ARTriumph celebrates 400 years of black history

ALBANY — The ARTriumph Historical Society invites the public to celebrate 400 years of black history. Veronica Adams-Cooper, the society’s founder and current president/CEO, said her organization plans to collect and archive contributions throughout the year and into the future.

“We’re just starting (the celebration),” Adams-Cooper said. “We don’t own it; the community owns it and will bring life to it. We are just the persons who are promoting it, and we’re going to capture the archive that people entrust with us. Then we will present those archives to a larger audience.”

According to the founder, interested persons can find their own ways to celebrate black history from 1619-2019 and register their activities in different categories — such as art, food, genealogy and more — at no cost on the website at ARTriumph.net. Registration will be available for as long as possible.

“Hopefully, they’re going to have video, audio,” Adams-Cooper said. “They’re going to have, maybe, written material. … Someone is going to draw a picture; someone is going to do a song; someone is going to come up with a step — some type of dance. That is new history being created that we want to archive.”

ARTriumph’s stated vision says the historical society began in 1994 to lay the groundwork for “increasing social and economic healing and restoration for deeply rooted trauma that stems from the Trans-Atlantic Triangular (Enslavement) Trade’s chapter, especially from its middle passage.” The nonprofit categorizes the art and culture created between the slave trade and the present as the Artesian Renaissance, which is meant to serve as a “symbolic, healing narrative” for that period.

The historical society’s vision includes that the Artesian Renaissance “tells the remarkable story of a new people impacting the intersection of humanity and making invaluable contributions to the development of the United States of America and the modern world while simultaneously surviving, overcoming and transcending a 400-year period of sustained struggle for freedom.”

Last November, the nonprofit held an online meeting during which residents could call in or join through video conferencing to come up with ways Albany and Dougherty County can celebrate the 400-year milestone.

“Why?” Adams-Cooper asked. “Because the Artesian Renaissance is being birthed here in this region. So any time you’re in the home space of something, you want to do something to leave your mark.”

Adams-Cooper said it will be a while before the archives are available for public viewing.

“Until people create celebrations, we’ll be waiting,” Adams-Cooper said. “I wouldn’t see archives being available until at least a year — until this first year is over — because we would need time to collect them, time to do all of the background to preserve them in the proper way. We’re going to have digital archives, and we’re going to have physical archives that will travel with exhibits.”

Adams-Cooper added that she hopes the archives will be interactive one day, such as allowing people to learn more about historical figures and places by clicking on them and that African-American history and heritage tours take off across the nation.