UnKnown Project

05/28/2026

Septima Poinsette Clark was an educator and civil rights activist who believed literacy and education were essential tools for freedom and political power. Born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1898, Clark spent decades teaching Black students during segregation and advocating for equal access to education
She later helped develop Citizenship Schools through the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), programs that taught Black Americans reading, writing, and voter registration skills during the Civil Rights Movement. Her work helped thousands of people gain the knowledge needed to pass discriminatory literacy tests and exercise their right to vote.

Often called the “Mother of the Movement,” Septima Poinsette Clark’s legacy reflects the power of education, community organizing, and grassroots leadership in the fight for civil rights.

Photo credit: Bob Fitch Photography Archive

05/27/2026

African American Heritage Trail of Martha’s Vineyard - Esther’s Story

05/26/2026

While creating Childhood Interrupted so many people in my neighborhood were intrigued by what I was doing and once they learned what it was for they really embraced it. They offered help with painting, offered paint brushes, came by to help me cut wood, etc. I had an idea and they each brought their skillset to help me bring that idea to life. I am truly proud of my community! Greatness never happens alone!

Thank you to James Thomas- my brother-in-law who heard me say, “Just ONE MORE cut-out,” a million times and he never complained. Thank you to community for understanding the value of this project and offering your skills.

I look forward to seeing everyone next weekend for the unveiling of Childhood Interrupted.

05/25/2026

VATICAN CITY -- VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV made a historic apology on Monday for the role the Holy See itself played in legitimizing slavery and for having failed to condemn it for centuries, calling the Vatican’s record a “wound in Christian memory.”

Pope Leo XIV has made a historic apology for the role the Holy See itself played in legitimizing slavery

05/23/2026

One of the hardest silhouette I created for Childhood Interrupted is of the baby reaching for a rattle. When I told my brother-in-law that we would have to put a shackle on the baby like all the other silhouettes he looked so disappointed. I told him I know it’s sad but unfortunately, during that time that was the law. Partus sequitur ventrem, which means, ‘that which follows the womb’ was a law that stated infants who were born to an enslaved woman were automatically considered property.

While it is emotionally difficult to place a shackle on a baby, I feel it is important when people experience the Childhood Interrupted exhibit to understand the interruption of childhood for enslaved children happened even before they were born. There was no age that was off limits to the brutality of enslavement. None. From birth all the way through childhood enslaved children were being groomed to be in service to their enslavers.

05/22/2026

Two years ago when Hannah Drake and Josh Miller were in Philly for the Monument Labs Summit, they ran up the steps to the Rocky statue.

An exhibit at Philadelphia Museum of Art asks, In this moment of reckoning and reimagining for monuments, why do millions of people from around the world visit the Rocky statue by the steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art?

Currently on display 🥊 "Rising Up: Rocky and the Making of Monuments" traces more than two millennia of artists’ engagement with boxing and celebrity. Ancient sculptures, nineteenth-century European works, and images from the golden age of boxing in the United States, together with contemporary art, reveal how fighters have been shaped as public figures. More recently, artists including Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Glenn Ligon, Hank Willis Thomas, and Lisa Brice revisit this history through the lens of race, gender, and celebrity. These works illuminate what visitors project onto the Rocky statue: ideals of the underdog—perseverance, spirit, and grit—values shaped by the history of the sport and by lived struggle and aspiration.

Organized by guest curator Paul Farber, Director and Co-Founder of Monument Lab and host of the acclaimed podcast The Statue from NPR/WHYY, "Rising Up" will offer an art history of the Rocky statue, unpacking how this movie prop ultimately turned into a public art piece and site of global pilgrimage. The exhibition will showcase over 150 works by more than 50 artists. The accompanying publication, edited by Farber, includes contributions from celebrated Philadelphia artist Alex Da Corte, former Philadelphia Eagle and Super Bowl champion Malcolm Jenkins, and noted film critic Carrie Rickey.

05/21/2026

Susie King Taylor was born into slavery in 1848 and dedicated her life to education, service, and freedom. At just fourteen years old, she founded the first free school for Black children and became the first Black woman to teach at a free school in Georgia.

During the Civil War, she later served as the first Black Army nurse, caring for wounded soldiers while continuing to educate formerly enslaved people. She also published one of the only firsthand memoirs by a Black woman about the war.

Susie King Taylor’s legacy continues to honor the role of Black women who taught, served, and documented truth even in the face of slavery and war.

Photo credit: Library of Congress

05/20/2026

Part 3: Art & Archive featuring Frazier History Museum's new exhibition "Louisville to Liberty: The Blackburns’ Journey"

Hear from Frazier Kentucky History Museum Curator of Guest Experience Mick Sullivan as he talks about the journey of Lucie and Thornton Blackburn and how the artifacts made their way to Louisville - link in Comments for more about the exhibit!

Art & Archive is produced by (Un)Known Project. This video was filmed and edited by Josh Miller

05/19/2026

My daughter and I stopped by Bates Memorial Baptist Church to collect footprints from two of Louisville’s finest leaders, Sadiqa Reynolds and Pastor F Bruce Williams. We are honored that their footprints will be installed at the (Un)Known Project Sculpture Park for current and future generations to stand in and remember that ALL things are possible.

If our ancestors survived, if our elders persevered, and if today’s leaders can walk boldly in purpose, then so can you. May these footprints remind everyone who encounters them that greatness is not beyond their reach. It is already within them.

05/17/2026

Harvard has published a database identifying 1,613 people who were enslaved by University leaders, faculty, or staff or who labored on campus as enslaved individuals between 1636 and 1865.

Public database advances research on University’s ties to slavery, bolsters effort to help descendants recover family histories.