The Lynn Museum is marking Black History Month with an exhibition of artifacts, documents and family items from some of the city's most prominent Black residents.
Museum Director Doneeca Thurston has been working on the exhibition since November 2019, but the project itself began in 2017 when the museum hosted an oral Black history project with North Shore Community College.
The exhibition includes original documents of freed and traded enslaved people, including inventor Lewis Latimer and Jan Ernst Matzeliger, inventor of a shoe lasting machine that is still used today, The Daily Item of Lynn reported. It also includes photos, furniture, quotes and records from abolitionist Frederick Douglass and Lynn's first historian and mapmaker, Alonzo Lewis.
"I think it's important that we work with the community that we are speaking to, to curate this exhibition,'' Thurston said.
Get Boston local news, weather forecasts, lifestyle and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC Boston’s newsletters.
The museum is currently closed due to city guidelines regarding the pandemic, but Thurston is hoping to open in-person next month if it is safe. The exhibition will run through the end of the year.
The museum is currently hosting virtual story time sessions in honor of Black History Month.
