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Thelma Hall Performing Arts Center
Photograph: courtesy of the Thelma Hall Performing Arts Center

The best Black History Month events in NYC

Get inspired by Black culture during these epic and educational Black History Month events!

Written by
Shaye Weaver
&
Rossilynne Skena Culgan
Contributor
Ian Kumamoto
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It's finally time to celebrate the massive contributions of Black and African-American people with the most amazing exhibits, concerts, shows and more this February. Marking Black History Month is one of the best (and easiest) things to do in February and NYC is certainly not lacking in the many ways you can do this.

Here's where to celebrate the month-long event.

RECOMMENDED: Full guide to things to do in winter

Best Black History Month events in NYC

  • Art
  • Art

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 were allowed 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 as more of Hughes' friendships through letters, artwork and other memorabilia.

A Musical Celebration of Black History Month
Photograph: Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

2. A Musical Celebration of Black History Month

Join Harpist Brandee Younger at The Met on February 10 (2-2:45pm) for a performance and talk about works 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.

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  • Things to do
  • Events & Festivals

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 the apartment building at 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 new tour 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 here for $30/person.

In addition to walking through re-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. 

 

  • Things to do
  • Events & Festivals

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’s Genius: 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 the TV 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 of Genius: MLK/X

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  • Movies
  • Movies

To celebrate Black History Month this 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 include Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Soul, and The Color Purple. More details about their offerings are available right here

  • Art
  • Art

A new exhibition coming to The Metropolitan Museum of Art will whisk visitors back in time a century. Titled "The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism," the exhibit 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.

The show will be the first survey of the subject in New York City since 1987. It will also establish 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. 

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  • Art
  • Art

When the 50,000 runners crossed the finish line at the annual New York City Marathon this fall, they were joined in spirit by Joe 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 and across the globe. Just in time for the marathon, a new exhibit at the New-York Historical Society in Manhattan will honor their legacies. 

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

  • Art
  • Art

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 feature more 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 first major showing of the world-class collection amassed by musical icons Swizz Beatz (Kasseem Dean) and Alicia Keys. The duo has a passion for collecting albums, musical equipment, and BMX bikes—all with the philosophy of "Black artists supporting Black artists," Brooklyn Museum explained in a press release. 

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  • Things to do
  • Events & Festivals

The Free Black Women’s Library is a free library in Brooklyn's Bed-Stuy neighborhood, which also serves as a social art project, a reading room, a co-working space and a community gathering center. The library "celebrates the brilliance, diversity and imagination of Black women and Black non-binary authors." All 5,000 books in the library's collection are written by Black women and non-binary authors. 

  • Art
  • Central Park

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is literally making room for the real, lived history of Seneca Village, the once-thriving community founded by free Black New Yorkers that existed just 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 on Black Panther and Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” video) and Senior Exhibition Designer Fabiana Weinberg, includes a wood-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 as contemporary furniture, photography, and ceramics alongside The Met’s Michael C. Rockefeller Wing.

Want to go to a museum this month?

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