Project 2347
“Black culture is vivacious dancing…black culture is smooth singing & humming & walking & talking the house down boots. black culture is long acrylics and bodacious silhouettes and colorful wigs and weaves and braids. black culture is pride in the beaded bracelet stacks, even if they do look ‘cheap’ (what’s that supposed to mean again?) black culture is switching up the look weekly, unapologetically. black culture is setting worldwide trends & making the food taste as decadent as possible because you never know which meal will be your last. black culture is climbing the tower and crumbling with it when it inevitably falls. black culture is writhing up and out of the ashes, building anew, and climbing all over again. black culture is artistic genius!”​
-Danny Lee
About Project 2347
The birth of Project 2347 is a single tear, if you have ever been in the presence of Helen Baskerville Dukes it will emerge. The conversation will move to the youth and Mama Dukes will emerge. The project began with an unwillingness to stop blowing on the embers of the sparks in the youth of the Mount Hope Community Center. And the African American Museum of Rhode Island did not emerge from a tear of sadness, it was from a fierce determination, a commitment to community and her faith. A belief that if youth are allowed to tell stories about themselves that they will move through this world a bit easier, that is AAMRI.
The African American Museum of Rhode Island centers youth and frames its approach to this work by the data gathered in the state of need report by the Economic Progress Institute and its dismal results. As a solution driven organization we highlight the resolution from this data and that centers on the human being. Centering the human, that data point is the hourly wage necessary for an adult to meet their basic needs in the state of Rhode Island, that number is $23.47.
.
There are many resources available in the Ocean State to support youth and yet the report noted that 80% of the Latino population and 71% of the Black community young adults did not meet the basic needs of housing, transportation, health care or clothing. The question of how to address the chasm between basic needs and youth of color in Rhode Island begins with asking, what has Generation Z and Generation Alpha said that THEY need and want to meet those gaps. Those voices have requested centering the Arts as a source of creative expression, business incubators, catalyst for literacy and as vital to the health and well being of their community.
1 Economic Progress Institute. The 2024 Rhode Island Standard of Need ReportThose demographics suggest a troubling present and potentially disastrous future for Rhode Island with statistics that seem out of a dystopian nightmare. According to the recent report of the Economic Progress Institute 2024 State of Needs the largest concentrations of poverty in Rhode Island are in ages 0 - 5 BIPOC and 16 - 24 year old BIPOC youth and young adults. Multiple generations of disinvestment in BIPOC communities, exacerbated by the on - going Covid - 19 pandemic(s), student loan debt and a dearth of employment at the $24/hr necessary for a single adult to meet basic needs and we have an emerging Sacred Rebellion.
​
That Sacred Rebellion takes many forms and is often measured in statistics of absenteeism from secondary and high school classrooms, language proficiency, rates of incarceration, and addiction. We measure through a lens of our youth and young adults in Generation Z and Generation Alpha that arrive into the world: unwilling to take on a lifetime of student debt, to labor in job(s) that do not pay a living wage and offer no healthcare benefits, and weary of systems structured as barriers to accessing basic human rights of shelter, food, and clothing.
We are driven by the powerful words and community networks of co - founders of the African American Museum of Rhode Island, Robert Bailey V and Helen Baskerville Dukes. “We See You” for the African American Museum of Rhode Island community translates into, how do we create opportunities to center the global narratives of African Heritage communities, helping them to meet their basic needs, while empowering youth with knowledge, building their skills and offering a vision of a future in Rhode Island.