By Neil A. Barclay | President and CEO
Dear Supporter:
Thank you for supporting our resilience! Your support has helped The Wright reopen and continue our work. To persist has required difficult decisions, team work, and new levels of commitment to our mission.
Closure due to COVID-19 directives had a devastating impact. The pandemic hit just as we opened QUEEN: From the Collection of CCH Pounder, a spectacular new exhibition of contemporary artwork. Shutting our doors just weeks into the exhibition’s run, the museum faced a crippling loss of earned income from admissions, group tours, and shop sales. After months of intensive planning, we were also forced to cancel our African World Festival, which attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each August for music, food, and art from around the globe.
Even as we faced the necessity of a limited number of employee furloughs and work reductions, I am proud to say that our team remained engaged. In response to restrictions on public gatherings, our programming team worked tirelessly to make new content available online. Our educators developed virtual tours and digital lesson plans to help teachers and parents manage distance learning. Our six-part online series, COVID-19: African Americans & Racial Health Disparities, raised community awareness about the pandemic with talks from leading health professionals, community activists, and scholars.
To ensure that the museum could reopen safely for staff and visitors, we collaborated with colleagues at other Cultural District institutions to create a robust, coordinated response. Drawing on their 75 years of experience in environmental risk management, we worked with the National Sanitation Foundation International (NSF) to create a comprehensive reopening plan. NSF trained a cross-departmental team that is now reponsible for implementing and monitoring adherence to new safety protocols, including timed admissions.
In September, the museum opened its newest exhibition titled Voting Matters: From Pre-Reconstruction to Present. This interactive, multimedia exhibition illustrates the seminal role of African Americans in developing our contemporary understanding of what it means to have the “right to vote” in democratic societies.
Your support and belief in our mission made this all possible.
Thank you!
Neil A. Barclay, J.D.
President and CEO
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