NEW YORK (JANUARY 31, 2024) – Jennifer Scott, Founding Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Civil Rights Museum in Harlem, discussed New York’s first museum dedicated to civil rights with the Museum Association of New York.

Scott explains, “The museum is part of a larger building project that will allow the National Urban League to return home to Harlem more than 100 years after it was founded. The museum will be a way for the Urban League to not only return to Harlem but to extend the league’s mission, which, historically, has been to support underserved communities, primarily through social services. The organization began as people fled the South during the Great Migration, as a way to provide them with resources, help them find jobs, obtain an education, secure housing and civil rights, and, in general, support people and families seeking safety.

In the last 20 years, under the leadership of President and CEO Marc Morial, the Urban League has expanded its social justice mission and its focus on policy, creating an “Equitable Justice” division. The museum is the vision of President Morial who recognizes the importance of history in understanding the possibilities of social justice. The museum will serve as a space that will share the civil rights work of the Urban League and the work of many other non-profit and grassroots organizations and activists in the North who have contributed to the long fight for social change. It’s the Urban League’s first major entrée into arts and culture, and we are all excited to be a part of this new direction.”

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