♪ ♪ ANNOUNCER: Second Story Books, celebrating 50 years of dedicated book selling.

WENDELL: "Artworks" is made possible in part by the Citizens of Baltimore County and by the Ruth R. Marder Arts Endowment Fund, The Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker Endowment for the Arts, The E.T.

and Robert B. Rocklin Fund, The Henry and Ruth Blaustein Rosenberg Foundation Arts Endowment in memory of Ruth Marder.

♪ ♪ JABARI JEFFERSON: What's the sacred space frequency you gotta be on to do something like this in five months?

And you gotta work 15, 18 hours a day, and you can't make excuses because you have shareholders that are all invested.

The sacred space I had to be on to get this work done was a, a space of a conqueror.

So, it wasn't about me, it wasn't about how I felt.

It was about the mission at hand.

This goes into the mores; I referenced a lot of my work, a lot of cathedrals and churches.

We built these things, and it wasn't really for like religion or for people to kind of just congregate.

It was really education centers and also places to protect.

I saw this place as a temple, and the temple is a sacred space for gathering in a whole bunch of different things.

I wanted people not to come in here like they normally would, but if you call it sacred space now, they care a little bit more about the history, and every sacred space need objects and relics and um, all, all kinds of things.

Sacred space for me, though, is more about a, uh, frequency.

So, all of these, whether you feel hopeless, that's a sacred space.

Whether you feel proud, whether you feel inspired, you know, and, but you feel something.

♪ ♪ MAYA DAVIS: The sacred space is not really a structure; it's the community that gathers.

And how they connect with the higher being, whatever that may be for them.

When you think about the Black church and sacred spaces, the role that I see is that it is historical.

In coming out of emancipation, it's the way in which we gathered and stayed connected with our family roots.

Um, as you know, during slavery, many of our families were separated, and I feel like sacred spaces is the place where we were able to reconnect.

Um, sometimes that was not always an option if you were separated at an extreme location that's far away from your family.

But overall, um, in Maryland, I would say that a lot of sacred spaces, whether your family were enslaved at one plantation or another, it was the gathering.

CHANEL JOHNSON: The grounds that we sit on today was once owned by Charity Folks.

She was, uh, enslaved in the city of Annapolis.

She was manumitted.

She became a property owner.

And this land, her family would sell the property to the congregation to create the Mount Moriah African American Methodist Episcopal Church.

The church's congregation was here for 100 years.

It was the black epicenter, uh, in the city of Annapolis.

And it had so much rich history.

Because of the pressures of urban renewal.

The congregation sold the property to Anne Arundel County in the 1970s, and they were gonna tear down to turn it into a parking lot.

So, they picketed, they slept in their cars in front of the church overnight to prevent the county from tearing it down.

They won national preservation status.

The county ended up leasing the property to the state of Maryland, uh, for over 100 years, for a dollar a year.

The Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture, uh, they were tapped, so to speak, to save Mount Moriah from demolition.

JAN LEE: Furthermore, through that story, the saving of Mount Moriah and the foresight of the founders of the commission to be like, this is important and this needs to be saved, and it's gonna serve as a vehicle to keep preserving African American stories in Maryland.

TAHJA CROPPER: I am a history nerd, but a lot of the history, many people didn't know.

I have conversations, you know, frequently with people in the community, whether it's on the bus or wherever, and they didn't know about, you know, certain people or what this community used to be.

JAN: To be in a space, a sacred space that was built by free and newly emancipated African Americans in the 1800s, and the structure is still here.

It's really empowering to be a part of that.

And it's also like, yeah, I, I'm a part of that mission.

Like what we're doing is really important.

JABARI: This piece is called, uh, “Who Taught You That?” All of the canvases in the show were sourced from my time in New York, as well as the sculptures from, um, TV sets.

So, these pieces were refurbished, real replica paintings.

So, this would've been a real replica painting of one of the founding fathers.

And I collected all these, and I didn't know what I would do with them, so I would just stare at them for years.

And I never owned something so traditional; I just challenged myself to take more away from it.

And I realized like, you still knew who this was without me showing a face.

So certain symbolism, such as the, the pink rosy cheeks and the eyes, and, um, just leaving this untouched still holds true, um, to that traditional founding father aspect.

And then, you know, touching on conversations of the indigenous Native Americans and their, uh, role in the founding of America and the founding fathers.

And so, you should be able to, like, block out whatever picture you want to form the narrative that you want.

I don't feature myself a lot in my work, but I thought it would be appropriate in this conversation because I, I thought it was an opportunity to speak more to my family.

