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Exhibition at Frost Library to Celebrate Black and Afro-Indigenous Families Who Lived and Worked in Amherst

Opening Reception

Thursday, February 9, 4:30–6:00 P.M.

Frost Library

On view through Summer 2023

The following is a statement from Anika Lopes, founder of the Ancestral Bridges Foundation:

Let me introduce you to my ancestors, generations of Black and Afro-Indigenous residents of Amherst. They lived in the historically Black, west-end neighborhood around Hazel Avenue, on only one side of the train tracks. Some worked at Amherst College, serving meals on dishes that depicted Lord Jeffery Amherst shooting at Indians, while they mentored and befriended students. They started businesses and churches, they provided homes to Black people newly arrived from the South, they performed jazz music internationally, and they were denied scholarships, jobs, and opportunities due to systemic racism. 

This exhibition, the first partnership between the Ancestral Bridges Foundation and Amherst College, seeks to center this long-neglected aspect of town history and to reveal the rich and complex lives of the Black and Afro-Indigenous community of Amherst. Our families’ old black-and-white photographs complement oral histories--some yet to be recorded - and other artifacts available locally and at the college. I hope these images and stories raise questions, prompt further research, and challenge us all to meet our collective responsibility to build a more just and equitable future.