in Los Angeles which he helped to build. He has taught at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. Bunch left his position as head of the Chicago Historical Society in 2005 to take the position of Director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Now, nine years later, enough money has been raised to start the construction of the 380,000 sf, 5 story structure on the 5 acre site next to the Washington Monument at the National Mall. Construction completion is projected for early 2016.
It is worthwhile now to applaud the monumental achievement of Lonnie Bunch, his staff and all of the collaborators on this project in recognition of the accomplishment of an amazing task.
This is a major step toward systematically compiling a history of the lives, art, and culture of the African American People. This museum will allow us to collect our artifacts, music, art, and history and to tell our own story for the benefit of future generations. It is very appropriate that the first two artifacts to arrive for installation at the museum are a Jim Crow-era rail car, and a 1930’s guard tower from Angola, the infamous Louisiana State Penitentiary.
I enclose a list of the private contributors toward the 250 million dollars necessary for the completion of the museum development. As Americans we can be as proud of them as we are of Lonnie Bunch and John Lewis.
The major focus remains on raising the $90 million balance that will be necessary to complete the financing of the museum development.
- Although construction continues over 30,000 artifacts have been contributed already for exhibition.
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE
DONNER LIST
$10 MILLION OR MORE
Oprah Winfrey Charitable Foundation,
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
The Lilly Endowment
$5 Million and above
American Express
Anonymous
The Boeing Company
The Ford Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation
Target
United Health Group
Walmart
$2 Million or more
Bank of America
Bloomberg Philanthropies
Robert L. Johnson
W.K. Kellog Foundation
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation,
Carl W. and Amanda Stafford
Time Warner Foundation
United Technologies
The Walt Disney Company
$1 Million or more
3 M
Rodney and Michelle Adkins
Aflac, Incorporated
Dr. and Mrs. T.B. Boyd III and Family/The R.H.
Boyd Company
Caterpillar
Kenneth I. and Catherine Chenault
The Coca Cola Foundation
Goldman Sachs
The Hartford
Melody Hobson and George Lucas
IMB
James A. Johnson
Johnson Publishing Company
JP Morgan Chase
Robert and Arlene Kogod
The Reginal F. Lewis Foundation
The Links Foundation Incorporated
The J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Family
Foundation
McDonalds Corporation
Jules L. and Juliette McNeil
Morgan Stanlye
Mark and Brenda Moore and Family
Richard D. and Laura A. Parson
Pepsico Foundation
Colin and Alma Powell
The Prudential Foundation
Franklin D. Raines
Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock
Deborah Sara Santana
Gerald B. and Anita Smith Family
Patricia Q. Stonesifer and Michael E. Kinsley
Reginald Van Lee
Craig and Diane Welburn and Family
Anthony and Beatrice Welters
fascinating concept of ‘cloud filmmaking’ to make a beautiful documentary film in collaboration with thousands of filmmakers from across the globe, all communicating and submitting content from their respective cultures through the Internet. Tiffany’s company scripted the scenario, edited the work, and produced the film. The resulting film the ‘Declaration of Interdependence’ was then resubmitted to the original content generators who translated the film into dozens of different languages to be shared throughout the world!! The filmmaking style that characterises her ‘cloud film’ can be seen in her award winning autobiographical documentary “Connected” which is now available on ITunes. Tiffany makes use of film, still photos,
graphics, and animation to focus on those things that cultures share as human…things that connect and tie the cultures together rather than divide and drive them apart.
members during his talk. Lance Weiler is a storyteller, entrepreneur and thought leader. He is recognized as a pioneer because of the way he mixes storytelling and technology. Lance has designed experiences that have reached millions of people via theaters, mobile devices and online. Lance sits on two World Economic Forum steering committees; one focused on the Future of Content Creation and the other examines the role of Digital Media in Shaping Culture & Governance. Lance teaches at Columbia University on the art, craft and business of storytelling in the 21st Century.
that asks “What does it mean to play games?” Warren says that video games don’t offer pseudo-experiences, they offer real experiences through detailed narratives. From inside the video game industry, he discusses how we need to view video games as art and build a culture of thought around the video game experience.
Actor’s Coalition. She curates, writes about, speaks on, and is an avid player of videogames. Her recent projects include Skulls of the Shogun, Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Speckled Band with the live-theater radio drama company Gotham Radio Theatre, and Waiting for the End of the World, an upcoming feature film from Matthew Esolda.
foundation that champions vital stories, artfully told. Created and led by young philanthropists, entrepreneurs and filmmakers, Cinereach has supported fiction and nonfiction filmmakers from all over the world through its Productions, Grants & Awards and Fellowships initiatives, and through partnerships with Sundance Institute’s programs. Cinereach has supported close to 120 films in the US and internationally, including Circumstance, Pariah, The World Before Her, Planet of Snail, Girl Model, Code of the West and many more. Cinereach Production’s Beasts of the Southern Wild was released in the US in 2012 by Fox Searchlight Pictures, and nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
m in 2007. He’s worked on projects for companies as varied as Adult Swim, Footlocker, and the British government. He’s also been involved with a number of independent games such as the early web-based social game Casablanca, the street game Search Brigade, and most recently a tower defense game for the iPhone called Critter Defense.