Um, and so, 'cause I have a family of historians, we can trace our time period in Virginia back to the 1700s, and we trace it to Thomas Jefferson directly to his wife, um, through Sally, through the Hemings.

So, you may have heard of Sally Hemings that and and the Hemings sisters.

That was actually my direct line of family.

So, this, this is my, uh, my family tree, my interpretation of my own family tree, um, paying homage to, uh, my DC heritage.

And it's a pretty layered piece on the first layer.

It's my family.

So, it features my father on the back and my mother on the front.

This is my father's side of the family.

Um, that's generation before DC came from Virginia.

And on the other side is my mother's side of the family, that before DC they came from North Carolina.

And then the bottom is tracking me growing up in this city.

So, it's, it's, it was it, this is a sacred piece for me.

I'm gonna keep in my family so that, you know, my grandkids can actually have tangible imagery of what their great-great-great- grandparents look like.

CHANEL: In difficult times.

Artists they have of a strong role in reflecting and amplifying voices that are typically silenced.

MAYA: I think Black artists specifically are able to capture the fabric and the soul of who we are as a community.

It can't all be documented with just words and just photographs, but through artistic expression.

MARTINA DODD: Jabari's work is really using mixed media to push that question.

Um, he's highlighting spaces like Historic Mount Moriah AME church and emphasizing the importance they had in their community.

LESLIE ROSE: Having a space that means something to you so deeply that you want to take care of it, something that you want to have responsibility for and preserve it, and then share it with everybody.

Um, and I think Jabari is doing that with history.

He's doing it with bringing our attention to things that are not talked about enough.

CHANEL: Jabari's work is so powerful because in this exhibition, you see parts of his own genealogy.

He gives voice and shares stories of his own journey as an artist from a young child, his own family connections.

Also, he gives voice to Black history in Maryland.

Learning about those that have inspired him and his work from Harriet Tubman, Benjamin Banneker, he literally, this exhibition is the epitome of the Sankofa symbol, right?

It's like this full circle artistic journey and revelation.

JABARI: My name is Jabari Jefferson.

I am, uh, born and raised in Washington, DC I'm a DC native, so fifth fifth-generation Washingtonian.

Uh, and I am a artist.

I'm specifically a mixed media artist.

Uh, this is what I do for a living.

I've been a full-time artist now for like six years now, so.

Yeah, uh, well, mixed media is the ability to add, uh, any material you want, so I come from a traditional painting practice, more fig-figurative, of course.

Uh, but I always wanted to activate it more.

And so, I wanted the ability to be able to take anything in the world and mix it with my painting practice.

So, for me, um, mixed media is taking everyday objects, all that were at once used.

I don't buy anything brand new, um, 'cause I believe in the transfer of energy.

Um, and so that's my mixed media practice.

But mixed media is kind of a contemporary art phenomenon.

It started to become the new industry standard.

This is where art is headed at, and you're gonna have to be able to, uh, take other things and turn it into art.

Most of the more colorful material comes from women's clothes.

So, I also had to get comfortable with publicly buying a bunch of dresses.

So, it, it, it took time, but it happens to be okay with me because even the time period we're living in, as we turn into this global refinement of reproduction, we we're coming off of a mass production culture.

So, you just have all these things that aren't going anywhere, and technology is advancing quick.

So, things can become obsolete in 15 years.

So, you just have all these objects sitting.

I like being on the right side of history, of being able to take these things that would've been discarded if I in 2025, wouldn't have touched it and give it a new life.

ERWIN JOHN: My name is Irwin John, and I'm co-owner at the Bishop Gallery, um, located in Brooklyn, New York.

Um, we've been in Brooklyn for the past 13, 14 years.

Um, been in the industry, in the art industry about 15, 16 years, originally started out in DC.

A lot of the artists that we represent or that we are closest to, they're storytellers.

And Jabari, you know, he's a skillful creator, right?

Like, for example, with this exhibition, him incorporating Maryland soil to really tell his story, that that's soil, that's perhaps may have been here since Benjamin Banneker and, and Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass came through these, you know, parts or whatever.

So, I think that's a, you know, a different level of thinking.

Like he really, um, wants to incorporate everything into it.

And then another example is the installation piece that he did, where he involved the community.

It, it's a massive piece, maybe 18 feet tall, and he's using, you know, materials and again, the soil and different materials from the, the neighborhood and locally and involving the community to be part of that piece and part of that dialogue.

JABARI: This show was incredibly organic, you know, I mean, even the production time of this show happened in five months.

It went through different stages.

