African American Museums.  Some activity to create museums telling the story of African Americans already had begun in the 1950s and 60s.  Continued strong interest, both academic and popular, in black history and culture grew at this time.  Africans and people of African descent had been given short shrift in American history texts even though they had been in North America in greater numbers than realized as early as the 16^th century.  Following the wild success of Alex Haley?s book Roots, interest arose not only in African American history, but also genealogy.  The American Association of State and Local History published a technical leaflet guiding historical society staff on research tools useful in conducting Black genealogy. 

The African American museum movement emerged during the 1950s and 1960s.  The overall goal was to preserve the heritage of the Black experience and to ensure its proper interpretation in American history. Black museums instilled a sense of achievement within Black communities, while encouraging collaborations between Black communities and the broader public. Most importantly, the African American museums movement inspired new contributions to society and advanced cultural awareness.

In the late 1960s, Dr. Margaret Burroughs, founder of the DuSable Museum in Chicago, and Dr. Charles H. Wright, founder of the Museum of African American History in Detroit, initiated a series of conferences for Black museums. The National Association of Museums and Cultural Organizations and the Black Museums Conference, the first informal Black museum association, evolved from these conferences.

In 1978, a consortium of six Black museums, with funding from the National Museum Act (administered by the Smithsonian Institution), presented a series of conferences at participating institutions. These conferences provided the opportunity for an ad hoc committee to lay the groundwork for still another organization.  The Association of African American Museums (AAAM) was created to foster, protect, promote, and celebrate African and African American cultural heritage through supporting the needs of Black museums and cultural institutions.  Established as the voice of the African American museums movement, the Association of African American Museums serves the needs of Black museums and cultural institutions nationwide.

Jewish Museums. Approximately forty years ago there was one noteworthy Jewish museum in the United States - the Jewish Museum in New York.  Twenty years ago, seven museums gathered in Chicago to form the Council of American Jewish Museums (CAJM) under the auspices of the National Foundation for Jewish Culture. They represented Jewish communities in major American cities ? The Jewish Museum of New York; Yeshiva University Museum, New York; B?nai B?rith Museum, Washington, D.C.; National Museum of American Jewish History, Philadelphia; the Spertus Museum, Chicago; the Judah L. Magnes Museum, Berkeley; the Skirball Museum, Los Angeles.  Over the past thirty to forty years, museums have become central places where American Jews constitute their identity and publicly display themselves to broad audiences.