Organizations Filed Purposes:
The Mission of The Black Archives of Mid-America is to collect, preserve and make available to the public materials documenting the social, economic, political and cultural histories of persons of African descent in the Central United States, with an emphasis on the Kansas City, Missouri region. The Black Archives of Mid-America is an educational resource and provides access to its collections for research, exhibition and publication to honor our community's heritage and to catalyze public awareness.
The mission of the Black Archives of Mid-America, Inc. in Kansas City, is to collect, preserve, and share materials documenting the social, economic, political and cultural histories of persons of African descent with an emphasis on the Kansas City, Missouri region.
The Black Archives hosted its first Women's Empowerment month during October 2019. We were honored to have workshop presentations on many topics including mental health, healthy relationships, financial management, family law and art. A special highlight of this program in which we were especially honored was Dr. Eva McGhee, of Charles Drew Medical Center in California who came at her own expense to present our keynote program on women's health issues. Her panel with Dr. Leslie Fields was She also gifted The Black Archives with a portrait of Henrietta Lacks, the woman whose T-cells were taken without her permission or knowledge. Those cells changed the entire course of cancer research. Dr. Erica Thompson did a six-session series on mental health issues in the Black community. Each session was well attended. To our surprise, even though this was a women's empowerment program, many men attended those sessions. A financial advisor, insurance executive and single mother of three who struggled to find a balanced way of providing for her family conducted a series of financial planning workshops. Those sessions were attended by entire families. The Executive Director of The Black Archives facilitated poetry writing sessions for women to help them to voice their realities through the power of art. Dr. Marla Jackson, founder and CEO of the National African American Quilt Museum facilitated a portrait quilt design workshop for those women who are or want to be textile artists. Local artist Gerome Berry contributed an art exhibition that included over a dozen of his paintings, posters and fifteen women's empowerment graphic novels. Berry discovered that his teenaged sister had low self-esteem so he launched this artistic project. The heroine is named DeJa and gains superpowers when she discovers that she only needs to love herself. Nearly one thousand visitors from within the Historic 18th and Vine District, where the Black Archives is located, and outside of our community attended these programs over the month. Nearly fifteen volunteers helped with the Women's Empowerment Month activities in many capacities including facilitators, guides, editors, printers, program assistants, typists, and welcome committee persons. Each of the fifteen (15) session conducted through the month was free and open to the public.
The Jackson County Bar Association partnered with The Black Archives to conduct a series on "Law 101" courses for the community. Once a month through the entire year a lawyer or judge or law professor facilitated a session on a different topic that historically has affected our community. At no charge community stakeholders were able to attend the sessions, learn about legal concepts of that issue, ask questions that addressed their needs for insight into the topic and got real legal advice. The monthly topics covered a gamut of legal issues including but not limited to traffic tickets, divorce, parenting consents, issues with deceased relatives' property and many other problems, themes, and issues. Participants were also encouraged to suggest topics for the next year's programs.
The National African American Quilt Conference was another amazing highlight of 2019 activities. Textile artists from across the country convened at The Black Archives to exhibit their work, learn new skills and techniques, and network with other artists. The National African American Quilt Museum installed an exhibition of historical quilts at The Black Archives for a two month span. Visitors from across the country, and indeed internationally as people from Sweden, Belgium and South Africa also attended the conference and visited the exhibition. Famed quilt artist Faith Ringgold loaned a special quilt of hers to the exhibition, a rare honor. Most of her work sells in the high six-figure range, yet she trusted us with one of her quilts. Writers, including best-selling Quilt of Souls author Phyllistene Lawson held workshops about the value of telling ones story through writing and through quilt making. A highlight of the conference was taking the participants to the Brown vs Topeka, KS National Historic site in Topeka, KS and to the National Quilt Museum in Lawrence, KS
Executives Listed on Filing
Total Salary includes financial earnings, benefits, and all related organization earnings listed on tax filing
| Name | Title | Hours Per Week | Total Salary |
|---|
| Carmaletta Williams | Executive Director | 40 | $86,115 |
| Michael Patton | Board Member | 1 | $0 |
| Marjorie Williams | Board member | 1 | $0 |
| Marceline Cooley | Board member | 1 | $0 |
| Leslie Fields | Board Member | 1 | $0 |
| Keslie Spotsville | Board member | 1 | $0 |
| Allan Gray | Board member | 1 | $0 |
| Anthony Arnold | Treasurer | 1 | $0 |
| Taylor Fields | Chairman | 2 | $0 |
Data for this page was sourced from XML published by IRS (
public 990 form dataset) from:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/irs-form-990/202003199349302615_public.xml