Black Liberation Archiving and Conservation Center

In 2025, Memorialize the Movement expanded its mission and transitioned to the Black Liberation Archiving and Conservation Center (BLACC). This shift reflects a broader organizational focus on Black memory work, protest archiving, and the development of community-centered frameworks for preservation beyond the initial mural collection. The name “Memorialize the Movement” was retained as the title of the mural archive, preserving its original identity while situating it within a broader context of Black memory work.

BLACC (Black Liberation Archiving and Conservation Center) is a Twin Cities-based memory justice organization dedicated to preserving, activating, and ethically stewarding Black protest art, community archives, and cultural memory. We currently steward over 1,000 murals and protest artifacts created during the Minneapolis Uprising of 2020 and beyond, which are housed in in the Memorialize the Movement (MTM) Archive. By providing space for youth, artists, and our Black community to heal, reflect, and learn, BLACC seeks to address the issues of police brutality, community safety, and representation for Black memory workers, while building local and regional frameworks for community-centered archiving.

What we do at BLACC

Across five years, we have produced 11 exhibitions, dozens of public programs, and developed practical tools, workshops, and public learning spaces that make archival practice accessible beyond traditional institutions, inviting artists, activists, and community members into the work of preservation, storytelling, and memory stewardship while modeling community-led approaches to cultural memory.

We work primarily with Black artists, activists, and community members whose histories are often erased, misrepresented, or excluded from formal archives. BLACC’s role within broader change efforts is to model what ethical, community-first preservation looks like. We create space for communities to control the narrative of their own history and build the skills, tools, and confidence to steward their cultural memory on their own terms.

Our Vision:

BLACC’s long-term vision is a world where Black cultural memory is preserved, interpreted, and stewarded by the very communities who create it. We are working toward an arts ecosystem where artists, activists, and cultural workers are not only recognized as culture bearers, but are equipped with the tools and agency to safeguard their own histories outside of extractive institutional systems.

Our work contributes to a sustainable and resilient arts ecosystem by redefining preservation as a community practice rather than a specialized profession. Through exhibitions, public programs, fellowships, and residencies, we create pathways for artists and community members to participate directly in archival work, documentation, and storytelling. From 2021–2025, BLACC directly commissioned and paid 87 visual and performing artists, ensuring that preservation work is tied to economic support for culture bearers. This approach builds local capacity and ensures that Black history remains accessible, living, and relevant.