storytelling is a medium where the narrative, and its evolution, can be influenced in real-time by a user. For a given plot there are many potential outcomes depending upon decisions made by the players during the game. Sound Familiar? In interactive fiction adventure games players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Literary works that are read in a nonlinear fashion are sometimes used as game books. The reader is given opportunities to make decisions at different points in the text. These decisions determine the flow and outcome of the story. These games contrast considerably with the Action Game genre although the two genre are sometimes combined. Great writing combined with the technological skills to develop and work on a digital platform in the cloud could produce some completely new entertainment vehicles as the field evolves.
producing excellent work to support this status. His work has been awarded dozens of major international and national honours including one 2012 Webby Award for Gods Lake, two 2011 Webby Awards for Welcome to Pinepoint, the 2010 Webby Award for Best Online Documentary programme for Waterlife and Best Cross Platform program for The Test Tube at the 2009 Canadian New Media Awards. In 2012 Dao led a team at the National Film Bank in producing “Bear 71”. This film may well turn out to be a seminal work in the digital transmedia interactive story telling genre. The film has been a huge hit. “Bear 71” is an excellent example of the power and potential of interactive digital media in story telling.
At the Tribeca Film Institute Interactive Forum Loc Dao provided a sneak peak of ‘Circa 1948’ by Stan Douglas, a 3D historical augmented reality app that captures the stories and architecture of a transitional post-war era Canada.
world of performing artists who have hidden in plain sight. Beyond the known map of the city’s famous music scene are the vibrant musical margins, the front porches, backyards, dive bars, churches and community centers where people make music. 
your personal life? Did you lose a job, go back to school, do things you never thought you’d be doing? What is that like? 
documentarian who has lived in Beijing, Baltimore and Brooklyn. She now lives in Boston, where she is the Producer of Planet Takeout, a participatory documentary project on the role of Chinese takeouts as vital cultural crossroads in diverse Boston neighborhoods. 
based stories enabled in art by a custom-built booth ‘the story tunnel’ inspiring mobile listening and contributions. Erica Mu and Audrey Dilling look for place related stories surrounding one of six themes – Work, Food, Play, Love, Worship and Create. As a pop-up radio project the ‘story tunnel’ gets around. Participants can make appointments or just show up and join in.
man camps, and crossroads of North Dakota’s oil rush through a series of lively multimedia pieces. Nathina St. Pierre had to take a gun to fight off the unwanted male advances. Stan Reep has to fight to keep the rights for the oil under his property. This is just two of the stories found by Black Gold Boom reporter Todd Melby in his exploration of the oil boom in western North Dakota.
CEO/co-founder of Zeega has quickly enabled film makers across the world to create non-linear, online stories without the need for a degree in computer programming. In this 10-minute presentation, Jesse Shapins lay out a collaborative manifesto for web-documentary. Zeega is very active in multiplatform collaborations that have produced important work at the interface of technology, media, and the internet. 
Documentary represents a universal struggle shared by rural communities across the United States by focusing on one of the hardest hit areas: Southern West Virginia. Intimate documentary portraits reveal the faces behind the statistics of McDowell County an area plagued with deep stereotypes, poverty, youth exodus, loss of population and high unemployment as they continue to live, work and enjoy life in their community. Like many post-industrial communities across the country, McDowell County, W. Va., is struggling to survive. Through Hollow, the Appalachian community represents themselves and their challenges as they see fit. Hollow combines video portraits, interactive data visualizations, social media and user-generated content delivered on an HTML5 website to support engagement and inspire change. 
male identity in America. Through video mediated question and answer exchange facilitated through strategic digital channels, diverse members of this “demographic” bridges economic, political, geographic, and generational divisions. Question Bridge provides a safe setting for necessary, honest expression and healing dialogue on themes that divide, unite and puzzle black males in the United States. Artist Chris Johnson originated Question
Bridge in 1996 when he was looking for a way to use media art to generate a conversation around class and generational divisions within San Diego’s African American community. Question Bridge: Black Males was created by Chris Johnson, Hank Willis Thomas, Bayete Ross-Smith, and Kamal Sinclair. The exhibition opened in 2011 at Sundance and has continues it’s tour of the United States opening in a new venue virtually every month or two since then. 
it their own or the voyage of a relative in the past. As the topic of immigration divides communities across the country, our shared history can create commonality between recent immigrants and those whose families have lived in the U.S. for generations. Immigrant Nation will use documentary film, user-generated storytelling, and data visualization to provide a social space for communities to share and connect with their immigrant histories.