Black History Month

James Van Der Zee, the world-renowned chronicler of Black life in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance and for decades thereafter, was a virtuoso portraitist and one of the most celebrated artists of the twentieth century.

Listen to an excerpt from Songs in Flight, a 2023 MetLiveArts performance informed by “Freedom on the Move,” a database of “runaway ads” from the United States’s early newspapers placed by enslavers that preserve snapshots of more than 30,000 enslaved individuals who took their fates into their own hands, liberating themselves from a cruel, ugly cycle whose effects ripple to this day. 

Explore the comprehensive and far-reaching ways in which Black artists portrayed everyday modern life in the new Black cities that took shape in the 1920s–40s in New York City’s Harlem and nationwide in Gallery 999.

Experience modern-day works that reckon with death and visualize the afterlife and Byzantine Egyptian funerary art and artifacts in Galleries 617, 726, and 917. 

Witness Africa’s central role in international networks of trade and cultural exchange with artworks rarely or never before seen in public in Gallery 199.

On Tuesday, February 20, join Museum experts for a deep dive into a selection of exhibition objects in the galleries in celebration of Black History Month.

On Tuesday February 27, join a virtual conversation revisiting the groundbreaking song cycle Songs in Flight, which premiered at The Met just over a year ago.

On Thursday, February 29, join Ethiopian-American multidisciplinary artist Tsedaye Makonnen for a unique processional meditation on resilience, memory and migration.