The museum had let me know that their main focus was Maryland, demographics of Maryland residents.

And that was interesting to me because I then learned that a lot of these people that I either knew about or didn't know about, they all just kept coming from Maryland.

And then I realized Maryland is just really, um, popping place in terms of a lot of historical things took place in this land.

And it produced a lot of real ones, like a lot of legends throughout history that were very courageous.

They came; they was drinking this Maryland water.

And that's what really sold me and got me invested.

And like, man, I am, I want to be part of the vessel to bring this to life.

When I learned about this building and all the, the people that came in this building and, you know, it almost, uh, didn't make it and was turned to a parking lot and this and that.

So, it, I was like, oh man, this, this building has had a lifetime for over 100 years that delves with Black genius and excellence.

And I get to add on to that.

TV NARRATOR: As early as 1922, the first efforts were made to best the Arctic with aircraft.

At last, explorers hoped they would travel above the murderous ice.

RUSSELL FRISBEE: My name is Russell Frisbee, actually, Herbert Russell Frisbee.

TV NARRATOR: With frozen beards and iron resolve, Arctic reporters brave the white silence.

RUSSELL: Uh, Dr.

Herbert M. Frisbee was my grandfather.

He was one of the founders of the museum, and his collection is still the largest one in the museum.

The picture you have here is my grandfather in the, uh, some of the coat, etcetera, that he used to actually wore to the North Pole.

My grandfather, in addition, was an Arctic Explorer who became the second Black to go to the North Pole in honor of Matthew Henson.

He also was a scientist, innovative educator; he had students such as Thurgood Marshall and Cab Calloway.

He was a war correspondent for the Afro during World War II.

But most important, he was a journalist and historian who was dedicated to making sure that Matthew Henson got the recognition he deserved as the co-discoverer of the North Pole.

Matthew Henson got there first, so he was really the discoverer.

But you couldn't say that back in 1909.

I am a member of the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture.

It's critical that we maintain our heritage because we were losing it.

This church is a perfect example.

Frederick Douglass spoke here, and you had a number of other people who very much involved.

So, we this, we couldn't lose this in the center of Annapolis, we could not afford to lose this.

And they were gonna tear this down, and my grandfather was very much involved in the fight.

We are the state's official museum of African-American history and Culture.

And I don't think in any other museum you're gonna see all these pictures of all this history and, and that this role also, we've begun to bring in artists and other exhibits that we, we weren't able to do before, but somewhere there's gotta be a locus for Black history.

CHANEL: The Banneker -Douglass-Tubman Museum was born out of the Civil Rights Movement, born out of the Black Power Movement, but on a deeper level, it is a product of the love and labor of Black women.

And we would open as the state's museum on Black history, uh, in 1984.

So, it was 100-year span from, you know, the museum opening, uh, right after emancipation to 100 years later, us opening as the state's museum of Black History to preserve, to empower people, um, by learning, exploring African American history and culture, and how it shaped American democracy, um, to inspire today and future generations.

MARTINA: The Banneker -Douglass-Tubman Museum is a repository of archival material, um, first edition books, artwork that really reflect the contributions of African Americans to Maryland and the US.

TAHJA: What we try to do here at the museum is to present the African American history in the state of Maryland to as many people as possible.

MARTINA: So, you can find handwritten letters from dignitaries and civil rights activists.

You can see contemporary artworks of paintings, and portraits of everyday people.

And I think I like that there's a collection that combines and puts works in dialogue that oftentimes aren't seen in the same space.

Part of how we can tell a well-rounded story is by learning what every day folk dealt with today and in the past, and then also how activists throughout the ages really fought for our freedom and fought to take up space.

CHANEL: Our namesakes are the late great Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Benjamin Banneker.

Adding Tubman as our museum's namesake, um, is symbolic.

Obviously, we're highlighting the late great Marylander Harriet Tubman, but we're also highlighting the generations of Black women, um, some very visible, such as Harriet Tubman, but also the untold stories of Black women who took heavy part in shaping Maryland, Maryland democracy, as well as American democracy.

MARTINA: We are publicly stating our, you know, mission to make sure that we are telling a more inclusive story of African Americans in Maryland.

JAN: While we have the mission of promoting African American history, we do wanna make sure it's equitable and inclusive.

And unfortunately, it does happen that sometimes Black women, their just due isn't given, their place in the story is not properly a part of the story.

And so, by changing the name to Banneker-Douglass-Tubman Museum, including Maryland's daughter, it helps us as that driver in, in that underlying mission, within the greater mission.

