Fred Hampton's Door 2

In 1970, the artist and activist Dana Chandler wrote "A Proposal to Eradicate Institutional Racism at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts," a manifesto challenging the MFA (and, by inference, similar institutions) to represent Black artists in their collections and exhibitions, and to support Black self-determination in the arts by financially backing Black-centered arts institutions. Shortly after Chandler's agitations, the MFA mounted the exhibition <i>Afro‐American Artists: New York and Boston</i>. Part of larger fomentations around equity of representation in cultural organizations, it was co-organized by the Museum, The National Center of Afro-American Artists, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and ran from May 19 to June 23, 1970. Equity and representation for Black artists, staff, and other museum stakeholders still remains an urgent and unsolved issue fifty years later. The exchange between Chandler and then-director, Perry T. Rathbone, can be viewed as scanned archival documents <a href="https://collections.mfa.org/pdf/D-CCM475.pdf">here</a> and as a transcription <a href="https://collections.mfa.org/pdf/CCM475.pdf">here</a>.