Wrapped in Pride: Ghanaian Kente and African American Identity

June 25 – August 8, 2010

This traveling exhibition came to us from the National Endowment for the Humanities’ “On The Road” program, and offered the chance to explore kente-weaving traditions, while viewing some extraordinary historic and contemporary examples. Photographs and video depicted the many uses of kente explain the fabric’s journey across the Atlantic and the symbolic transformation that occurred when kente was embraced around the world, worn by luminaries such as W.E.B. DuBois, Muhammad Ali, and Nelson Mandela. A final section examined the cloth’s prevalence during Christmas, Kwanzaa, Martin Luther King Day and African American History Month, each an occasion for African American communities to consider the power, strength and faith represented by kente.