Black History Month Events in NYC With Talks And Movies (2024)

The Harlem Renaissance changed the trajectory of American culture, and no other artist encapsulates the spirit of that era better than poet Langston Hughes. He wrote unapologetically about Black life at a time when segregation was law and few Black artists wereallowed into the American cultural zeitgeist.

Starting on February 1 — which just so happens to be Langston Hughes' birthday — The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is honoring Hughes and his friendship with photographer, filmmaker, and U.S. Foreign Service Officer Griffith J. Davis in its exhibit "The Ways of Langston Hughes." The free exhibit at the Schomburg Center's Latimer Gallery in Harlem will include photographs of Hughes and Davis, who met in Atlanta, as well asmore of Hughes'friendships through letters, artwork and other memorabilia.

3.A Musical Celebration of Black History Month

JoinHarpist Brandee Younger at The Met on February 10 (2-2:45pm) for a performance and talk aboutworks of art on view at that discuss the significance of the harp’s contribution to the American musical landscape.

It’s free with museum admission, which is pay-what-you-wish for NYC residents.

For more than 30 years, the Tenement Museum shared stories about the people who once lived in the building it now owns. But that meant that some groups—particularly Black New Yorkers—were excluded, as there's no record of a Black family living in theapartment buildingat 97 Orchard Street.

Now, with an aim to explore the full breadth of immigrant and migrant experiences,the Lower East Side museum is highlighting the stories of a Black family for the first time with a newtour titled "A Union of Hope: 1869."The exhibition tells the story of the Moore family who lived in Soho during and after the Civil War, making it the city's first exhibit to center Black Americans during this era. The newly launched experience will offer an expanded schedule during February for Black History Month; reserve tickets herefor $30/person.

In addition towalking throughre-creations of the family's two-room tenement, visitors can also see a neighborhood map from that time, explore Census records, and hear readings of newspaper excerpts.

As Black History Month approaches, NYC's Paley Center for Media is planning a new exhibit to celebrate two pivotal civil rights leaders: Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

The new exhibit, titled "Paley Celebrates National Geographic’sGenius: MLK/X– Two Minds, One Movement," will run from February 1 through March 3 at 25 West 52nd Street. The exhibition draws from the National Geographic show about the two figures, the new season of which goes live on February 1.Admission costs $20.

Drawing from theTV show, the exhibit will feature costumes, props, and set pieces from the series,along with craft activities. Head to the big screen in The Paley Museum’s second-floor theater to see films from the Paley Archive celebrating the incredible lives of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X as well as the premiere episode ofGenius: MLK/X.

To celebrateBlack History Monththis February, AMC Theatres are selling $5 tickets to four different films that feature Black filmmakers, writers, and actors.

All throughout February, 175 AMC locations around the country will be playing a curated list of films—expect two daily showings a week—celebrating Black culture.

Featured films includeSpider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,Soul,andThe Color Purple. Moredetails about their offerings are available righthere.

A new exhibitioncoming toThe Metropolitan Museum of Artwill whisk visitors back in time a century. Titled "The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism," theexhibit will present 160 works exploring how Black artists portrayed everyday modern life in the new Black cities that took shape in the 1920s-40s in New York City’s Harlem, Chicago’s South Side and nationwide amid the Great Migration.

Theshow will be the first survey of the subject in New York City since 1987. It will alsoestablish the Harlem Renaissance as the first African-American-led movement of international modern art. The show runs from February 25 through July 28.

"The exhibition underscores the essential role of the Harlem Renaissance and its radically new modes of portraying the modern Black subject as central to the development of transatlantic modern art," curator-at-large Denise Murrell said in a press release.

When the 50,000 runners crossed the finish line at the annual New York City Marathon this fall,they werejoined in spirit byJoe Yancey Jr. and Ted Corbitt, two men who shaped the epic road race into what it is today.

Remarkable Black athletes and coaches, Yancey and Corbitt helped break the color barrier and revolutionize long-distance running in the United States andacrossthe globe. Just in time for the marathon, a new exhibit at the New-York Historical Society in Manhattan willhonor their legacies.

The exhibit, titled "Running for Civil Rights: The New York Pioneer Club, 1936–1976,” runs through February 25, 2024. It exploreshow the New York City Marathon grew out of decades of activism for racial justice.

Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz are more often associated with their musical artistry, but the NYC-native couple has also amassed an impressive visual art collection. This winter, you'll be able to see their collection at the Brooklyn Museum in a new exhibit called"Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys."

The exhibition will featuremore than 100 major artworks by important Black American, African, and African diasporic artists including Gordon Parks, Kehinde Wiley, Hassan Hajjaj, Barkley L. Hendricks, Lorna Simpson, and Amy Sherald. The show featuring giants in the art world opens on February 10, 2024 and runs through July 7, 2024.

"Giants" will be the firstmajorshowingof the world-class collectionamassed by musicalicons Swizz Beatz (Kasseem Dean) and Alicia Keys. The duo has a passion for collectingalbums, musical equipment, and BMX bikes—all with the philosophy of "Black artists supporting Black artists," Brooklyn Museum explained in a press release.

This group exhibition from Black artistsinterprets the theme of “black abstraction” through sculpture, assemblage, photography, printmaking, and painting.Drawinginspiration from Black Studies and Humanities scholar Christina Sharpe’s likening the Black experience to the weather, the exhibition features depictions of voids, deconstructed bodies, and synesthetic emotional states, using intricate and ephemeral materials to underscore its fragility.

Works will be shown by artistsAustin Sley Julian, Christl Stringer, C. J. Jackson, Faith McCorkle, Freddie L. Rankin II, Garry Grant and Shangari Mwashighadi. The exhibition is curated by Ciaran Short and Jabari Butler through the entire month of February.

The opening reception will be held on February 2, from 6 to 9pm atthe East Village location (77 E 3rd St).

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is literally making room forthe real, lived history of Seneca Village, the once-thrivingcommunity founded by free BlackNew Yorkers that existedjust a few hundred yards west of The Met between the 1820s and 1850s.

The space,conceived and designed by Lead Curator and Designer Hannah Beachler (known for her work onBlack Pantherand Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” video) and Senior Exhibition Designer Fabiana Weinberg, includes awood-framed 19th-century home that contains works from The Met’s American Wing that are reminiscent of pot shards and remnants from Seneca Village that were found in 2011.

Representing the future with the past in mind,works of art and design from the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art are interspersed in the space as well ascontemporary furniture, photography, and ceramics alongside The Met’s Michael C. Rockefeller Wing.