CHANEL: I think for me as an artist, it's really exciting to work for a Black history, art, and cultural museum because what I learn here, I bring to my studio practice.

Um, so when I was tapped to do the Harriet Tubman portrait for the Harriet Tubman documentary for Maryland Public Television, which was a tremendous, uh, project and opportunity, to me it was kind of like a culminating moment because I had been with the museum for about six years, I was a practicing artist all my life.

And I was tapped to do a project that, um, meant so much to the state of Maryland to do a portrait of Harriet Tubman, which is the nation's, the, the world's greatest freedom fighter, right?

And I was like, you know, when you think of Harriet Tubman and what she means, I wanted to create something that 1,000 years from now it would still be around.

So, I decided to do a glass mosaic, and what that visual representation meant was that when Harriet Tubman was a young child, she defended an enslaved person who was being chased by an overseer.

And the overseer threw a weight at Harriet Tubman's head, um, either at the enslaved person, but it hit Harriet Tubman and she cracked her skull.

Since then, she had seizures and visions of liberation and freedom.

So, I wanted to use glass pieces to kind of signify, um, her own journey of being broken and then renewed.

But I think that's something that is also kind of like an all of us, like we're all broken down, but when we piece ourselves back together, we're we are reborn into something stronger.

SABRIYAH HASSAN-ISMAIL: I think Annapolis is one of those places, right, literally when you step into this city, you feel it like something comes over you, um, and it's somewhat nostalgic.

There's also that feeling of, I've never been here before, but I've been here before.

ABIOLA AKINTOLA: Because people don't realize, uh, how Black Annapolis really is.

Every time I mention that I'm a, in a Black history museum in Annapolis, you know, kind of, it takes people a minute to process that because they don't realize the longstanding Black community that's been here.

SABRIYAH: And it's interesting, you know, being what I consider an outsider, quote, unquote, um, being from Brooklyn, New York, it's really about the idea of inclusivity for me, right?

With the idea of amplifying the museum and our brand, but never forgetting about where this museum is and where it's situated.

So always trying to include the local community and making sure that we are preserving the story of the church, the people who are here, the people who were here before us, um, so on and so forth.

(inaudible background chatter).

JABARI: I've been an artist for years.

Professionally, I'd say going on 10 years now.

But since I was a kid.

At one point in time, I was, um, I would do different kinds of paint, and I would use mixed media when I was younger, 'cause I didn't know how to paint.

But I could draw, so I would take paper and then draw it really well.

Every time I do shows, it's very important to me to have outreach with the youth.

So, with that installation that's in the main room, that 18-foot installation, I even went the extra step that I wanted to do, uh, a tapestry installation that was made by the community because I wanted them to understand my process.

So, we did workshops in which they brought their old clothes and their own stuff, and I, we broke it down, I chopped them down, and I took it all to my studio.

And through working with the Maryland residents, I allowed to pull the curtain back so they could see how stuff is made.

And that brought us all closer.

So, they came in here with pride when they was like, oh, that's the thing that we made.

ABIOLA: Teaching the babies is very important to me.

Teaching people, uh, but particularly people of color and particularly young Black people, is important because the more knowledge you have, the better you are to make decisions and have control of your life.

I think that, especially in this time and place where Black people and particularly Black youth are being told that their history is somehow a threat or somehow harmful, that places like this take up even more importance.

CHANEL: And using that old African proverb, thinking six generations ahead, uh, we know that the work that is important today in, in 2025, we know what's going on around the world, but we're also thinking six generations ahead.

You know, what is Black history education, Black life gonna look like 100 years from now?

Why is this work so important to the young kids, 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now?

What legacies are we leaving?

I see this institution definitely being here 100 plus years from now, operating as a museum without walls, right?

Um, continuing to do educational programming, obviously in this space, right, we are a repository of an incredible collection of Black art, of Black artifacts and archives that tells Maryland stories, so we're gonna continue to do that work, but doing that work throughout the state of Maryland, doing community discussions after school programming, exhibitions, providing resources to museums, heritage sites throughout the state of Maryland.

So yes, supporting this mission, but we're all connected in the tapestry of Maryland history.

♪ ♪ WENDELL: "Artworks" is made possible in part by the Citizens of Baltimore County and by the Ruth R. Marder Arts Endowment Fund, The Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker Endowment for the Arts, The E.T.

and Robert B. Rocklin Fund, The Henry and Ruth Blaustein Rosenberg Foundation Arts Endowment in memory of Ruth Marder.

♪ ♪ ANNOUNCER: Second Story Books, celebrating 50 years of dedicated book selling.