The African American Cultural Society (AACS) continues to make great progress in revitalizing our beautiful center. Under the leadership of President Joe Matthews and our Board of Directors’ Chair Edmund G. Pinto, Jr, we recently completed the painting of the entire interior, installed a new air conditioning system, installed a new picture-hanging system, thanks to Mr. Richard Eubanks…. And now drum roll please, our “Wall of African American Leaders and Scholars” is now complete thanks to the leadership of Edward H. Brown, Jr., chairperson of the AACS’s Pan African Study Group (PASG) and Meshella Woods a member of PASG. Meshella is to be commended for outstanding work on this project.
The remounting and rearranging of the 64 photographs on the Wall of Leaders and Scholars reflect the outcome of one of the final conversations Ed Brown had with Donald Bryant, who served as curator for AACS for many years before he passed. The Black leaders and scholars are now arranged in chronological order, in accordance with their life spans or time in office if they are/were elected or appointed public figures. Hence, by viewing the Wall one can now get a sense of the flow of African American history from Sojourner Truth to Stacey Abrams and scholars from WEB Dubois to Dr. Maulana Karenga. The last two photos are of Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first President, and Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first Black President. They represent the bookends of the more than 40 African countries that gained independence from their European colonizers between 1957 and 1994.
The committees are where we get things done. Join a committee and contribute your talents to the continued progress of the AACS.